By Scott Weighart, Special to GoTerriers.com

BOSTON – While we're admittedly only eight days into 2017, it's hard to imagine how any college hockey program getting a year off to a better start than Boston University has this January.
 
For starters, BU set an all-time collegiate record by sending seven players to the prestigious World Junior Championships for Under-20 players. Charlie McAvoy, Clayton Keller, Jordan Greenway, Kieffer Bellows, Patrick Harper and goalie Jake Oettinger suited up for the United States, while Dante Fabbro roamed the blue line for Canada.
 
So let's take a look at how this improbable week unfolded:

• On Monday, both teams advanced to the semifinals, with Greenway starring with a goal and an assist in a 3-2 win over Switzerland.
• On Wednesday, both teams won again, as the U.S. eked out a semifinal win over Russia, as Bellows scored twice and McAvoy added a goal and assist.
• On Thursday, BU needed to play No. 10 Union while seven key members of its lineup got ready to play in the gold-medal game. Short on skaters but not on heart and skill, the few good men responded with a deeply satisfying 5-4 overtime win.
• The gold-medal contest started north of the border an hour later than the Union game, so the BU team got to watch the U.S. team rally twice from two-goal deficits to beat Canada before the shootout victory resulted in gold around the necks of six Terriers. Only David Warsofsky had ever won a WJC gold medal for the program, so now those ranks have grown six-fold. On top of it all, McAvoy was named Team USA's Player of the Game for his great play while logging massive minutes.
• With the full team together for the first time in nearly a month, the Terriers took the ice at Fenway Park today and earned a 5-3 win over UMass in their third appearance at Frozen Fenway.  

"Obviously a hectic week for all of us," BU coach David Quinn said. "Getting the seven guys back from World Juniors after playing the game Thursday night without them, having to practice with about 14 players. Just an uncharacteristic week for us but really proud of our team."
 
Can it really get better than this as a way to kick off a year?  Well, Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson could have buried his empty-net attempt in the last couple of seconds of today's game. That would have meant that he started 2017 with two consecutive hat tricks. Instead, he had to settle for a mere five goals in two games after scoring just three goals in 17 games in the fall semester.
 
JFK, as he's often called, was at a loss to explain his New Year fireworks. "I'm not sure. It works that way sometimes. For a while it won't come and then the next game you get three. It's nice to get this start to 2017."
 
Forsbacka Karlsson scored the game-tying goal on Thursday on a pure snipe before completing his hat trick in overtime for the win. Today he had one especially slick goal when Bellows made a great backhanded feed through traffic to somehow find the Swedish sophomore on the doorstep, where he backhanded it home.
 
Understandably, Forsbacka Karlsson isn't about to change anything right now. "A couple of kids were asking for my stick there, but I think I want to keep it since it was a nice day."
 
Forsbacka Karlsson and McAvoy are both draft picks of the Boston Bruins, so playing at the home of another Boston sports institution today was an experience to remember. "It was really special," McAvoy said. "I was a New York kid, and I grew up as a New York sports fan, but then you get to Boston, and before I was even a Bruins draft pick I had been to Fenway. It's such a storied building and such a great city, you take on an allegiance to the Sox there. Once I got my Red Sox hat, then it was kind of serious. Playing here was a blast; it's something I'll remember for a long time."
 
Players grow up in a hurry playing on the global stage, and McAvoy is definitely feeling it. "It's been crazy," the sophomore defenseman said. "I'm feeling like I've aged a little here over the whole thing. It's something you couldn't have drawn up. We had a very resilient World Junior team. When things didn't go our way, we found a way to make them go our way. That was an unbelievable experience and something we'll have for the rest of our lives."
 
Back on campus, McAvoy has much to look forward to in the spring semester. The team is now 12-5-2, riding a season-best four-game winning streak, and tied for fourth in the PairWise Rankings, thanks in part to his teammates' great showing while he and the rest were playing in Canada. "It's great to be back here for sure to be with this family," McAvoy said. "To start off with the big win they had against Union when we weren't even here, which is going to pay dividends at the end of the year… and then to get this win is great."
 
Today Chad Krys and Gabriel Chabot scored their second goals of the season. Combined with the short-staffed win on Thursday night, it makes a statement about the team's depth. "We feel we're 26 deep," Quinn said. "It's hard telling guys that they're not going to play, but we proved on Thursday night that we're 15 deep up front, eight deep on the blue line, and three deep in net. Depth played a huge role on Thursday night, and it's going to play a huge role going forward."
 
So what's next after this whirlwind week?  If the BU faithful fear a letdown after so many high-stakes games, bear in mind that this coming weekend will bring a home-and-home series against archrival Boston College.
 
If the Terriers can sweep that big series, we'll have to start wondering exactly what the players and coaches vowed to do for their New Year's resolutions.