In the concourse above Walter Brown Arena on Saturday evening, star UConn goalie Tia Chan met with family and friends after the final game of her senior season. She held the Hockey East regular season trophy in her hands.
Eventually, she walked the hardware down the stairs and across the arena, returning to the visitor’s locker room where, moments earlier, music blared through the walls and into the empty rink.
The regular season title is going back to Storrs, Conn., a fate decided in the final period of the final game of the 2024-25 Hockey East season. The Boston University women’s hockey team, which at this time last year was playing to clinch the No. 7 seed in a 10-team conference tournament, entered this final series against the defending champions with one hand on that trophy, only for the Huskies to snatch it from their fingers.
Chan, a 22-year-old Olympian and one of the best netminders in the country, was a big reason why, making 33 saves in a game with only three non-empty net goals.
“We had all kinds of chances,” BU senior Maggie Hanzel said after the 3-1 loss, in which the Terriers outshot the Huskies, 34-21. “We just couldn’t find a way through her.”
That isn’t much for the Terriers to beat themselves up over, as Chan’s .944 save percentage ranks seventh in the country and the Huskies’ 1.7 goals-against average ranks fifth. Ditto for UConn’s game-winning goal early in the third period, when senior defender Ava Rinker went bar-down off a stupidly tight angle against senior goalie Callie Shanahan.
BU head coach Tara Watchorn was asked if the goal was a “tip your cap” moment, a tally the Terriers were powerless to stop.
In a somber tone, she deadpanned: “Yeah.”
Rinker and Chan, ultimately, were the difference on Saturday, and there’s only so much BU could’ve done about that. The Terriers finished the regular season 0-3 against the Huskies, the only Hockey East opponent BU didn’t defeat this season, and that’s the reason they aren’t regular season champs. Make no mistake: Watchorn’s group is certainly at fault for the way it played in its first two losses against UConn, especially a 4-1 shellacking at Toscano Family Ice Forum on Friday. But BU played well enough to win on Saturday — or at the very least, take the game to overtime, which is all the Terriers needed to do — taking 32 more total shot attempts than the Huskies. Watchorn said after the Friday loss she wanted to see BU establish more territorial advantage, so she was then asked postgame on Saturday what else her team needed to do to get over the hump.
“I think we got over it, to be honest,” Watchorn said. “I think we did exactly what we needed to do.”
With that context, there is little shame in Saturday’s loss, even though losing the regular season trophy undoubtedly stings. It was clear by the way BU’s bench reacted to junior Luisa Welcke’s game-tying goal late in the second period that the title meant a ton to the program. Including last Saturday’s shootout loss to UNH, the Terriers had three different chances to clinch the trophy and squandered all of them. There’s no sugarcoating that.
Then again, BU outplayed the defending champions on Saturday, and not by accident.
This was the team the Terriers have become this season. They controlled the pace of play, won the neutral zone, found sustained time in the offensive zone and killed five penalties. They proved they could do it against UConn, which is probably the best team in the conference and the one league opponent the Terriers had yet to play well against.
“We can beat any team when we play the way that we do,” Watchorn said.
And that’s coming from a second-year coach who, in her first year at the helm, coached her dormant alma mater to 14 wins and a first-round exit in the Hockey East tournament. A second-year coach who proceeded to lose seven players to the portal, including her two leading scorers. A second-year coach who took over a team that hadn’t finished in the top half of Hockey East since before the pandemic, who, in less than 24 months, now has BU finishing with 57 league points, by far the most in the program’s 20-year history.
This is more than being ahead of schedule, this is an out-of-nowhere revival that was never supposed to happen.
“It’s incredible to look back on the switch from this year to the year previous,” said Hanzel, an assistant captain. “It really falls on a lot of the girls, and the buy-in to the program. There’s so much pride in that locker room for the jersey and the program, and just leaving it in a better place. Today was a really good example of us coming together and doing anything for each other.”
Of course, BU wants its dream season to end with a trophy to show, and the Hockey East tournament is now the Terriers’ last chance to win one. But as the No. 2 seed, BU is only three wins away — two of them at home — from its first conference title in a decade and the NCAA tournament bid that comes with it.
And regular season title or not, the Terriers, demonstrably, are capable of pulling that off.
“If we play that kind of hockey,” Watchorn said on Saturday, “we’re going to be pretty happy in three weeks.”
“We found our playoff game,” she added. “Ultimately — like, yeah, we put ourselves in a position to win the regular season, and we wanted that — but more importantly, we wanted to find our playoff game. And I’m proud of that. The girls should be proud of that.”
Watchorn said after the Beanpot final loss to Northeastern in January that her message to the team was that it was a trophy BU wanted, but didn’t need. It was a comment that invited some controversy, and she was asked Saturday if she viewed the regular season title the same way.
“Yeah, and I know some people understand it when I say that, and some don’t, and we’ve had some good conversations. It’s okay if some people don’t understand it,” Watchorn said. “But when you want to win, it’s because you want to win for each other. And you know you don’t need to win to know that you’re a damn good hockey team, that you’re damn good hockey players, and that you should be proud of everything that we’ve done this season.”
She’s right. BU women’s hockey is a damn good team. And even in a losing effort, the Terriers played like it on Saturday.
“Sometimes games don’t go your way,” Watchorn said.
sorry but “And you know you don’t need to win to know that you’re a damn good hockey team” does not cut it. great that they showed improvement over last year, but win a trophy or two before you can make that claim