March 18, 2011
Live from the Frozen Four: Cardella | Wakefield | Sperry
Redemption Song
BU Women's Ice Hockey Makes Sure A Big One Doesn't Get Away
By Scott Weighart, Special to GoTerriers.com
BOSTON - When the Boston University women's ice hockey team beat Mercyhurst on Saturday to clinch its historic first berth in the Frozen Four, the players headed to the locker room and locked arms in a circle before joining in song.
Blasting from an iPod, the tune in question was "It's All Coming Back To Me Now" by Celine Dion, a bombastic 1996 love ballad in which the French-Canadian chanteuse describes a time "When alone at last we'd count up all the chances that were lost to us forever."
It's a pretty cheesy tune, but that line might resonate with the Terriers. This year head coach Brian Durocher assembled the most talented team in the young history of the program, but up until Saturday the Terriers were like ice fishermen with tales of a couple of big ones that got away. In the Beanpot semifinal, BU dominated Boston College with a 34-14 shot total, only to lose 2-1. That meant that the program has still yet to win a Beanpot as a varsity team.
The Hockey East semifinal saw the team acting out a similar script. The Terriers got off to a roaring start against Northeastern, piling up 25 shots in the first period alone. The shot differential ended up 45-26, but the only total that counted was the 4-2 final in favor of the Huskies.
So the 4-2 victory over the Lakers--the team that ousted BU in the same quarterfinal round last season--was especially satisfying for the talented Terriers. In the biggest game of the program's history, they came up with a win. They would be able to hoist at least one banner to the rafters.
As he walked off the ice afterwards, Durocher appeared to be more relieved than thrilled. "I think that's accurate," Durocher said, shortly before the team's final practice Wednesday prior to departing for the Frozen Four in Erie, Pa. "Despite the 25 wins and the regular-season championship, I think that there was a hollow feeling around here for the team and maybe for myself, too.
"That was erased Saturday because being on center stage with the other three teams for the hockey world to see is definitely an accomplishment. You'd always love to get another championship like the Beanpot or Hockey East. I felt we played well in those games, yet there wasn't anything tangible to grab onto."
Senior Holly Lorms, captain of the Terriers, agreed. "We put the expectation on ourselves to get to the Frozen Four at the end of the year, and we ran into some speed bumps toward the end of the season. And maybe we were a little unfortunate with some games that we wanted to win in the Beanpot and with the Hockey East tournament. Last weekend was redemption for us where we knew it was do or die and that we wanted to be in Erie. To get there was definitely a monkey off our back."
The victory definitely represented redemption, but what's with Celine Dion providing the redemption song? It's not exactly as stirring a choice as, say, "Redemption Song," (written by Bob Marley, but I would favor the version by Joe Strummer of The Clash).
"It's a long love ballad from the Nineties that we started singing together at the beginning of the year," Lorms explains. "We used to do it after wins, but we kind of got away from it toward the end of the season. That song playing in the locker room after Saturday's game kind of took the pressure off us. It was `Hey, this is who we get to play hockey with every day. This is fun.' It's our song; it's our jam.
"Celine speaks to us. She's French-Canadian, and we have a couple of French-Canadians on our team. They brought it into the mix, and it caught on pretty quick. You don't play the song often--it's probably not on your iPod too often--but for whatever reason everyone knows the words. You start singing it, and you belt it, and you're terrible at singing... It just makes us laugh. Every time it comes on, we know it's us singing it and no other team can share that."
It's fitting that the off-key belting of a Celine Dion power ballad represented a return to the habits of earlier in the season, as that's been a theme for BU on the ice as well. After an 11-game unbeaten string in the fall semester as well as a 13-game winning streak from late November s through January, BU went through a very mortal 4-4-1 stretch prior to the Mercyhurst win. Injuries to freshman superstar Marie-Philip Poulin and sophomore Taylor Holze didn't help.
Fortunately, junior transfer Jenn Wakefield stayed healthy and took her performance from excellent to amazing during those injuries as well as after Poulin's return. "I feel like with both Pou and Tay out toward the end of the season, a lot of people have stepped up," Wakefield says. "I may have been the one finishing off the plays, but I've been put on a great line that has helped me have that success. With our power play, we have so many talented players that it's hard for us not to succeed in this environment."
Wakefield leads the team with exactly 32 goals in 32 games, including a whopping 10 tallies in her last six contests. "When the chips are down a little, you hope that your great players play great, and she's done that for the last month," Durocher says.
Now No. 3 BU sets its sights on No. 2 Cornell in the national semifinal. Cornell has an impressive 31-2-1 record, losing only to Mercyhurst and Dartmouth this season after reaching the national championship game last year. The Big Red has a star-studded lineup that includes nine women who have played on national teams for Canada--several of them gold medal winners for their country, just as Poulin and Catherine Ward were for the Terriers.
If that makes the Terriers a mild underdog, they're comfortable with that role. "I feel like when we have been the favorite, we maybe subconsciously have taken the team too lightly," Wakefield says.
Wakefield noted that many viewed the more tournament-tested Lakers as the favorite last weekend--even though BU was both the higher seed and the home team. "Being the underdog with Mercyhurst, we took it personally: Why are we the No. 3 seed and still being seen as the underdog against the sixth-ranked team? It's a different situation now with Cornell being 2 and us being 3, but we embrace the underdog role, and we feel we have just as talented a team as they do."
"They're definitely a good team, and we know that," agrees Lorms. "They've had a successful season and last season as well. They have quick defensemen and even quicker forwards and solid goaltending, but we have those things as well. Last weekend we were looked at as an underdog team, and this weekend we're looked at even more as an underdog. We play better when the pressure in that sense is off.
"Not a lot of people expected two Hockey East teams to be there at this point in the season, and that's a testament to us and to Boston College [which faces No. 1 Wisconsin in the other semifinal] as well. We ignored those doubters and naysayers and played for each other, and now we're sitting here knowing we can win on Friday."
"We have great respect for Cornell," Durocher says. "Being an underdog is always something that I think can be advantageous. We're not afraid of anybody; we're excited to play anybody. I felt most of the year that there were five, six, seven of us that were all pretty even, and then there was Wisconsin sitting up there on a pedestal. Until somebody can beat them and prove me wrong, I still think that's a pretty accurate statement. In one game, anybody can get a win, but Wisconsin has done it for a long time and done it grand fashion. I still put them on the top."
As for Friday night, Durocher hopes for a rerun of last weekend's showing, when BU played a gritty, defense-first game. On one shift, Poulin took two slap shots off of her legs but courageously hobbled her way through the defensive zone until the puck was clear--a great show of toughness. "The script is going to be real similar to the game on Saturday," Durocher says. "I like to think we're going to line up pretty even out there. They might have a whisker more in some areas, but I think it's close enough where it should be a good battle."
If BU wins those battles and manages to pull off a national championship this weekend, Durocher will get to hear a few more renditions of the team's adopted redemption song. For years to come, the Terrier women will hear that ballad on soft rock stations and think of a historic season, singing, "It's all coming back to me now."
