Q&A wth Brad Zancanaro

Former BU co-captain Brad Zancanaro answered our questions about participating in the REPLAY THE SERIES restaging of a suspended 1999 game between his Trenton High School team and rival Catholic Central.

Q. What was your reaction when you heard about the possibility of replaying the game?
A. The kid who put the application in emailed me to see if i would be interested. At first I wasn't too excited about it because I thought it might be kind of cheesy...but he had me go to the Web site and watch the previous year's show. The first season turned out really well, so I figure it could be fun, and all the guys from the team that year were pretty excited about it.

Q. You had retired from pro hockey due to an injury a few years ago. Were you still playing hockey in an adult league?
A. I quit hockey because I had a few concussions and it took me a while to feel better. But I had been playing men’s league around Boston the past couple years. BU Hockey Alumni also have skates on Sunday mornings every once in a while during the winter.

Q. How big a challenge was getting back into game shape?
A. I have stayed in pretty good shape but wasn't used to getting hit or doing drills. I had to go back to Michigan for a "combine" weekend where our high school coach ran practices. It had been two years since I had participated in an actual practice, but it didn’t take long to get back into it. It was different for the other guys though. Most of them haven't practiced or been hit since high school. A couple guys lost a lot of weight. Both teams took it pretty seriously and the game was pretty intense, so it was important that everyone got into the best shape possible.

Q. How does the Trenton--CC rivalry compare with BU-BC?
A. There aren't a lot of the rivalries that compare to the BU-BC rivalry. But, for high school hockey in Michigan, nothing compares to Trenton-CC. Both teams are powerhouses and it seems like we used to switch off winning the state championships every year. We would play CC twice during the regular season each year. The games were always packed and just as intense as BU-BC games....it was the same type of feeling. CC is a Catholic school and recruits kids from all over the state come to play, and we are a public school that doesn't allow kids from other cities attend school there.. I think that added to the rivalry because there was a lot of pride involved for us because we were playing for our town.

Q. So, how cool was the experience of rejoining your high school teammates for a serious-game rematch with CC ?
A. Hockey has given me the opportunity to do a lot of things other people don’t get to do in their lives, but the Replay experience was by far one of the coolest things hockey has allowed me to do. It was great to go back and play high school hockey again! Not many people get a chance to do that. For our practices, our coach was running the same drills that we did 11 years ago and we even did the same traditions from 11 years ago. When given a second chance like that, people wanted to make the most of it. Both teams took it very seriously. No one was expecting the level of play to be what it was for the game, including myself. A lot of people have told me that it was one of the most exciting games that have seen in awhile and that the level of play was great to watch. We had a sold out crowd and we had our whole town behind us. The game had the same rivalry feeling that the games 11 years ago had. We were down 2-1 going into the third and we were able to pull out a 4-2 win. We had a big celebration with old friends and family that night...it rivaled the ones we had at the Dugout after Beanpot victories!

Terrier Ice Hockey Olympians

All on Team USA unless otherwise noted.

2010 VANCOUVER, B.C., CANADA
Chris Drury
Ryan Whitney

2006 TURIN, ITALY
Rick DiPietro
Chris Drury
Keith Tkachuk

2002 SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH
Tony Amonte, Silver
Chris Drury, Silver
Tom Poti, Silver
Keith Tkachuk, Silver
Scott Young, Silver

1998 NAGANO, JAPAN
Tony Amonte
Keith Tkachuk

1994 LILLEHAMMER, NORWAY
Adrian Aucoin (Canada), Silver
John Lilley
David Sacco

1992 ALBERTVILLE, FRANCE
Clark Donatelli
Scott Lachance
Shawn McEachern
Joe Sacco
Keith Tkachuk
Scott Young
* David Quinn

1988 CALGARY, ALBERTA, CANADA
Clark Donatelli
Scott Young

1984 SARAJEVO, YUGOSLAVIA
Grant Goegan (Italy)

1980 LAKE PLACID, N.Y.
Mike Eruzione, Gold
Jim Craig, Gold
Jack O’Callahan, Gold
Dave Silk, Gold
Herb Wakabayashi (Japan)
Dick Decloe (Netherlands)

