More than anything else, Jay Pandolfo remembers the bus ride back to Boston.
It was only a quick trek up from Providence, where the 1994-95 Boston University men’s hockey team dispatched Maine, 6-2, to win the national title, but it was more than enough time for Pandolfo and Co. to bask in the glory.
Songs were chanted in unison, and laughs and smiles were infectious.
“It was so fun,” Pandolfo recalled. “It’s one of the memories I have even more than the celebration on the ice, was just that bus ride back to Boston.”
Pandolfo’s teammate, best friend and captain, Jacques Joubert, cracked a smile the moment ‘bus ride’ was mentioned.
“It was just a sense of happiness, togetherness and accomplishment,” said Joubert, who tallied 29 goals and 52 points that year. “That bus ride home was such a relief but also just such a sense of gratitude that we were able to get over the hump and win the game.”
30 years later, with Pandolfo at the helm, the Terriers are just one win from that elusive feeling.
BU will skate for the program’s sixth national title Saturday night against Western Michigan, but what qualities defined the school’s previous champions?
Members of all five BU national championship teams offered their take.
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Don ‘Toot’ Cahoon was part of three of those teams — as a player in 1970-71 and 1971-72, and as an assistant coach in 1977-78.
“Jack Parker and Jack Kelley would be the first to tell you, talent matters,” Cahoon said. “But it’s a lot more than that. It’s the coming together of the talent that’s in the locker room and the personalities of the people that are in the locker room.”
The talent was very present on those early 70s championship teams. The Terriers compiled a 28-2-1 record in ‘71, then followed it up with a 26-4-1 mark in ‘72. Both years, BU’s power play hovered around 42%.
But Cahoon maintains that it was the bond in the locker room that pushed those teams over the hump, compared to other talented BU teams of the era that didn’t win it all.
A longtime head coach at Princeton (1991-2000) and UMass (2000-2012), Cahoon also noted how the responsibility falls on the coach to “put it all together.” Cahoon revered Kelley (1962-72) and Parker (1973-2013) for their abilities to do so, and he said he believes Pandolfo shares the same ability to get the most of his players.
To Cahoon, though, the most important thing the Terriers can do before puck drop is to “have a genuine belly laugh.”
It’s a message he gave the ‘78 team before the national championship as an assistant, and a mentality he held throughout his coaching career.
“They’ve got to find a belly laugh to take a lot of the nerves and tension away,” Cahoon said. “But then they have to go right back to business and be as good as they can be.”
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To 1977-78 champion John Bethel, the secret to success is simple.
“Confidence,” Bethel said, “is the key part.”
That attribute willed his Terriers to a 30-2-0 record, Beanpot title, ECAC title and national championship. And with more than half of BU’s roster bound for a pro hockey career, it would have been hard not to be confident.
“We just believed in ourselves and we knew, no matter what the score was, that we could come back and beat the other team,” said Bethel, who scored 63 points as a junior forward that year. “We never gave up.”
This year’s group does not have the same dominant track record to lean on, but Bethel said he still believes the Terriers are “in position to win this thing.”
“They don’t become unhinged,” Bethel said in the lobby of BU’s team hotel in St. Louis Saturday afternoon. “Obviously, their goaltender is excellent. That’s a huge part of the team, but they move the puck well, and they’re playing very well-positioned hockey.”
The make or break factor in the national title game, according to Bethel, will be confidence. The 1978 team was marked by its constant faith that it could win any game it played. If the Terriers can play with that sort of belief, Bethel foresees a championship.
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Joubert, from the ‘95 team, harped on the importance of having a team that’s “accountable to each other and relies on each other.”
“You need a team that’s really willing to do all the small things for the sake of the team,” Joubert said. “That stuff, if you can do it for the whole game and get those bounces and good goaltending, you can really differentiate.”
Joubert said he has seen those qualities in this year’s group, even if the group has been inconsistent throughout much of the season. But as he’s seen the team rattle off complete performances through the NCAA Tournament, he’s grown more confident in BU’s ability to come through on the biggest stage of all.
The key, Joubert said, is to appreciate the moment and stay as calm as possible. He hopes BU’s experience in the Frozen Four can help with that.
“It is a big moment, but you have to try to just stay calm and not let the magnitude of the moment get to you,” said Joubert. “It’s easier said than done, these are 18-23 year old kids, but it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
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2008-09 star defenseman Matt Gilroy shared similar sentiments, but emphasized that buy-in is the key component to any title team.
The ‘09 group was remarkably balanced, and rolled through the regular season in a far smoother fashion than this year’s team. Nonetheless, Gilroy said this season’s Terriers have everything necessary for a national title — goaltending, size and skill.
Gilroy said Pandolfo is uniquely positioned to garner buy-in from his team given the coach’s resume — a national title as a player at BU, a long NHL career with multiple Stanley Cups, a stint as an assistant coach in the NHL.
“You look back at where he’s from, it’s a lot easier for kids to realize that, ‘Yeah, this guy gets it.’” Gilroy said. “He lived it, and now he’s preaching it.”
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Even after a season full of ups and downs, everyone around the program — players, coaches, alumni — seems to have faith that this year’s team embodies the qualities that define a winner.
If the Terriers do defeat Western Michigan and bring home the title, their legacy won’t be remembered as a truly dominant team. This group had a far worse regular season record than any of the program’s other national title teams, all of which were heavy favorites to win it all throughout the season.
This would be different. It would be a somewhat unexpected title, even if the Terriers are stocked with talent and began the season at No. 3 in the national poll.
But season-long dominance has never been a requirement of a national title. And if BU wins one more game, nothing that happened in November or December or January will matter on the euphoric bus ride home.
