Jack Parker’s Wiseguys, page 6
In the 1960s, Parker knew of the Dugout, but it had not yet become the hockey institution it is today. “I was not a socializer there,” said Parker, who played for BU from 1965 to 1968. “We were more Harvard Square type of guys.” It was after Massachusetts lowered the drinking age to eighteen in 1973 that Terrier hockey players began tending bar at the Dugout. “They realized if they get guys [players] to come there after the games, the crowds would come after the games,” said Parker. “It was wall-to-wall people after that.”
Because of the NCAA’s prohibition on scholarship athletes working, the era of BU players tending bar at the Dugout is now over. Fans no longer feel the urge to trek the half mile from the rink to center campus, opting to hoof it a block west after games to gather at T’s Pub instead. The halcyon days of the Dugout as BU’s intimate hockey headquarters will probably never be duplicated. As Kennedy points out, “The whole team gathered in the old alehouse after games, along with the usual mix of fans, sportswriters, and assorted hangers-on. The jukebox featured ‘O Canada’ for the players who hailed from north of the border.”
The rich hockey history from 722 Commonwealth Avenue carried on for decades, with Bill Crowley Jr. picking up where his father left off. “He’s done a terrific job as the keeper of the flame,” said Corbett. “The Dugout is the crossroads of Terrier Nation, part of the fabric of the BU hockey family.”
In the 2016 hit film Manchester by the Sea, Casey Affleck’s hard-drinking blue-collar character is pictured repeatedly in his favorite gray T-shirt, “Dugout Cafe, 1934.” Considering the theatrical value that both Affleck brothers receive for being true Bostonians, associating with the Dugout is a wise choice.
In one of the classic stories from that bizarre season, this poorly lit underground bar became the 1977–78 squad’s full-time home away from home for several days. The Dugout itself became a character in a winter’s tale that will be shared Homerically for eternity.
5
FINDING THEMSELVES
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Following their demolition of Merrimack, Parker’s Terriers began their Division I schedule on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, hosting Lou Lamoriello’s always-dangerous Providence Friars. Boston University’s litany of questions would be answered during this early stretch: How would the freshmen mesh with the dominant junior class? Who would pick up the scoring void created by the graduation of Eruzione and Meagher? And, very simply, could they beat Providence? The Friars had swept last year’s season series and featured an extremely stingy goalie in sophomore Bill Milner.
Despite playing with an injury-depleted roster, Providence held a 2–1 lead late in the second period. Then Silk appeared to tie the game when he finished off a wild goal-mouth scramble. This ignited a Milner screamfest; the Friars’ goalie demanded that the goal be disallowed because of a crease violation. His protest went unheeded, and BU struck for three more goals in the final stanza, finishing off the Friars 5–2. Another BU freshman took a star’s turn, as Paul Miller knocked in the game winner. It was the Terriers’ first win over Providence since March of 1976, and it conjured up bad memories for Lamoriello. “When BU got ahead, they kept coming at us, just like they always do,” said Lamoriello. “It’s a typical BU team.”
The Terriers’ next test was up in Hanover, New Hampshire, facing Dartmouth and their rowdy student fans in Thompson Arena. This was a game in which BU’s fresh faces once again rescued the upperclassmen, and a Terrier veteran returned the favor.
A controversial incident occurred during the pregame, in which Silk obtained a DNA sample from one of Dartmouth’s most boisterous fans. Like so many other road buildings BU played in that year, Thompson Arena was a tempest of negative energy during warm-ups, with fans perched on top of the Plexiglas to make sure they could express themselves fully.
“All the Dartmouth frat boys are hanging over the glass,” said Silk. Keep in mind that the movie Animal House was in production at that moment, and director John Landis and the late writer Harold Ramis both stated that the film was based on Dartmouth College and its raucous frat party life. The undergrads hanging over the glass on that December afternoon were essentially Animal House role models. At least one had obtained a roster and done enough homework to connect names with uniform numbers of the enemy players. And they desperately sought Silk’s attention.
