BU in the Big Apple
November 23, 2007 | Men's Ice Hockey
Nov. 23, 2007
The hype surrounding the game has been building for months. Ticket sales have exceeded all expectations, surpassing the 17,000 mark. The final countdown to the "Red Hot Hockey" match-up at
Although the Terriers have not played a game in
Between December of 1961 and January of 1977, BU participated in three different chapters of the ECAC Holiday Festival, a tournament that had a run of 15 years and featured various groups of college teams competing at
But to trace the actual origin of BU playing hockey in the Big Apple, you'd have to turn back the clock 81 years, to
The BU-St. Nicholas match-up was the second game of a Wednesday night doubleheader, with 8,000 fans on hand at the Garden to watch the action. The Terriers were coming off a 1-0 win over Cornell, played the previous Saturday afternoon on
St. Nick's opened the scoring just over four minutes into the game, but BU's Ling tied the game late in the first period. His goal was described thusly in the next morning's edition of the New York Times by reporter Harry Cross. "
In the words of Jack Parker, it was a "greasy" goal, but nonetheless, it tied the score.
Thirty-five years later and just four days before Christmas in 1961, the Terriers made their initial appearance in the ECAC Holiday Festival. It was a rather inauspicious debut for BU in the tournament, as coach Harry Cleverly's squad was thrashed by Clarkson in the opener, 7-0. Next up was the first of three meetings with
BU made its last appearance at the
The Terriers gave the Garden fans a glimpse of their offensive firepower in the opening game against Princeton, as Fred "Bear" Bassi pumped in five goals (he led BU with 30 that season), Maxwell "Mickey" Gray accounted for four goals and Mike Sobeski, Herb Wakabayashi and Serge Boily each chipped in with four assists in a 13-6 trouncing of the Tigers in front of a crowd of 6,548. BU scored the first eight goals of the game and never looked back, establishing the tournament record for most goals in a game. Two other players, Jim Quinn (two goals, two assists) and Peter McLachlan (one goal, three assists), reached the four-point mark.
The all-sophomore line of Wakabayashi centering Boily and Gray produced 13 points for the BU attack, and their speed, skills and cohesion on the ice would inspire a famous
"That was a pretty impressive tournament for them," noted McLachlan. "They had a chemistry that really clicked, and they all had a whale of a season that year."
Indeed they did as Wakabayashi led BU in scoring with 16 goals and 51 assists for 67 points; Boily was second on the team with 55 points (29 goals and 26 assists) and Gray added a successful stat line of 24 goals and 24 assists. Not too shabby for their varsity debuts.
After the Saturday night win over Princeton, the Terriers would not hit the ice again until Monday night, when they would face the
"We were to be introduced, but when it came time, Sullivan said in his unique voice, `And in our audience tonight, we have an outstanding team.' " Gilmour recalled. "All of us got ready to stand up but Ed continued, `The University of North Carolina basketball team.' "
No matter. The BU players were eventually recognized and received a round of applause.
The appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show wasn't the only chance that BU players had the chance to go on national television. Gilmour, McLachlan, Jim Quinn and a fourth player (either Bassi or defenseman Don Lumley) were chosen as contestants for the daytime game show Eye Guess, which was hosted by Bill Cullen at NBC's
But the BU players didn't leave 30 Rock empty-handed.
"We received five Westclock clocks," said Gilmour of the parting gifts from the show. "I still have one, and the other four were Christmas gifts that year. Starving college player, you know."
Gilmour and McLachlan were a talented duo of senior defensemen, with the former earning All-American status in 1967 and the latter being selected first team All-ECAC. They were also a unique personal story. They grew up in
"We didn't know we were cousins until we met each other on campus for the first time," said McLachlan. "We hadn't met before BU."
McLachlan played in all 31 games during the 1966-67 season and had 10 goals and 25 assists while Gilmour finished third on the team in scoring with 13 goals and 41 assists.
"We spent some time together killing penalties and on the power play the first two years on varsity, but we didn't become a regular defense pairing until our senior year," said McLachlan. "We both favored an offensive style of play and the two of us liked to be in the other team's zone. Sometimes we got caught up ice and Coach Kelley didn't appreciate that."
Playing college hockey, however, wasn't something that McLachlan was definitely sold on.
"When I was 19 I was planning on going to a Canadian college that didn't have a hockey team. I had been playing junior hockey for several years, and had been playing competitive hockey since I was seven.
In the game against
BU answered with goals from defensemen Bill Hinch and Gilmour to take the lead back, but with just under five minutes left in the second period, Gary Gambucci's goal pulled the Gophers even again. Gray, on an assist from McLachlan, gave the Terriers a lead they wouldn't relinquish 60 seconds before the second intermission.
Playing with a 4-3 lead, BU took control of the game when Gray, a
The Golden Knights had won eight of the previous 11 meetings against BU, including the seven-goal win over the Terriers on the same MSG ice just six years earlier. A crowd of 6,312 was on hand at the Garden to see the title matchup between the two ECAC rivals. Neither team scored in the opening period, as BU's Ryan and Clarkson's John Miller held the opposing offenses at bay.
Sobeski, on a nice rush up ice, put BU on the board 53 seconds into the second period after his 20-footer eluded Miller. Morgan notched his second goal in two days to put the Terriers up by two goals, but Clarkson's Joe Demerski solved Ryan and made it a 2-1 game at the
Clarkson put pressure on Ryan in the third period, and he came up with a big save on a breakaway to maintain BU's lead. However, Ernie Reynolds potted a goal with less than five minutes left to pull Clarkson to within 3-2, but the Terriers took care of business in their own end down the stretch and hung on for their ninth straight win (the only blemish on BU's record had been a 4-3 overtime loss to the Eastern Olympics in a exhibition game at Boston Arena on December 10) to capture the tournament title.