1976 INNSBRUCK, AUSTRIA
Dick Lamby
Herb Wakabayashi (Japan)

1972 SAPPORO, JAPAN
Tim Regan, Silver
Herb Wakabayashi (Japan)

1968 GRENOBLE, FRANCE
Olivier Prechac (France)

1960 SQUAW VALLEY, CALIF.
Dick Rodenhiser, Gold

1956 CORTINA, ITALY
Dick Rodenhiser, Silver

1952 OSLO, NORWAY
Joseph “Red” Czarnota Silver

1948 ST. MORITZ, SWITZERLAND
Jack Garrity

1936 GARMISCH-PORTENKIRCHEN, GERMANY
John Lax, Bronze
Paul Rowe, Bronze

*– Played for Team USA during exhibition schedule, but was cut
before the team went to France.

The Beanpot’s identical twin

Four decades younger, the Beanpot trophy’s replica shines as bright as the original


By Jon Brodkin, BU 2000

On Monday night, a famous, sparkling trophy called the Beanpot will be awarded to the best college hockey team in Boston.

The trophy will be instantly recognizable to fans of Boston University or Boston College, but it is not the same one skated around the ice by the heroic likes of Mike Eruzione, Jack O’Callahan, John Cunniff, Wayne Turner and Chris Drury.

Although the tournament began in 1952, the actual trophy presented to modern day winners was made less than five years ago. After decades of wear and tear, and the occasional incident involving a winning team misplacing the trophy, Beanpot tournament officials decided the original pot was too precious to risk any further.


The original is in good shape, says Steve Nazro, tournament director and vice president of events at the TD Garden, but “it’s too valuable” to actually give to the winners for a full year. “To have any chance of having it stolen, or held hostage would be a big deal,” he says.

The Beanpot’s history features stories of players using the trophy as an ashtray, players throwing it out a dorm window during a celebration party, and at least one winning school simply having no idea where the trophy was when it came time to return it a week before the next year’s tournament.


The stories may be true and they may be false, but they add to the lore of the tournament and the silver pot, just as mishaps involving the Stanley Cup enrich that trophy’s history.


The Beanpot has also served as a touchstone in emotionally charged circumstances, such as when the victorious Northeastern Huskies presented the trophy in 1984 to Terry Flaman, the cancer-stricken son of their coach who, sitting in a wheelchair, had given the team a pre-game pep talk. Then in the late 1990s the BU Terriers celebrated several Beanpot wins with Travis Roy, who had been paralyzed in October 1995 in his first game as a freshman.


As much as the Beanpot meant to players and coaches, at some point Boston Garden officials stopped letting the winners take the Beanpot home with them in case it was lost or damaged. I remember hearing about one team – I think it was the 2001 Boston College Eagles - whose players and coaches were boarding the bus expecting to take the trophy back to campus and were surprised to learn that was not allowed.


Nazro and his team solved the problem a few months before the 2006 tournament. Beanpot officials decided the best way to allow the winning team to keep the trophy was to create a replica that would look exactly like the original, down to the smallest detail. That replica, created by Marlborough Foundry Inc. in Marlborough, Mass, is the one that will be presented on the Garden ice Monday night and given to the winners to keep until next year’s tournament.


In late 2005, Garden officials brought the beanpot portion of the Beanpot trophy – the bottom part which has engravings of the yearly winners was removed - to Marlborough Foundry, where a mold of the original was created. Fittingly, the metal for a replica was poured into the mold by Steve Postizzi, a 33-year-old who played high school hockey and attended the Beanpot as a child.


“I wanted to make sure I was the guy who poured the metal into the mold, so I could say that,” Postizzi says.


While the original Beanpot was made of iron, the replica is aluminum, and is thus quite a bit lighter than the trophy skated around in decades gone by. While Nazro says there is nothing wrong with the original, Postizzi’s expert eye noticed the handles appear to have been snapped off in the past, and other repaired cracks were apparent when looking inside the Beanpot.

“It had been broken a couple times,” Postizzi says. “You can only weld and repair things so often before you start to diminish the integrity of the pot. … They wanted us to make a replica because the original was dropped too many times and they didn’t want to risk it any further.”



The original trophy’s exterior was buffed to keep it smooth, and overall Postizzi says “it was in good condition, but they didn’t want any more dings and dents in it.”