“We’re skating around, and the frat guys are yelling, ‘Hey Silk, hey Dave!’ And as I look up, he spits this big loogie in my face, all over me. So now I’m thinking, that son of a . . .” Rather than stop and confront this real-life Bluto Blutarsky, Silk skated a tight circle around his zone, picking up speed like a Roller Derby villain, intent on getting even for the obscene injustice. Silk arrived just prior to another DNA deposit. “As I do a loop, I see the same guy yelling, ‘Hey Fidler, Fidler! Hey Mark!’ So I sped up.” Just as young Bluto puckered up to unload on the unsuspecting Fidler, he noticed a blunt object heading his way, with evil intent. Somehow the Blutarsky wannabe was sober enough to pull a Keanu Reeves Matrix dodge to avoid the heel of Silk’s Christian Brothers stick. “He saw me coming at the last minute,” said Silk, “and ducked down so my stick broke over the glass, not over his head.” The frat party on the glass immediately broke up, sans bloodshed but not controversy. “It might have glanced him,” conceded Silk, “but it certainly didn’t hurt him.”
Silk added insult to psychic injury when he scored early at Thompson Arena, but BU had difficulty shaking the Big Green, who pounded thirty shots at BU netminder Brian Durocher. Coached by clever tactician George Crowe, Dartmouth held a 2–1 lead entering the final period. That’s when BU’s freshmen stepped up once again with the game on the line. Daryl MacLeod got the tying goal early on a feed from Billy Cotter, and then Cotter banged home the winner with helpers from classmates MacLeod and Miller. BU secured the 3–2 victory, a game that could have easily gone sideways. It was Durocher’s first Division I win of the young season, and the Terriers were ready to steal away into the frigid New Hampshire night with two valuable points. Then the long arm of the law arrived.
Silk remembers being in his birthday suit when he was alerted. “I’m in the shower, and one of the coaches says, ‘Dave, come out.’ And there’s a couple of Dartmouth cops, and they want to press charges,” said Silk. “I remember Al Sid, a friend of BU hockey, was there, and they all huddled up with Jack Parker and the coaches.”
BU radio play-by-play man Artie Moher arrived at a scene he clearly didn’t expect to see: Silk dripping wet, wearing only a towel, being questioned by men in badges. “Campus security was there,” said Moher, “and one of these kids claimed that Silk hit him with his stick. For a second we were thinking we might have to wait a little longer than we thought to get out of Hanover.” Fortunately, the Dartmouth athletic director saw what actually transpired and was a compelling witness. “Seaver Peters came down, and he pretty much put the blame on the students,” said Moher.
“There was a summit meeting outside,” said Silk. “One thing led to another, and it all went away.” After dressing, Silk was now free to get on the bus and head home with the rest of his teammates. As for his accusers? “Those knuckleheads were right out of central casting.”
There is no definitive record of Dartmouth AD Peters’ next meeting with the frat boys in question and whether or not he uttered the phrase, “Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life.”
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The first Saturday in December was a rematch of the 1977 ECAC championship between BU and the University of New Hampshire. For fans of offensive hockey, it did not disappoint. The Terriers stormed into the third period, firing a dozen shots at Wildcats goalie Greg Moffett, yet they still trailed 5–3 at home.
Team personalities are often established at the beginning of seasons. If a squad responds to adversity with a determined effort and those efforts are rewarded, confident comebacks become part of a team’s DNA. The conclusion of the BU–UNH game went a long way in determining the Terriers’ mindset the rest of the season. Despite all the frustration of being repeatedly thwarted by the UNH rookie goalie, the Terriers refused to quit, finally exploding in the game’s closing moments. Silk, MacLeod, and Bob Boileau all scored within three minutes, Jim Craig stared down some of the most dangerous snipers in Division I, and the Terriers came from behind to beat a loaded UNH squad 6–5. It was a game BU could have easily lost.
Tight defense was an afterthought, as the two teams combined to fire ninety-one shots and score eleven goals in an entertaining display of firewagon hockey. In the Terriers’ first four games, they had been involved in both tight defensive battles and blistering shootouts. In their last three, they found themselves trailing by at least a goal, yet they found a way to win each time. Winning, like losing, becomes a habit for teams. Regardless of whether or not they were clamping down defensively as most coaches prefer, BU had demonstrated a knack for winning the all-important third periods.
