Matt Woolverton
THE DAY STARTS EARLY for Luisa and Lilli Welcke in their hometown of Heidelberg, Germany. The pair, known to most as “the Welckes” or the “Welcke twins,” are adventurous, and so is Riley Walsh. They’d rather do it than just talk about it.
Little did Walsh know what she was getting into.
She accompanied the Welckes to Germany for 10 days in the summer of 2024. She’d never been but was thrilled to go. Each morning at the ripe hour of 8 a.m., the Welckes would wake Walsh up to go on a hike or a long bike ride.
Her favorite experience of the trip? A hike, but not just any old trail hike. “It’s like 3,000 stairs — straight up,” she said.
What Walsh was referring to is the Himmelsleiter, which translates to “ladder to heaven.” It’s not really a tourist attraction, according to Lilli; it’s more of a historic site that locals take advantage of. The Himmelsleiter is steep. It ascends from the Heidelberg Castle to the summit of Königstuhl mountain — the tallest peak in the Odenwald forest with an elevation of 1,863 feet — which offers gorgeous views of the town.
“It was great,” Walsh said. “And then I made a joke. I was like, ‘For our exercise tomorrow, let’s do the stairs again.’”
The twins burst out laughing as they all stood above the ice at Walter Brown Arena during an interview with the Boston Hockey Blog. Walsh also couldn’t help but laugh at herself in hindsight.
The next morning, Walsh was woken up to do it all over again.
Her hometown, Duxbury, Mass., was much easier to show Luisa and Lilli than Heidelberg was to her. It’s more than 3,600 miles closer to BU. The Welckes made the short trip before Walsh went to Germany.
Walsh decided to take them to dig for clams.
“My dad has his clamming license. He took us out in the mud flats, and we were just digging in mud for clams,” she said.
Asked which experience they liked more, clamming or climbing the ladder to heaven, the Welckes, without hesitation, chose the Himmelsleiter. Even Walsh reluctantly agreed.
JUST SIX WEEKS before their trip to Germany, Luisa and Lilli were meeting Walsh for the first time. She’d just arrived at Boston University after transferring in from Union in Schenectady, N.Y. The three were roomed together for the summer session.
“They were really fast friends when Riley first got on campus,” head coach Tara Watchorn said.
They instantly clicked with one another and did everything together. This was important for the Welckes to do, as they were once Walsh, having transferred in from Maine ahead of the 2023-24 season. “We went through the same experience,” Luisa said.
“We tried to handle the transition because we know what worked for us,” she added.
They all have the same interests, and they love Boston. Whether it’s exploring places they’ve never been to or cooking in their dorm kitchen, expect to see them together.
They love scootering to the North End and rollerblading to Newbury Street and Cambridge. But above all, they share an intense love of coffee. Luisa and Lilli even have their own “coffee shop” in their apartment, named “The Welcke Kitchen.”
“This is so much information!” Lilli interjected, bursting out laughing.
When Lakon Paris Patisserie opened up its location in Boston’s Seaport District in the fall of 2024, they had to try it. The three waited in line for an hour.
“It was freezing cold,” Luisa recalled.
“It was a nice fall Sunday,” Walsh chimed in.
“Wasn’t that when Charlie McAvoy was in front of us in line?” Lilli added.
The “triplets,” or the “three W’s,” as some quickly referred to them, decided to walk back to BU from the Seaport District. The walk took all morning, as they made a stop or two at the Boston Common.
That wasn’t the only time they ran into a Boston Bruin. The place that Luisa, Lilli, and Walsh bonded the most over that first summer was the Nuts Factory. They had one goal: try every single flavor of nut, of which there are over 100.
“We walked out after stuffing our faces,” Walsh said as she tried to keep a straight face. “Lilli goes, ‘Oh my god, that was [David] Pastrňák.’” Having grown up in Massachusetts, Pastrňák was a favorite of hers.
“So I’m shaking,” she continued as the Welckes couldn’t help but laugh. “I turn around and I have my bag nuts in my hand. I turn around so fast. I’m like, “Pastrňák!’ We got a photo with him — it was so fun.”
THE DEEP CONNECTION the “triplets” have with one another extends to the ice. Their on-ice chemistry dates back to Riley’s first appearance in the Scarlet and White, an exhibition against the Canadian university Concordia on Sep. 20, 2024. Lilli centered Luisa on the left wing with Walsh on the right. While all three of them weren’t consistently on the same line all season, anytime Watchorn felt the Terriers needed a spark of offense, she knew where to go.
As a player, Walsh is a perfect complement to the Welckes. Luisa and Lilli are excellent creators of offense. They’re fast, flashy, and dynamic. On the other hand, Walsh brings the grit and does the dirty work.
“The Welckes are great at possession. They wear teams down offensively, they get teams tired by just how good their puck movement is,” assistant coach Megan Myers said. “Then, as soon as the Welckes shoot the puck, maybe it gets saved or goes to the corner, Riley’s on it, on the hunt. They really just wear teams down.”
Separately from Walsh, Luisa and Lilli are a handful for any opponent. They can see things on the ice that no one else can, and having played together for their entire lives, they always know each other’s next move. What’s increasingly scary for the opposition is that at this point, they all — Walsh included — know each other’s next move. Walsh is a great communicator, according to Myers, and that’s a big reason why.
“We know where each other are going to be,” Riley said. “We all write up the same plays in our minds and speak about it before we go out for our next shift.”
Ask anyone on the team about the “three W’s,” and they’ll tell you just how special their connection is.
“Honestly,” sophomore defender Keira Healey said, “their dynamic is unreal. I’ve never seen three people click so well together.”
Editor’s note: This story is part of the Daily Free Press’ annual Hockey Issue. Physical copies are available around campus starting Friday, October 3rd and will be handed out at both the men’s and women’s home openers.