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Back to the Future at Walter Brown Arena

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BOSTON – The last time the Boston University men’s ice hockey team played in a game that counted that in front of fans at Walter Brown Arena, Terrier captain Domenick Fensore was three years old. Freshman forward Devin Kaplan was 12 days shy of his first birthday. 

As a result, the BU-Harvard matchup on Friday proved to be as much of a novelty for the Terrier players as it was nostalgia for long-time Terrier fans and first-year head coach Jay Pandolfo, who played all of his home games in the building from 1992 through 1996.

Both young and old went home happy. Kaplan assisted on the first goal of the night, scored by classmate Quinn Hutson. After a late goal tied it up for Harvard, Fensore took a pass from senior Wilmer Skoog and buried it in the final minute of overtime, as No. 8/7 BU topped No. 9 Harvard, 2-1 in what was both the final game of the 2022 and the first game of the second half of the season after the holiday break.

The current Terriers do have some experience playing in Walter Brown Arena, which was the team’s home rink until January 2005. Most of the time, though, it was without fans. 

“We played in the COVID year, so we have played, I don’t know, maybe eight games here?” Skoog said. “We all expected a big crowd and a loud crowd, and it was just as we expected. Happy everyone could show up and be loud throughout the whole game. It really, really helped us. I think everyone on the team saw this as one of the highlights of the year because playing here in a smaller building, we know it’s going to be loud, and it was awesome to get the win as well.”

These Terriers also played one game with fans at Walter Brown, but not one that mattered. 

“We played Holy Cross here for an exhibition game last year, and it was loud,” senior forward Jay O’Brien said. “Obviously tonight was amazing. It’s just so loud in there, especially with the band. Yeah, it’s awesome. We love playing here.”

Naturally, it was a different experience for Pandolfo—more of a skate down memory lane.

“I certainly loved playing here, so I thought it was fun for our guys,” Pandolfo said. “They’ve asked me what it was like, playing over here. It’s a little different; it’s a lot tighter. Fans are right on top of you, things happen a little bit quicker. There’s no question you can have a pretty good home-ice advantage in this building. So it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. Some great memories in this building. It was fun to be part of as a coach now.”

Pandolfo was hard pressed to recall specific memories beyond general impressions of his teammates and playing for head coach Jack Parker. He had to be reminded of one of his more impressive feats in the building—a shorthanded hat trick against Northeastern. 

“I do remember that,” Pandolfo said. “Back then, for whatever reason, you had an opportunity to score a lot more shorthanded goals than you do now. We were allowed to play offense back then when we were killing penalties, and that was a lot of fun, too.”

The 2022-2023 season has also been a lot of fun for the Terriers, who are now 12-5-0 and ranked seventh in the PairWise rankings thanks to one of the most challenging schedules in college hockey. Eleven of their 17 games have been against teams that are currently in the USCHO top 20. 

“I thought the first half overall, we played pretty well,” Pandolfo said. “The one thing I was really happy with was how we rebounded after a loss. We didn’t lose two in a row, so I think that’s important. Over the course of the season when you do lose or don’t play well, how does your team respond? And I thought we responded very well. It’s a credit to our guys. I just think now we know as a group how we have to play to have success, and it can’t be just some of the time.”

Pandolfo sees reason to be optimistic about even better play going into the new year.

“You have younger players that are getting used to playing college hockey and getting used to going to class, managing their life a little bit,” Pandolfo said. “We’ve gotten some great contributions from our freshman class, but you’re hoping they even take another step in the second half. And I think some are older guys, if you talk to some of them, probably didn’t think they had their best first half.”

This point is well taken. While senior Matt Brown leads the team in both goals (8) and assists (16) for a team-high 24 points, and Fensore has already scored more goals (7) in 17 games than he did in all 35 contests last season, three of the top five scorers on the team are freshmen: Lane Hutson—currently with Team USA at the World Junior Championship—Ryan Greene, and Lane’s brother, Quinn. 

If more of the team’s experienced players can chip in more consistently while the newcomers continue to get comfortable, this team could make some noise in the postseason.

“We’ve done a great job to this point,” O’Brien said after the win against Harvard. “We had a good break, obviously got some rest and cleaned up a couple things. I wouldn’t say we had a great first half, but we had a good first half and today we know we got up on the right foot. I mean, it’s college hockey, every game’s a tough game.”

“That’s the way it’s been the whole year,” Skoog said about the team’s resilience in winning in overtime after the late Harvard goal tied it. “As long as we stay within our game plan and believe in it throughout the whole game, we know we’ll have good results and we proved it again tonight.”

A few moments really stood out against Harvard.  One was junior defenseman Cade Webber staying out on the ice for a whole penalty kill—and then some—and staying strong on D the whole time.  Another was the sheer relentlessness of Fensore in overtime. Playing 3-on-3, Fensore started the period with Brown and O’Brien. He took one shift off, then was back out there with Skoog and freshman Jeremy Wilmer. Somehow he still had something left in the tank after that, because he was out there a third time with Skoog and Brown for the game-winner in the waning seconds of the five-minute frame. O’Brien was fully ready to take credit for it, too.

“Yeah, he’s my roommate, so it’s probably from all of the cooking that I’ve been doing,” O’Brien said. “That’s just giving him this this energy now. He’s our captain, he does it all. We love him. He’s just like a water bug out there. When I saw him jump out there again, I was like, ‘This guy just keeps going.’ I’m happy for him. Dom’s our leader, and he capped it off nicely tonight.”

BU now gets ready to travel to the Southwest for the Desert Hockey Classic, where they will play Air Force on Friday followed by host Arizona State or Michigan Tech on Saturday.  Then it’s back to Boston to play in their usual home rink, Agganis Arena, for a five-game homestand. 

With plenty of home cooking on the menu, Fensore and the Terriers will now set out to show that their first half was no flash in the plan. And Pandolfo will look to continue his flashbacks, hopefully with a postseason run to rival his glory years at Walter Brown Arena.



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