Creating the new Beanpot cost about $700 or $800, mostly for labor, and took a few days. Marlborough Foundry kept the original Beanpot for a couple of weeks in total, including time for planning, says Postizzi, who has worked in the family foundry business since the age of 18. Once Marlborough Foundry was done with the replica Beanpot it was passed on to Lubin’s trophy shop in Newton, where engraving and other final details were taken care of.


I’ve attended the Beanpot nearly every year since 1995 and never learned until this month that the iconic trophy had been replaced, because the story has largely remained untold.


Nazro says the replacement of the original pot hasn’t received much attention, other than a one-paragraph piece that appeared in Boston Magazine in February 2007. That article, titled “The Beanpot’s Trusty Body Double,” says the original trophy “is still the crowd pleaser, since that’s what the winning team hoists for its celebratory skate.” If the article is correct, then the only reason the replica was created was so the winning team would have a copy to keep in its trophy case while the original stayed at the garden and was presented to the winners on the ice.


Nazro says it’s possible that was true in 2007, but is certainly not true today – the replica is definitely the one handed out on the ice to the winning team.


“The replica is locked in a closet with the other awards, ready to be given out,” Nazro told me Friday.


Postizzi was told by Garden officials that the replica would replace the original for on-ice presentations once it was ready, so it may be that that the last time the original was presented was in February 2005, when Ray Bourque’s son Chris won the trophy for BU with an overtime goal against Northeastern.


You might think tournament participants would be upset about the original Beanpot being replaced, but Nazro says they “were thrilled … now they can display it in their trophy case.”

After winning the NCAA Division 1 ice hockey championship in April 2009, Boston University held several events, including a parade and banner-raising ceremony, showing off all six trophies the team won the previous season. Without the Beanpot replica, those celebrations might have been missing one very important trophy.


There is certainly precedent for famous trophies being replaced with replicas. The FA Cup, the oldest football (you know, soccer) competition in the world has awarded a replica trophy since 1992. And there are actually three Stanley Cups: the fragile original, first presented in 1893 and now encased in glass in the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto; the “presentation cup” awarded to winners since the early 1960s; and a replica later created for display at the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Marlborough Foundry was almost asked to make another replica Beanpot trophy, when the Hall of Fame called the Garden about getting a Beanpot for display. For reasons unclear to Nazro, the deal was never completed.


“We responded and offered to do whatever they wanted. … We got all excited about it but they [the Hall of Fame officials] never followed through,” Nazro said.


Surprisingly, it’s not even clear when the original Beanpot was created. The first rendition of the tournament took place in December 1952 at Boston Arena (now, Matthews Arena, Northeastern’s home stadium) and its official name was the New England Invitational Hockey Tournament. Even though there wasn’t a trophy that first year, the 1952 contest featuring BU, BC, Harvard and Northeastern was nicknamed the “Beanpot” in press stories, presumably as a reference to Boston’s love of baked beans.


At some point after the tournament moved to Boston Garden, which occurred in January 1954, a beanpot was acquired to serve as a trophy. Nazro says he doesn’t know which year the beanpot was purchased.


College hockey historian Bernard Corbett wrote the best history of the Beanpot in 2002, a book called “The Beanpot: 50 years of Thrills, Spills, and Chills.”

The book quotes Harvard official Carroll Getchell as saying “do you know we went for a few years without a trophy? Then finally, one, day, [Boston Garden owner] Walter [Brown] said, ‘Why the devil don’t we have a Beanpot Trophy?’ So now we have this large silver Beanpot.”


“The trophy problem was solved by legendary Garden troubleshooter Tony Nota, who managed to acquire one,” Corbett’s book continues.


The earliest picture of a Beanpot trophy featured in the book was of Red Martin, Boston College’s “58-minute man” who won the tournament in 1959 and 1961. He is pictured holding an actual ceramic beanpot.


“After using a humble ceramic jug for more than a decade, Beanpot officials finally switched to a proper silver version, cast from the original,” Boston Magazine’s February 2007 article states.
Photographs from various sources show that the silver-colored version fans know today has been in use since at least 1965, the year current BC coach Jerry York first suited up for the Eagles and one season before BU coach Jack Parker first skated for the Terriers.


1966 was the first year in which the winning team not only accepted the trophy, but also skated it around the ice to show off to fans in the student section. BU senior captain Dennis O’Connell is credited with starting the tradition.


