Countdown to Senior Night: The Sportscenter Generation

This year’s graduating class from the Boston University men’s hockey team is quite familiar with ESPN’s Sportscenter, because members of the class have been featured on it four times so far in their four years. College hockey does not get a lot of Sportscenter love (even when John Buccigross is involved), so for members of a single graduating class to appear on the iconic show multiple times is quite a feat.

As I mentioned last month, Sportscenter doesn’t have a great online video archive, so I am without video for all of one of these appearances. I have found alternative video where available.

1) Chris Higgins’ falling down goal, Beanpot semifinal versus Harvard, February 6, 2006

Chris Higgins’ goal, which was representative of this senior class’ contribution as freshmen to the 2006 Beanpot victory, was as awesome of a goal as many BU fans had seen at that time. His ability to stay with the puck despite being covered by a Harvard defensemen like hot fudge on a sundae, and make the shot as he lost his balance made this goal,make this a goal that upperclassmen show to freshman to this day to initiate them to BU hockey.  (That is if they can find it on YouTube. I am having epic YouTube fail this week.)

The play made the Sportscenter Top 10, giving Higgins the first Sportscenter Class of 2009 mention. The play itself is viewable in this YouTube clip – head to 1:25 of the video.

2) Jason Lawrence wins a hyperventilating Beanpot semifinal with a goal that was so…not like him, February 2, 2009

We’ll delve into Lawrence’s crazy career in the coming days, but one of the contributions of his that will be etched in Terrier hockey lore was this high slapper to the right of Harvard goalie Matt Hoyle to win the 2009 Beanpot semi-final with just over a minute left in the game. Even Lawrence admitted to USCHO that that shot was not his usual, and that his father always tells him to “take the high slapshot,” but he rarely does.  But this time, he did, and what resulted ended up in the Sportscenter Top 10 the same night Kobe Bryant scored 61 points at Madison Square Garden.  Because Kobe had to go score a crazy amount of points and set a MSG record, Lawrence’s game-winner kind of got forgotten about. So…

3) Lawrence goes and gets another game winner; Yip assists Bonino; Scott Van Pelt yells, “Your mom goes to college!”, February 9, 2009

So the next week, although the Beanpot final wasn’t so tight against the Northeastern Huskies as the Harvard semi-final was, Sportscenter still featured the game because it was a relatively slow sports night (save for that whole A-Rod admitting his use of performance enhancing drugs, but we all knew that was coming) and because….well, it was a slow sports night and when you can get a clear NESN feed of a hockey game involving the top 2 college hockey teams in the country, you run with it.

Despite the story being the three Terrier short-handed goals, the video highlights from the game only featured Nick Bonino’s shorty with the primary assist by senior Brandon Yip and Lawrence’s game winner, his second in two Beanpot games, which Sportscenter anlayst Scott Van Pelt inexplicably explained by yelling, “Who goes to college? Your mom goes to college!”  Yep. Because that’s hard-hitting hockey analysis right there, yelling lines from Napoleon Dynamite. This is unlike the previous two Sportscenter appearances in this list because it was not a part of the Sportscenter Top 10.

4) Lawrence’s natural hat trick gives John Buccigross something to get excited over while reading the Top 10 copy, February 27, 2009

This latest senior class Sportscenter appearance occured last Friday, as Lawrence’ s third goal of his natural hat trick against UMass Amherst made #2 of the Sportscenter Top 10. They were all amazing goals, but this third one you could watch all day. He comes blazing down the ice, nearly losing the puck before he slaps it in the right corner of the net. I thought Bucci was seriously going to pass out doing the commentary. I think he was just excited that he had three hockey mentions in the Top 10.  (You have to feel for Bucci sometimes. I think he feels hockey deprived without NHL 2Night and after having to spend a few months earlier this season without Barry Melrose around.)

It remains to be seen, of course, if there are any more Sportscenter appearances by the Terrier Class of 2009 in the future. But I think we can all safely say that college hockey is just a tad less obscure to the general viewing public today than it was four years ago thanks to the help of this Terrier senior class, and their Sportscenter appearances are to thank for that.

Terrier fans, am I missing any mentions of this senior class on Sportscenter that you all can remember? Let me hear it in the comments if I am!