Women’s Hockey: Terriers to open season with two games against New Hampshire
By Bobby Serafin
In just a few short hours, Boston University’s women’s hockey team will begin its season. With fans returning to the stands for the first time in over a year, the appreciation of having winter sports is higher than ever.
This Terrier group is looking to build off a 2-0 win over Holy Cross in an exhibition at Walter Brown Arena last Saturday, with both goals coming within 1:08 of each other in the heat of the third period.
BU loses five seniors from last year’s class, but none more important than team captain and leading scorer Jesse Compher, who played for team USA in the women’s hockey championship over the summer and helped them reach the gold medal match. Compher compiled 11 points (4g, 7a) in a shortened nine game season last year. As a result, Compher earned Hockey East Second Team All-Star recognition and will leave a massive hole for her fellow Terriers to fill.
One of the skaters that hopes to help fill that void is senior Courtney Correia, who finished as BU’s second leading scorer last season with two goals and six assists, and will provide plenty of leadership to help guide this team. Also back for her senior season is recently-named captain Kaleigh Donnelly, who posted a goal and an assist in 12 contests last season.
“[Donnelly] was one of those kids, who was a mature kid and wasn’t spending all her time with just one person or one group of people, but really sort of gravitated to the whole team,” Durocher said. “I think last year as an underclassman, while she took a little bit of a lesser role, maybe out of respect for the older players, she learned and she contributed.
“This year the team felt like she was the hands down, top person to be a captain.”
There are plenty of fresh faces entering the Terrier lineup, as the team welcomes six freshman, including 5-foot-10 goaltender Callie Shanahan, who hopes to make a big impact in the crease this season. It’ll be tough for her to earn time in the net because one of the strong suits for BU last was their goaltending, where rising senior Kate Stuart plans to continue from where she left on last season. In a small sample size of five games last year, the British Columbia native put up a whopping .942 save percentage. Look for her to be a mainstay in the crease as the Terriers look to improve from a modest 6-6-0 (6-5-0 HE) in the COVID-shortened 2020-2021 season. On her career at BU, the senior has a .941 save percentage and a 1.66 goals-against average.
However, Stuart will be unavailable this weekend due to injury. She is week-to-week, according to the team.
“More than likely, she’ll be ready go the following weekend and hopefully in good order,” Durocher said.
The Terrier bench boss also said senior Nicole McGuigan and Shanahan will see action this weekend in Stuart’s absence.
There are also fresh faces behind the bench as former assistant coaches Tara Watchorn and Liz Keady Norton accepted head coaching positions at Stonehill College and Dartmouth College, respectively. As a result the Terriers bring in Kerstin Matthews and Mollie Fitzpatrick to the coaching staff.
“Structurally, we’ll do things the way we did before, where Kirsten will take the forwards and Mollie the defense, and if I’m lucky I’ll get the call to timeouts,” Durocher said. “They’re professionals and everybody’s going to be aided by their knowledge, experience and expertise.”
BU will play its season opener in Durham, N.H., where they will try to silence the University of New Hampshire Wildcats and their crowd. The Wildcats are trying to build on last season’s up and down journey, which saw them finish with a record of 7-14-1.
They’re always a well-organized team and a well-coached team,” Durocher said. “I think they’ve got real experience in goal [with Ava Boutilier]. So that’s a good place to start.”
Although the Wildcats graduated four players off their roster last season, none were among the team’s top five point producers. The leader of the young team is sophomore Nicole Kelly who led the team in points as a freshman last year with a stat line of five goals and nine assists for 14 points in 22 games.
“I think of Nicole Kelly as being one of those bellringers, even though she’s a young kid,” Durocher said. “She had a great freshman year last year, and besides having talent, she’s also one of those ultra competitive kids, who make makes it hard to play against her both offensively and defensively.”
Puck drop is slated for 6 p.m. on Friday before the Terriers return home to Walter Brown Arena for a 2 p.m. start on Saturday.
Featured Image: Kaleigh Donnelly (12) celebrates a goal against Merrimack College at Walter Brown Arena last season. Photo by Patrick Donnelly.
Patrick Donnelly contributed to this article.