At the end of a semester full of catharsis, statements and sheer elation, what Boston University women’s hockey did during its lowest point says more than anything else.
You see, BU wasn’t really moved by its 8-1 (yes, 8-1) loss to Princeton last Wednesday.
Which is kind of remarkable, given it was only the program’s worst loss — by final margin and goals conceded — since November 7, 2015. That’s 3,308 days. Not just a dud, an outright embarrassment, in the final game of BU’s stay in fancy Agganis Arena, no less. Even worse: this was immediately after the peak of this dream season — a suffocation of arch-rival Boston College which stood to prove, once and for all, that BU was legit. That felt like the program’s biggest win in years … and BU proceeded to get detonated by an unranked opponent a week later.
Balloon pop? Crash to earth? Same old BU? Pick your cliche.
Yet there was head coach Tara Watchorn in her midweek video call this Wednesday, smiling and saying of the loss: “Cool problem to have.”
No. 13 BU knows it’s good. There has been and likely will continue to be some external doubt about these Terriers — that’s just how it goes when a team that finished seventh in Hockey East last year is suddenly leading the conference after 13 league games. But in a locker room, context matters only so much as a team allows it to, and clearly, the Cinderella perception is of little interest to these Terriers. After all, they were talking about National Championship aspirations before they even started winning games this season.
Point is — even if it’s experiencing all of this for the first time, BU isn’t about to panic after one loss.
That was again the story this week, and it ended with a 3-1 rebound victory over Maine at Alfond Arena on Friday night in BU’s final outing before the winter break. The date with the Black Bears (3-15-0, third-last in HE) in Orono, a four-hour bus ride away, had trap game potential — assistant coach Megan Myers even admitted postgame her players were “not really excited for this road trip.” Still, the Terriers (11-5-1, 9-2-1 HE) squeaked out the victory in the way they have all season. They rode excellent play from their defensive core, stalwart goaltending from senior Callie Shanahan, and resourceful goals from anywhere on the line chart, this time courtesy of graduate defender Tamara Giaquinto and junior forward Riley Walsh.
BU simply got back to what it does best, as if that worst-loss-in-almost-a-decade thing had never happened.
“The togetherness this team already has,” Meyers said, “is so fun to watch.”
If you dug a little deeper into the 8-1 loss to Tigers, you’d certainly find evidence it was a fluke. The Terriers lost by seven, yet somehow outshot their opponent, 45-32. It was the most shots on goal BU had recorded all year, and Watchorn even said of her team’s performance in the offensive zone: “We looked better than we probably ever have in some moments.”
She chalked up the loss to “a lot of inconsistencies, a lot of subtle breakdowns,” for which Princeton (second in the country with 5.2 goals per game) made BU pay.
“We’ve definitely played worse, I like to think,” Watchorn said. “There wasn’t any dramatic breakdowns with our environment, our professionalism, our culture.”
So it wasn’t that bad?
“I don’t think so,” Watchorn assured.
The Blog asked Watchorn how her players handled the loss as it was happening, specifically late in the third period, as BU was trailing 7-1. There was a specific moment when the ESPN+ broadcast panned to the Terriers’ bench during a media timeout, showing Watchorn deep in an explanation of something, with the whole group listening. She wasn’t yelling.
“Funny enough, I found in the third period, we just got curious about what we can create. We were able to talk hockey a lot and talk strategy, and they were present,” Watchorn said. “You get to a point where it’s like ‘Alright, we’re just gonna go play the way we know we can play. We know we’re not playing horrible, we don’t necessarily know why [we’re losing] yet, but we’ll figure that out long-term.”
As for how BU dealt with the loss after the fact, Watchorn’s answer was a metaphorical shrug.
“Did our normal debrief to start the week and just kind of got back to work,” she said.
And really, should we have expected anything else? Back in mid-October, before it had any proof of concept, BU got dominated by crosstown-rival Northeastern, listened to Watchorn rip into the effort after the game, then turned around in less than 24 hours and won the series finale, 4-0. In the series with BC, the Terriers lost an overtime heartbreaker to their arch-enemy in front of a record-breaking home crowd, then allowed eight shots on goal the next day in a dominant win.
If you want to talk about “culture,” and whatever it means: that’s culture.
“There’s tons of belief in this locker room,” Meyers said. “We have trust building between us, the communication is flying.”
They are still but a semester into this thing. Daunting challenges await in 2025 — games bigger than any they’ve played so far, with trophies they’ve yet to win on the line. However this season is ultimately remembered, it will be decided in the spring.
But now that it’s over, let the story of the fall semester be this:
Boston University women’s hockey is a good team, because Boston University women’s hockey acts like one.
More reading on BU women’s hockey:
Blame me – I went to the NU, BC, and Princeton game – all losses