Thursday, December 21, 2023

UPDATED When Jack Parker took the reins; Mack's NHL draft diary; the coaching spark for John Hynes

 


Today is the 50th anniversary of Jack Parker being named head coach of the Terriers. He took over six games into the 1973-74 season following the dismissal of Leon Abbott. The Boston Hockey Blog’s Belle Fraser has authored a top-notch narrative of the events and legal controversies that led to the launch of a 40-year career behind the Terrier bench.

With Parker’s appointment, BU rebounded from the forfeit-tainted '72-'73 season to reel off four consecutive ECAC championships followed by the national title in 1978. During those five seasons, Parker's Terriers had a combined 122-29-2 record.

             1974 ECAC Championship photo courtesy of Bill Buckton

Parker took the reins and immediately silenced the outside noise. To him, and everyone else in the BU room, Buckton and Marzo were simply hockey players, teammates and key pieces to the Terriers’ success.  

● Boston Hockey Blog Fifty years later: The improbable beginning to Jack Parker’s legendary BU career


►Terriers' January 30 game at Matthews Arena against Northeastern will air nationally on ESPNU. Last season, ESPNU aired BU's victories against Notre Dame and Cornell. Former BU All-American Colby Cohen tweeted that he'll be on the call for the game.

● GoTerriers.com report



World Junior Championships

Team USA defeated Sweden, 5-3, in a pre-tournament exhibition game today. Lane Hutson had an assist on a second-period goal.

The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler ranked the top 25 NHL prospects playing in this year’s World Junior Championships. Macklin Celebrini is #1, Lane Hutston is #8 and Tom Willander is #19.

@BUHockeyStats tweeted that Hutson joins Charlie McAvoy, Matt Grzelcyk, and Kevin Shattenkirk as the only Terrier defensemen to be named an alternate captain of a USA World Junior Championship team. All four also have earned All-American honors.


NHL.com has posted Celebrini's latest draft diary entry in which he talks about making Team Canada, the prospect of playing against Hutson and his favorite WJC memories growing up in Vancouver.

● NHL.com 2024 NHL Draft Diary: Macklin Celebrini


Looking back

There's a seemingly endless list of names in the hockey coaching ranks that comprise the "Parker Tree" of coaches, including current BU head coach Jay Pandolfo, and three NHL head coaches: Pittsburgh's Mike Sullivan, San Jose's David Quinn and John Hynes, named the Minnesota head coach just weeks ago.

The Athletic (subscription) takes a deep dive into how the events that ended Hynes' playing days as a Terrier aroused a passion teaching and coaching.

The real spark that lit John Hynes’ fire for coaching would come later in his time at Boston University, but the now-Minnesota Wild coach laughs thinking back to his first official day as a Terrier — and how it would have made any player prefer to be behind the bench.

It was September 1993 and Hynes was a freshman trying to earn his place on the team, just like his roommate Mike Grier. The pair showed up for the first workout of the year and were put through, as longtime strength and conditioning coach Mike Boyle jokingly calls it, a “torture session.”

Players had ticked off Boyle the previous year, so he was instituting a test of their offseason conditioning, asking them to run five miles in less than 40 minutes. They’d get in their shorts and T-shirts and run 20 laps on the school track.

On this day, it was pouring rain. And both Hynes and Grier were not long-distance runners.

● The Athletic How Wild Coach John Hynes' days at Boston University "stoked the fire" for a career behind the bench

Jordan Greenway's third goal got the scoring going early in Buffalo's 9-3 blowout of Toronto

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