The trophy was originally fitted with a single ring below the pot to engrave the names of winning schools, and a second ring was added in the mid-1980s, making the trophy noticeably larger.


The Beanpot wasn’t always handled with the same level of care it enjoys today. Postizzi says one of the Garden officials told him the Beanpot was lost in the 80s and eventually found in a bush outside a BC dorm. BC only won the Beanpot once in the 1980s, so if the story is true that would have occurred in 1983.


Postizzi was also told some players used the trophy as an ashtray. Nazro has heard the same story.


“That’s lore. It may be true. I can’t say it isn’t,” Nazro says.

Nazro confirms that one school did lose the trophy. Garden officials called the school a week before the tournament and it turned out no one knew where the trophy was. It was eventually found “in some obscure case,” he says.

Nazro says that occurred before his time as the tournament director, which started in the early 1970s. If Nazro knows which school actually lost the trophy, he’s not saying publicly.


The stories mirror some of those told about the Stanley Cup, which has allegedly been lost and stolen various times, used as an ashtray, thrown into multiple swimming pools and, disturbingly, used as both a receptacle for chewing gum and urine, though one would hope not at the same time.


Those indignities won’t be happening to the original Beanpot any time soon. Most of the year it sits in a glass case with other Beanpot memorabilia at the TD Garden, on display for anyone with club level tickets. Nazro says no one’s ever actually tried to steal it, and a combination of alarms and 24-hour security would make it quite difficult.


The original was taken out of its case for the pre-Beanpot luncheon and “it’s in my office right now because we often get people who want to shoot it between now and the tournament,” Nazro says. It’s no surprise so many people want a picture of the Beanpot. Winning the Beanpot isn’t as great an achievement as prevailing in the Hockey East or NCAA tournaments, but the trophy itself may be the most unique and aesthetically pleasing in all of college hockey.


On Monday night, the original Beanpot will be in safe-keeping while the Boston University Terriers and Boston College Eagles renew their fierce rivalry. The winner will be presented a trophy that looks exactly like the historic cup BU coach Jack Parker and BC coach Jerry York fought over when they skated for their alma maters more than 40 years ago. It is not, in fact, the same piece of silverware but the replica will forever be a part of the Beanpot tournament’s storied history.

The author of this article can be reached at beanpot.replica@gmail.com

Terriers in the World Junior Championships

Tony Amonte-- Forward 1989, 1990
Pat Aufiero-- Defense 2000
Shawn Bates-- Forward 1995
Chris Bourque-- Forward 2005, 2006^
Rich Brennan-- Defense 1992
Dan Cavanaugh-- Forward 2000
Jon Coleman-- Defense 1994
Cleon Daskalakis-- Goalie 1981
Tom Dion--Defense 1989
Rick DiPietro--Goalie 2000, 2001*
Clark Donatelli--Forward 1984, 1985
Chris Drury--Forward 1996
Mike Grier--Forward 1995
Gregg Johnson--Forward 2002
Jeff Kealty--Defense 1996
Mike Kelfer--Forward 1986, 1987
Chris Kelleher--Defense 1995
Bob Lachance--Forward 1994
Scott Lachance--Defense 1991, 1992
Dan LaCouture--Forward 1997
Mike Lappin--Forward 1989
John Lilley--Forward 1992
Brian McConnell--Forward 2003
Freddy Meyer--Defense 2001
Paul Miller--Forward 1977
Chris O’Sullivan--Defense 1994
Jay Octeau--efense 1985
Jay Pandolfo--Forward 1994
Mike Pandolfo--Forward 1999
Mike Pomichter--Forward 1993
Tom Poti--Defense 1996, 1997
Mike Prendergast--Forward 1992
David Quinn--Defense 1986
John Sabo--Forward 2000, 2001
Joe Sacco--Forward 1989
Kevin Shattenkirk--Defense 2009
Brian Strait--Defense 2008
Mike Sullivan--Forward 1988
Mike Sylvia--Forward 1996
Keith Tkachuk--Forward 1991, 1992
Ryan Whitney--Defense 2002, 2003
Colin Wilson--Forward 2008, 2009
Scott Young--Forward 1985, 1986, 1987

BU-Cornell: The First Tie--Dec. 30, 1967

Dec. 30, 1966— Boston Arena—BU played two three-game tournaments in December 1966. A week after sweeping Princeton, Minnesota and Clarkson at the Holiday Festival at Madison Square Garden, the Terriers skated on their home ice, Boston Arena, in the Arena Christmas Tournament.

