Celebrating
BU’s resurgence led by its freshman phenom, blog contributor defkit tags his
USCHO message board posts with “BU Hockey: We’ve Got the Jack.” True, Jack
Eichel has been the catalyst for BU’s first-semester success, but, in fact, for more than
65 years, BU Hockey has had “the Jack.” The names can be found all over the BU
record books and in the BU Athletics Hall of Fame: Jack Parker, Jack Garrity, Jack
Ferriera, Jack O’Callahan and Jacques Joubert, among others.
Last
month, another pivotal “BU Jack” received a long-overdue honor when former
standout Terriers skater and ten-year head coach Jack Kelley was inducted
into the Massachusetts Hockey Hall of Fame. Kelley had previously been named to the U.S.
Hockey Hall of Fame (1993), the BU Athletics Hall
of Fame (1973) and the Connecticut
Hockey Hall of Fame (video).
●
New England Hockey Journal report
“The
Mentor” recently was interviewed
by BU play-by-play radio announcer Bernie Corbett for Inside BU Hockey and
reflected on the induction as well as the current BU squad, which he saw in
action against Maine last month. Audio begins
at the 34:00 minute mark
THFB
augmented the interview with some additional questions:
Q—In your 10 season as
BU’s head coach, besides the two NCAA titles games (1971 & 1972), is there
another game that is most memorable to you?
A—In
my second year, we won two games that I felt made a statement that we were on
the verge of being competitive with the rest of the top teams. The first game
was a 1-0 victory over Boston College at McHugh Forum. Bruce Fennie scored the
lone goal, and Jack Ferriera stopped everything BC shot at him. The second game
that year was a double overtime victory vs. Harvard in the Beanpot. Lyman
Carter, a transfer that year, scored the winning goal. To me, those were two
important wins that indicated we were headed in the right direction. The start
of the third year, I believe we won our first ten games of the year and we ended
up winning twenty-five games.
Q—In that same decade,
who are a few players that would make your All-Opponent team?
A—Those
players most memorable to me are Ken Dryden of Cornell, Joe Cavanaugh of
Harvard, John Cunniff of Boston College, and Tim Sheehy of Boston College.
Q— And a personal
highlight from your playing days?
A—One
of the more satisfying wins from my playing days was beating Boston College 8-1;
believe it or not, I scored 4 goals in that game! Which goes to show, even a
blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally!
When
the BU hockey program resumed under Coach Harry Cleverly after World War II, it
quickly became one of the best in the East. In 1949-50, three Jacks joined the
BU varsity, helping to power the Terriers to their first NCAA tournament: Jack
Garrity, who set the all-time record for goals in the season with 51, Jack
Martin, who would score 77 points in three BU seasons and Jack Kelley, who
would score 22 goals and add 10 assists in ’49-’50,
A
standout at Belmont High School, Kelley had been named Boston’s top schoolboy
performer in 1945 and went on to play AAU hockey with Team USA. He began his BU
career as a wing on the 1949-50 NCAA finalist team, and scored a pair of
goals in his first varsity game, a 10-2 win over Tufts. He later switched to
defense, helping BU to a second NCAA appearance in 1950-51. Kelley would become
an All-East first team defenseman and BU’s team MVP in 1951-52. At the time of his graduation, he was the
school's all-time leading scorer among defensemen and finished with 52 goals and
43 assists in three seasons.
Following
a stint as coach at Weston High School, Kelley was named head coach at Colby
College where his White Mules teams went 89-15-5 over seven seasons, with
Kelley earning NCAA Coach of the Year honors in 1961-62.
He
took over a slumping BU program in 1962 and in his third season, the team won
14 of its final 16 games to finish 25-6. The Terriers were back and during ten
seasons under Kelley, they would win 206 games against 80 losses and 8 ties for
a remarkable .714 winning percentage. The Kelley decade brought BU six Beanpot
championships, its first ECAC title and back-to-back NCAA championships in 1971
and 1972, the only time the feat was achieved by an Eastern school. His players
would earn first-team All American recognition 14 times including half of the
1971-72 Eastern All-America team.
Kelley
moved on to the fledgling WHA in 1972-73 as coach and general manager, leading
the New England Whalers to the first league title—the AVCO Cup. Later, he ran
the Detroit Red Wings AHL franchise in Glens Falls, N.Y., and served as
president of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
In 2008, BU and his former players and managers honored Kelley with a bust that Terrier fans see on the concourse at Agganis Arena
Today,
Kelley splits his time between Maine and Florida, and, along with his daughter,
Nancy Saucier, he races Standardbred horses in two- and three-year old stake
races. His son
Mark is Senior Director of Amateur Scouting for the Chicago Blackhawks; and son
David, who captained the Princeton hockey team, is the prolific writer and
producer of Hollywood films and television shows.
No comments:
Post a Comment