“As games got close, we’d start hammering guys,” said O’Callahan. “Just playing physical and then score goals—Wham! Wham! Wham! We’d be on the power play, just light it up, and the game was over. Everybody had this edge, like swashbucklers. We didn’t celebrate, we’d just sit in the locker room and say—Who’s next?”
Next up, as it turned out, was a rival school from the other side of the Charles River: Harvard. The school known derisively as “Preppy Tech” had parlayed two short-handed goals to wrest the coveted Beanpot Trophy from the paws of the Terriers last season, defeating them 4–3 in the Beanpot championship game. So it was the Crimson who owned the Hub’s hockey bragging rights when they strutted into Walter Brown Arena for a midweek clash, their first with BU since taking the precious ’Pot. Coached by Olympic legend Bill Cleary, the Crimson played like their mentor: fast, intense, but rarely chippy. Their clean play and up-tempo style never aggravated BU like some of their other rivals.
“I liked Cleary,” said Mark Fidler, “and we loved playing Harvard. There was no animosity like there was against BC.” But that past February, Harvard had stung BU when they stole the trophy BU imagined was their birthright. This was no typical early season game.
Unlike the Beanpot championship, Harvard shooters would not be facing Jim Craig because it was Durocher’s turn to start. The senior co-captain had not registered a Division I victory at home in nearly two years, so this game before the team’s holiday break represented a personal challenge to Durocher.
“Coming off a season before where I was completely lost,” said Durocher, “it was nice some big games came up on the schedule. This was important.”
Durocher’s teammates wasted no time granting him the ultimate gift—an early lead. On their opening shift, the line of Hetnik, Boileau, and John Bethel inflicted damage with their first shot. Boileau spied Bethel in the slot and slid the disk onto his blade. Bethel wasted no time depositing a twenty-foot wrist shot into the back of the Harvard net, igniting the home crowd. BU fans rarely sold out during midweek, but this BU squad was undefeated and top ranked in the country, so general hockey fans in addition to the students were now turning out. They may have been anticipating a blowout following the early strike, but the Crimson had too much skill and pride to lie down in this early season showdown.
Harvard snatched the momentum back, drawing two power plays and firing away at Durocher. Just as the second penalty expired, Durocher kicked out a slap shot by Harvard’s Bob Leckie, but the puck ended up on the stick of Crimson freshman Bob McDonald who backhanded it over the sprawling Durocher.
Three minutes later Harvard junior George Hughes made the individual play of the night while shorthanded. The Somerville product carried the puck through center ice, split two defensemen, and then drove his shot past the stunned Durocher. The buzz had left Brown Arena as the teams exited the ice for the first intermission, Harvard leading 2–1. In the BU locker room, Durocher was fighting the negative self-talk that plagued him the year before.
“Last year I lost confidence,” said Durocher. “It seemed like even if I made the right play, the puck would somehow end up in the net. I got some bad breaks.” Just like his last game against Dartmouth, Durocher was once again locked into hockey’s version of a pitcher’s duel, this time against Harvard’s John Hynes, where a soft goal could spoil BU’s perfect record heading into Christmas.
Opening the second period, BU’s dynamic defense tandem scored seventy-two seconds apart to vault the Terriers back into the lead: O’Callahan with a power play slap shot from the right point and Lamby with a scorching wrist shot. The BU fans were rocking, sensing a rout, but it was not to be. In an ugly flashback, Durocher was a victim of circumstance. Harvard freshman Rick Benson tracked down the puck in BU’s corner. Having no useful options, he wound up and fired an off-angle slap shot toward the BU goal. The puck was traveling five feet wide of its mark but glanced off the skate of BU defenseman Billy LeBlond. Bad Karma came crashing down on Durocher yet again, as the puck ricocheted behind him into the net. The game was stalemated at 3–3, and Durocher had to sweat out another tense intermission.