They had beaten Harvard and Northeastern to improve to a 12-0 record and a #1 ranking. Meanwhile, Cornell dispatched the same two teams and was also undefeated at 11-0 and ranked #2, setting up what is considered one of the greatest college hockey games ever played.

Both squads were far from fresh as they were about to play for the third time in as many days before a capacity crowd of 5,450. The officials for the game were Giles Threadgold and Bill Clearly, later coach and athletic director at Harvard.

According to the Ithaca Journal, “Cornell had a wide edge in territorial play in a penalty-marred first period, but the Terriers capitalized on their opportunities and thwarted the Big Red''s power plays.”

All three first-period goals came on power plays. Cornell drew first blood just 2:13 into the game. With two Terriers in the penalty box, Harry Orr took a pass from Mike Doran and beat goalie Wayne Ryan.

BU senior Jim Quinn scored the equalizer four minutes later, converting a feed from Fred Bassi. Then, with half a minute left in the period and BU up two men, a Brian Gilmour slapper whizzed past Cornell goalie Ken Dryden for a 2-1 Terrier lead.

Cornell regained the lead early in the second on a pair of goals by Bob Ferguson and Skip Stanowski. Ryan got a glove both shots but couldn’t keep them out of the net. Play raged up and down the ice throughout the period with 33 shots taken, but no further goals.

The pattern continued well into the third period with Dryden keeping BU’s high-scoring ”Pinball Line” of Herb Wakabayashi, Mickey Gray and Serge Boily off the scoresheet. Finally, in the latter part of the period, BU got the tying goal from an unlikely source, sophomore defenseman Darrell Abbott.

“I think there were about 3 or 4 minutes left in the third period and we were losing 3-2 when either Pete McLachlan or Brian Gilmour—our two veteran, all-star defensemen—got a penalty, and the other, shortly before that penalty, had been injured,” Abbott recalls. “Coach [Jack]Kelley had no choice but to put the two rookies—Billy Hinch and me--out together. It was the first time Billy and I had played together as a pair so I'm sure Coach was more than a little concerned.

“Cornell dumped the puck into our end in the process of making a slow line change. Billy set up in front, while I picked up the puck behind our net, fully expecting to look up and ice it, seeing as how we were a man short.

“But when I looked up there was only one Cornell player standing at center ice and the others were just coming over the boards. With no pressure I began to skate up ice only to realize that I could beat this guy. At this point everything happened so fast. There I was, going in on a partial breakaway and, contrary to all logic, I roofed a backhander into the net over Dryden’s shoulder on the short side to tie the game.”

The game went to a 10-minute overtime and, the Ithaca Journal reported, “Cornell had the edge in the first three minutes of the first overtime with Ryan making a sensational save on Doran from in close, but BU outskated the Big Red during the last seven minutes. Dryden had brilliant saves on Boily and Bill Hinch late in the period.”

The two coaches agreed to play one more overtime period, but neither of the weary teams mounted much of an attack in the second overtime and the teams were declared tournament co-champions. Goalies Ryan (32 saves) and Dryden (40 saves) shared the MVP award.

Abbott added that “It was the first game that my Father had attended at BU so it was even more special for me. He was sitting in the first row balcony, right above our bench. Of course having seen the success that Ken had subsequent to his days at Cornell, I feel I was very fortunate to have scored at all, but it is amazing how many people remember that goal even to this day. I was especially honored by the fact that Ken still remembered me years later, even after all the Stanley Cups and the Russian experiences. His comment to me was ‘I always remember the big ones’.”

SPECIAL HOLIDAY OFFER FOR BU HOCKEY BOOK

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SPECIAL HOLIDAY OFFER FOR BU HOCKEY BOOK
BU Fans Can Obtain Signed Books Via Mail Order

BOSTON – In the national championship game in college hockey, Boston University had to go into overtime to win the big prize.

Now a special offer for Terrier hockey fans has gone into overtime as well.

