Worthy Terriers crank it up to 20

By Allen Lessels, Globe Staff, 02/12/1997

The Beanpot enjoyed one of its finest hours of recent vintage on a lively Monday night in the FleetCenter, a championship game between old rivals Boston University and Boston College that packed this monument to athletic opulence to its 17,565-seat capacity.

The Terriers stormed back from a 2-0 deficit in the third period and went on to a 4-2 victory that wasn't sealed until Chris Drury's evening of frustration ended with an open-net goal with 13 seconds left. Should Drury's shot have missed, and the puck been brought back on an icing call for a faceoff in the BU zone, who knows what might have happened on this tumultuous night?

If there was concern that the Terriers (17-6-5) have made this a private rite of the season and that the new building could never capture the electricity of the old Garden that still stands next door, much of it was abated by Monday's showcase. The Eagles (11-15-3) showed up to play, and goaltender Greg Taylor seemed destined to register the first shutout of his four-year career until the Terriers roared back on goals by Dan LaCouture (1:47), Brendan Walsh (2:57) and captain Billy Pierce (11:36) to ice a third straight Beanpot, their 20th overall.

Since the BC era ended in 1965, the Beanpot count reads BU, 19 championships; Harvard, 6; Northeastern, 4; BC, 3. The Terriers showed that they can go somewhere, that they could threaten in the NCAAs. The Eagles showed they can compete with the best, and if they take it to the next step, they could earn home ice and return to the FleetCenter in mid-March fully capable of extending anybody in the Final Four to the limit.

"We're going to take a lot of positives out of the Beanpot,'' said BC coach Jerry York. "Our whole focus is on home ice. We've got quite a race for two spots.''

The Eagles (7-8-3, 17 points) are sixth in Hockey East, with third-place Maine (10-7-1, 21) ineligible pending an appeal to the NCAA. Providence (9-9-1, 19) and UMass-Lowell (9-10, 18) are just ahead of the Eagles. BU and New Hampshire are assured of home ice in the quarterfinals. The Terriers (13-2-3, 29) trail the Wildcats (16-3, 32) and end the regular season hosting the visitors from Durham March 1.

The Beanpot is past; can it be prelude?

"I don't think there's any question the Beanpot can be a catalyst for your team or it can be a demoralizing thing for your team,'' said BU coach Jack Parker.

"We've reached two major goals. We beat BC in the regular-season series and we won the Beanpot. Now it's out of the little aside to the season and back to the regular-season run to the championship. We're getting there as far as cohesiveness, team unity and team emotion and what our roles will be.''

Pierce enjoyed the moment with his teammates, but now it's back to 6:30 a.m. team runs on the Charles and the regular-season fray.

"We showed what we can do in a big championship game,'' said Pierce. "We were down, 2-0. We showed poise. Before we went out for the third, the seniors got up and said what they had to say. Chris Drury said, `You've got to remember nobody can take this away from us if we win it.' It gave us a little extra incentive.''

The Terriers, who won their sixth Beanpot title of the '90s, were beaten by the Friars in the Hockey East playoffs last year, then shut out by Michigan in the NCAAs. Big guns Mike Grier, Chris O'Sullivan, Jay Pandolfo and Bob Lachance have departed.

"We started out great last year,'' said Pierce. "Everything we did was right, but we didn't show up in the big games. We had the talent, but we didn't come together. People are saying we lost so much. We want to prove them wrong. What we lack in talent, we make up for in grit and hard work.''

BC sophomore Chris Masters, who suffered a mild concussion in a third-period collision Monday night, was released from Massachusetts General Hospital yesterday after being kept overnight for observation. Masters needed 30 stitches to close facial lacerations, but all tests on him were negative.

Bob Monahan of the Globe staff contributed to this report.