Ask a BU fan to name his or her five most memorable Terrier
wins that were not NCAA titles games and you’ll get a wide variety of responses
. Younger fans are likely to call out
the 2006 and 2009 Hockey East championship game victories over “the team from up
the block,” two Red Hot Hockey victories over Cornell at Madison Square Garden or BU's the Frozen Fenway triumph over the Eagles.
More “experienced” fans
might choose BU’s first
hockey East title in 1986 when Peter Marshall scored a hattrick, the 7-6
come-from-behind win against Clarkson in the 1977 ECAC semifinal when BU scored
three times in the game’s final minutes, or reaching way back, the 13-6 blowout of Princeton at MSG’s Holiday
Festival in 1966 when legendary sportswriter Red Smith dubbed the sophomore combination of Herb
Wakabayashi, Mickey Gray and Serge Boily as “the pinball line,” after
witnessing their 13-point effort. A few
of our blog contributors like to recall the 1990 comeback win at Michigan
State, overcoming a 3-1 deficit to win, 5-3 and move on to the Final Four. Personally, I’m partial to the 1970 Beanpot
championship win against BC when BU’s top defensive forward, Wayne Gowing,
scored a third-period hattrick for a 5-4 win.
However, anyone who’s
been a diehard Terrier fan for at least 15 years will certainly point to BU’s
3-2 upset of defending national champion Michigan in the 1997 NCAA semifinal. With seven 20-goal scorers and standouts in Brendan Morrison, John Madden and Marty Turco, the Wolverines were ranked #1
virtually all season. BU had earned its third Hockey East
title in four years, but the lean Terrier roster had considerably less firepower. Yet a perfect game plan, well executed,
produced a truly memorable victory.
In his latest “Terrier Tales” feature article, blog
contributor mh82 has chronicled the 1996-97 season, including the the Michigan game, when “a few good men” made
Terrier history and nearly brought home another NCAA title.
The 1996-97
Terriers: A Few Good Men
By
mh82
When the Boston University hockey team skated onto the ice
at the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati for a semifinal round matchup against
the University of Michigan in the 1996 NCAA Tournament, the Terriers did so as
defending national champions.
Just 361 days earlier, BU had defeated Maine 6-2 in the 1995
title game at the Providence Civic Center, earning the school's fourth NCAA
crown and its first since 1978.
The Terriers had begun the 1995-96 season with a
talent-laden roster that included a pair of returning All-American forwards in
First Team selection Mike Grier and Second Team pick Chris O'Sullivan, with
those two the top two scorers on the national championship squad. Joining Grier
and O'Sullivan were 10 other veterans who had helped the Terriers capture two
consecutive Hockey East championships and had competed in two straight NCAA
championship games, losing to Lake Superior State in 1994 and downing the Black
Bears in '95. Coach Jack Parker and his club had their sights set on becoming
the first school to string together three straight Hockey East titles and the
first to win back-to-back NCAA championships since the dominant BU teams of the
early 1970s turned the trick in '71 and '72.
"We have enough skill to have a successful
season," Parker said of his team in the preseason. "Just how
successful we are, though, depends on our mental approach. It will be
interesting to see how the players come together as a team. That is going to be
very important this year because everyone will be pointing to us [as defending
NCAA champions]."
Highlights of BU-Michigan, March 27, 1997
Note: This video is now included in our page of "Milestone Goals and Games" in the Video Highlights section of our sidebar.
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