Burn The Boats: A Seven-Championship Season for Boston University Hockey, written by US College Hockey Online senior writer Scott Weighart, was published last month and has proceeded to sell briskly at Agganis Arena, the BU Bookstore, and online at www.buhockeybook.com.

Initially, Mosaic Eye Publishing decided to offer fans free shipping within the United States on mail orders for the first 35 days of the regular season in honor of the Terriers’ 35-win season in 2008-09.

Now, with the holidays approaching, Mosaic Eye has decided to extend the free shipping offer with an “overtime” special geared to fans interested in purchasing the books as gifts for friends and family. As a result, the free shipping offer will continue until December 18, 2009—meaning that any offers up until that date will receive free shipping and should arrive in time for Christmas.

Additionally, a new wrinkle is now available to fans from afar. “I have done several book signings at Agganis Arena, and the response has been terrific,” Weighart says.

“Many fans have asked me to sign copies in some personalized way—sometimes as birthday presents or Christmas gifts. Eventually, we started saying, ‘Why not make this available to Terrier fans who can’t make it to the Arena?’ So now Terrier fans will have the opportunity to get a book inscribed as they wish when purchasing the book for $17 at www.buhockeybook.com.”

Here’s how it will work: When ordering online using PayPal, fans can click on “Special instructions to the seller.” After doing so, buyers can add instructions if they want a personalized comment along with author’s signature. Here are some typical choices:
· “To Katrina, Merry Christmas!”
· “To Dave, Never leave a game early!”
· “To Hannah, Keep playing hockey!”
· “To Kenny, A future Terrier!”

As always, money from each purchase of the book goes directly to the BU hockey program.

Fans should be aware of more news related to the Burn The Boats book:
· The books will be available at the Madison Square Garden concessions stands before and during the Red Hot Hockey game versus Cornell on Saturday, November 28.

· Scott Weighart will be appearing at the Pep Rally prior to the BU-Cornell game. Fans who have already purchased the book can bring their books in for signing at the Pep Rally or purchase them at concession stands to be designed before the game begins.

· Another author signing at Agganis Arena will take place before and during the game against Boston College on Saturday, December 5. Weighart will be signing books before the game from 6-7 p.m. as well as between the first and second periods.

· A book signing will also take place at the BU Bookstore in December, but the exact details are yet to be announced.

· Bernie Corbett, the Voice of Terrier Hockey, interviewed Weighart about the book for the College Hockey All-Access show on satellite radio. The broadcast should be archived and available on the Interent within a few days. Use Google to find it by searching for the November 21 show of College Hockey All-Access.

· A feature story detailing the making of the book should be available this week on goterriers.com. It is a lengthy piece entitled “A Game for the Pages.” Likewise, Weighart has completed a feature story about the Terriers’ tri-state players who will be participating in Red Hot Hockey next weekend. The story is based on interviews with Joe Pereira, Kevin Shattenkirk, Luke Popko, and Sean Escobedo.

To order the book, to read advance praise about it from Nancy Marrapese-Burrell of The Boston Globe, or to check out an excerpt from the book, go to www.buhockeybook.com. For additional information—or to arrange an interview with Weighart—please contact Ellie Boynton at info@mosaiceyepublishing.com or at 617-566-1574.

USCHO Recap: BU 6 Harvard 5 OT

BU Pulls Out 6-5 OT Thriller
Connolly Nets Winner After Terriers Tie Game Late

By Scott Weighart, Senior Writer
ALLSTON, MA – When’s the last time you saw a hockey player score four goals and lose?

Or a team finish with a collective minus nine rating and win?Or a team take the lead four different times before losing?

Or a Boston University team score with less than 20 seconds left in regulation to tie a game before winning it in overtime?

Okay, you probably remember the last time that happened. Still, the above factoids will give you some idea of how weird and wild the game was between Boston University and Harvard in front of 3,076 at the Bright Hockey Center tonight. When the ice chips settled, the Terriers had pulled out a stirring 6-5 overtime victory, thanks to Zach Cohen’s tying goal with 19.5 seconds left in regulation and Chris Connolly’s game-winner at 2:42 of overtime.

Joe Pereira led the way for BU with two goals and two assists, while Nick Bonino added a goal and two assists for the Terriers. Yet Harvard freshman Conor Morrison—who started the night with just one goal in seven collegiate goals—stole the show individually with a stunning four-goal performance.