Three newspaper accounts from this game declared that Harvard had the better of the scoring chances in the third. The Boston Herald described Durocher corralling a “blistering drive” off the stick of Harvard’s Kevin O’Donoghue and making a “fantastic stop” off Gene Purdy flying in alone down the right wing. Neither Hynes nor Durocher would blink, and after a full period of scoreless hockey Dave Silk drew an interference penalty against Harvard.
The manpower advantage finally gave BU enough elbowroom to operate, and they only needed nine seconds to draw blood. Fidler won the draw back to Lamby at the blue line along the boards. He rifled a pass to O’Callahan dead center in front of the Harvard net and fired a sixty footer that caught Hynes’ pad. The rebound came to Bethel, who evaluated his situation with Jason Bourne-like efficiency. “I saw Silk blocking the defenseman,” said Bethel, who kept his feet moving. “I wheeled to the right and put it over the goalie’s left shoulder.”
Durocher remained steadfast in the closing minutes, and BU left the ice to a standing ovation with their scintillating 4–3 victory. This was their last game for three weeks, and every fan would crow about this exciting contest to their friends. Parker did not hesitate to laud his co-captain, who finished his gutty effort with thirty-three saves. “Brian has come back strong,” said Parker. “Both he and Jim Craig are playing well. I can’t choose between them.”
Offensive hero Bethel spoke for all his teammates. “You’ve got to give Durocher credit,” said Bethel. “He came back after the car crash. He wants to play so bad—he’s an inspiration.”
So much had changed for Brian Durocher in two years: a nightmarish season followed by a near fatal car wreck, and now a return to his winning ways. This defeat of Beanpot rival Harvard was his third win of the young season, one more than his total from the year before. Durocher got right to the point in the postgame. “I’m happy I’ve got it back.”
Going into their exam and holiday break, the Terriers were riding high: sitting atop the national polls, an undefeated record, and a happy co-captain between the pipes. They had acquired the habit of winning, and though they were not a star-laden team, there was growing optimism that this BU club could become another national contender for Jackie Parker.
6
WISEGUYS
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Prior to the 1977–78 season, Jack Parker’s teams always maintained a balance between Boston city kids and country boys from Canada. The coach made a point of integrating the two camps. “Parker put Bethel with me, and he put this other Montreal kid (Bob) Boileau with Marc Hetnik, who’s from Brookline,” said O’Callahan, the co-captain and voice of that squad. “Parker’s trying to get Canadian kids sort of camping with local kids, which worked out great. We’re all still pretty good friends, the four of us.”
But the fall of 1977 saw a large departure of Canadian seniors who were replaced by six Boston freshmen, each with extra-large personalities and fierce independence. That carefully cultivated balance between city and country had swung decidedly towards the urban. Fortunately for BU, Parker had serious street credibility to counter whatever problems may have arisen from having a team full of Boston know-it-all’s.
“I knew I had some in-town wiseguys,” said Parker. “Guys that were a little too worldly, who thought they had all the answers, thinking they were cooler than the average Joe. But it didn’t seem like a challenge.” On this topic, Parker maintains that BU, like every other major hockey program, had a diverse range of player attitudes. “You get guys that are dead serious about school, getting in shape, and getting ready for the next game. And then there’s guys that think it’s party central, you know, guys that the minute the game is over are like—Let’s go have a few beers. And there’s the kids in between.”
Parker’s background as a city kid growing up in Somerville, a few blocks from Winter Hill, allowed him to keep one step ahead of his in-town guys. “He’s got tremendous bullshit detection,” said O’Callahan, a Charlestown product who knew the streets as well as anyone on the team. “He’s very intuitive; he understands people.”
Parker was willing to balance his players’ needs to blow off steam and his own need for structure. He laughs about 1976 New Year’s Eve in New York City, when his team was staying at a midtown hotel for the annual ECAC Holiday Festival at Madison Square Garden. He allowed his players to head over to Times Square for the dropping of the New Year’s ball, under the condition that they would be back in their rooms by 12:30. “I had a few problems with Silky,” said Parker with a smile. Parker, never a deep sleeper, was relentless with his bed checks. Not surprisingly, a few of his players succumbed to Gotham’s sirens and missed the curfew. Several players failed to respond to his door knocks, so Parker camped out at the elevator.