Gray was named the MVP of the tournament after accounting for eight goals and an assist. Linemates Wakabayashi and Boily also did plenty of damage, finishing with one goal and seven assists apiece. It was the performance of those three Terrier sophomores that led columnist Red Smith to dub the trio the "Pinball Line" in a column he submitted to the New York World Journal Tribune.
Jack Kelley recalled his 1966-67 club and their holiday performance at
"It was the senior year of my first full recruiting class of Gilmour, McLachlan, Ryan, Bassi, Quinn and Sobeski. We also had added Jack Parker, John Cooke and Billy Riley, and our sophomore line of Wakabayashi, Boily and Gray was making a big impact, too," he said. "Everyone began to realize we would be a team to be reckoned with. Just before the games at MSG, our Sports Information Director, Art Dunphy, called Red Smith to tell him about an amazing trio of first-year players (sophomores at the time with no freshmen eligibility, which began in 1973-74) who passed the puck remarkably well and were having a great season.
"He convinced Smith to attend the tournament, and after seeing Herb, Serge and Mickey in action, he came up with the name "Pinball Line" because of the way they passed the puck. And the name stuck."
BU completed the 1966-67 season as the top team in the ECAC with an unbeaten 19-0-1 record, with the tie (3-3) coming against an equally-strong Cornell team in a classic double-overtime confrontation in the championship game of the Boston Arena Christmas Tournament on December 30. But the Big Red would prove to be BU's nemesis the rest of the season, and led by peerless work of goalie Ken Dryden, who would later earn fame and six Stanley Cup rings with the Montreal Canadiens, Cornell knocked off the Terriers 4-3 in the ECAC championship game at Boston Garden on March 11 and then 4-1 in the NCAA title game in Syracuse one week later.
The Terriers were part of the ECAC Holiday Festival field for the last time in 1977, and it also marked the grand finale of the tournament at
The start of the 1976-77 season had been anything but typical for the Terriers, as the three-time defending ECAC champions dropped their first five games and arrived in
Colgate, a team that BU had beaten 13-3 at Brown Arena during the 1975-76 season, was the first opponent on Sunday, January 2. Because the Garden's primary tenant, the Rangers, were hosting the Vancouver Canucks that evening, the Holiday Festival doubleheader got off to an early start. The Terriers and Red Raiders, who were coached by former BU player Jim Higgins, were due to face off at
Barry Kibsey gave Colgate a 1-0 lead at the
Coming out of the locker room for the second period, it quickly became obvious that BU had finally turned off the snooze button as the Terriers erupted for seven goals in the period against Colgate's shell-shocked freshman goalie Drew Schaefer. Mickey Mullen started the onslaught with a goal at
Colgate did manage to score three times off Craig in the final period, but BU got goals off the sticks of Silk and defenseman Bill LeBlond to make the final margin 10-4, with the Terriers outshooting the Red Raiders 49-33.
"It took us a while to wake up," Jack Parker told the New York Times. "We're not used to starting a game at
The second game of the doubleheader featured St. Lawrence and Bowdoin, and the Skating Saints turned a 4-3 deficit after two periods into an 8-4 victory after shutting down the Polar Bears over the final 20 minutes. By the time the second game began, the attendance at the Garden had climbed to 6,548.
"BU is a good, shifty team and well disciplined," said St. Lawrence coach Leon Abbott, the man that Parker had succeeded as BU coach seven games into the 1973-74 season. "Tomorrow night's game should be a very tough one for us."
Abbott's words turned out to be very prophetic as the Terriers fired a season-high 60 shots on goal, with eight of those pucks getting past Larries goaltender Rick Wilson, leading to an 8-5 victory, as BU regained possession of the Kilpatrick Trophy as tournament champions. Eruzione, who was named the MVP, contributed two goals and two assists, and defenseman Gary Fay (one goal and two assists) and Silk (three assists) also chipped in to the BU attack. In all seven different Terriers lit the lamp and nine different BU players notched assists. Craig turned aside 22 St. Lawrence shots.
BU scored the first three goals of the second period, including two on the power play, to stretch its lead to 6-1, but St. Lawrence battled back with three straight goals to make a game of it, leading Parker to comment in the Times, "We took a couple of penalties and played sloppy defensively and let them back in."
Fay's power play strike with just under three minutes left in the second period built BU's lead back up to three goals. The Terriers controlled the third period, owning a 26-5 shot advantage, and Tony Meagher's goal helped offset a score by SLU's Dan Walker as BU posted an 8-5 triumph.
The two victories at the Garden improved the Terriers' record to 5-6, but Parker felt that his club still had plenty of work to do.
"I told them they have to get more pumped up as a team," he said in the Times. "They have talent, but they haven't won anything yet. They don't seem to play with any emotion."
The BU players took Parker's words to heart, as they won 16 of their next 21 games, with the last of those victories delivering a fourth straight ECAC crown following an exciting 8-6 win over New Hampshire at Boston Garden. That led to a fourth straight trip to the NCAA Tournament, but for the fourth consecutive year history repeated itself, and the Terriers were toppled in the semifinals, this time by
When the likes of present-day Terriers Pete MacArthur, Bryan Ewing and Chris Higgins hop over the boards at MSG on Saturday night against ancient bitter rival Cornell, they will be looking to extend BU's winning streak in the City That Never Sleeps to six games.
"The idea of having a get-together with Cornell was exciting, but having it in