“Overall, it was an unbelievably exciting hockey game,” Terrier coach Jack Parker said. “I thought it was a great effort by everybody. I thought they played really hard; we played really hard. No one wanted to give up anything. When you score late like we did, it’s very fortunate to get the W. But when you score late, you’ve got the momentum going into overtime, and we certainly had that.

“I thought everybody played well on my team. We shortened the bench in the third period and went with three lines. Some guys got a little legless, but they worked like hell.”

Meanwhile, Harvard coach Ted Donato saw his team cough up a third-period lead for the fourth time in eight games this season. “Obviously, we’re disappointed,” Donato said. “You’ve got to give a lot of credit to BU. They kept coming, generated a lot of shots. Throughout the game, we kept answering back with a lot of goals and were able to maintain the lead for most of the night, but they kept coming.

“We struggled a little against their power play and were unable to keep them from getting to the net at times. Our guys battled hard, but we’ve got to do a better job of holding onto leads and closing games out.”

BU dominated play early and went ahead on their first power play of the game. Nick Bonino passed to Max Nicastro for a shot from the right point, and Pereira pounced on the rebound. At 9:11, Harvard tied it with a little puck luck, as a pass between two Terrier defensemen kicked off a referee’s skate and landed in grade ‘A’ country out front, where Morrison buried it.

BU goalie Kieran Millan gave up perhaps his softest goal of the season at 13:09, when Alex Killorn floated a backhander toward the far post from the right wing. Millan waved an arm at it but only got a piece of it, and the puck was in the net. BU go that one back during a five-minute power play following a boarding major on Brendan Rempel, as Zach Cohen tipped in a David Warsosky slapshot at 16:32.

Morrison got his second goal at 2:37 of the second period, backhanding in a rebound. But BU made it three-for-three on the power play at 6:39 when Pereira knocked in another rebound after Kevin Shattenkirk took a shot from the point.

Through two periods, all of Harvard’s goals were even strength, while all of BU’s came on the power play. As a result, BU’s combined plus-minus rating through 40 minutes was a minus 15, while Harvard was a plus 15—quite odd given that the game was tied at that point.

Morrison notched the hat trick at 5:06 of the third, driving in on the left wing before cutting across the slot with the puck on his backhand. Kevin Gilroy collided with Millan in the crease, and Morrison had that much more net to shot as a result. BU fought back to tie it yet again at 13:51 when Pereira attempted a wraparound that caromed off of Harvard goalie Kyle Richter and out to Bonino for the shot and score.

It looked as if the Crimson had the game won when Morrison scored his fourth goal of the night with just 1:18 remaining in the third. Daniel Moriarty and Chris Huxley dug the puck out of the right-wing boards to feed Morrison for the one-timer in the slot. It was the first time a Harvard player scored four times in a game since Chris Bala did it back on March 6, 1998. “We’ve been on kind of a rough stretch, so it was tough to lose it,” Morrison said. “It was a special night for me, but I’m not satisfied."

However, BU pulled Millan and scored an extra-attacker goal with just 19.5 seconds to knot the game up again. Warsofsky was cheating in on the left point, and a puck came out to him. His shot was redirected in by Zach Cohen to save the day for the Terriers.

Connolly’s goal came when Bonino attempted a wraparound, only to have the puck end up slipping through the slot to the winger at the far post. “We were fortunate enough to get it down low, cycling the puck,” Connolly said. “Nick got it in his favorite position, and I knew it was going to either go in or pop out to the other side. There was a scrum in front, so I figured I’d just wait off to the side and see what happened. I got lucky: It popped right there, and I had a wide open net.”

Jack Parker said that it was the best effort his team has shown since a 1-0 loss to Northeastern several weeks ago. “I was looking for a W, obviously, but I was more interested in our intensity—how fast we’d play and how smart we’d play,” Parker said. “We had speed and smarts tonight, that’s for sure.”

“I think it showed a lot of character tonight,” Pereira said. “Before we were kind of waiting for something bad to happen, but tonight we dug deep and responded.”BU (4-7-1) will look to keep the momentum going when playing Cornell at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, while Harvard (1-5-2) next plays ECAC opponent Dartmouth on Sunday.