It has been a while since the University of Maine and Boston University have played a truly meaningful hockey game.
The two Hockey East rivals play regular season games every year but they will meet in the conference tournament semifinals on Friday night at 7:30 at the TD Garden in Boston.
And they could meet again in the NCAA Tournament a week later as both have sewn up spots in the big tourney.
This is a classic rivalry that has lost its luster in recent years as both programs have had their struggles, especially UMaine.
UMaine will be making its first appearance in a Hockey East semifinal and the NCAA Tournament since 2011-12.
UMaine had gone to 18 NCAA Tournaments and 11 Frozen Fours between the 1986-87 and 2011-12 seasons. UMaine won national titles in 1993 and ‘99.
Boston University won its fifth and last NCAA title in 2009 and has reached the Frozen Four just twice since then including last season. The Terriers lost to Providence in the 2015 NCAA championship game.
UMaine and BU have had some memorable games.
UMaine’s first ever game as a Division I ECAC team was on Nov. 20, 1979 when it lost at Boston University’s Walter Brown Arena 5-3. It had been a Division II team for its first two seasons.
During UMaine’s remarkable 42-1-2 season that culminated in the school’s first NCAA title during the 1992-93 season, it was BU that dealt UMaine its only loss.
The Terriers rallied from a 6-2 deficit to win 7-6 at Alfond Arena on a Mike Pomichter goal off a two-on-one rush.
UMaine got revenge when it beat BU 5-2 in the Hockey East title game later that season.
Two years later, BU got a big measure of revenge when the Terriers bested UMaine in the NCAA championship game in Providence, 6-2.
UMaine had to go three overtimes to beat Michigan in the semifinals.
Former UMaine goalie Greg Hirsch backed up Garth Snow and Mike Dunham during the 1992-93 national championship season and said BU was their biggest rival back then, not New Hampshire.
“You had two alpha head coaches in (UMaine’s) Shawn Walsh and Jack Parker who didn’t take second fiddle to anyone,” said Hirsch, who still lives in the Bangor area. “Parker ruled the roost for quite some time before Shawn came in (in 1984).
“Shawn started recruiting different areas (like western Canada) and brought in players the eastern coaches hadn’t seen before and that forced them to up their recruiting game,” said Hirsch.
He said both coaches recruited “cream of the crop talent” and there was “another level of intensity” when the two teams squared off.
“We saw them as the cocky Boston team that didn’t think anything else existed outside of Boston and we were the Evil Empire from the North,” said Hirsch.
“In the eyes of BU and Hockey East, we were the villains. Shawn Walsh was a villain. And we loved being the villains. We embraced it,” said Hirsch.
Walsh and Parker were two of the most competitive and fiery coaches in the country.
As well as being two of the most successful.
Refereeing a UMaine-BU game was a difficult challenge.
Parker once tossed water bottles and sticks onto the ice at Alfond Arena and Walsh was never shy about standing on the dasher boards to express his displeasure with a call.
But it made every UMaine-BU game special. No shortage of passion and intensity. A great source of entertainment as both loved to play an up-tempo, in-your-face style of game.
Two young coaches are behind the two benches these days.
Former BU star Jay Pandolfo is coaching his alma mater and led them to the Frozen Four a year ago.
Ben Barr, in his third season at UMaine, has transformed the Black Bears into a 23-win squad after a seven-win inaugural season.
They are two of the bright young stars in the coaching business.
The two teams played a thrilling two-game series earlier this season at Agganis Arena in Boston with BU emerging with 3-2 and 5-4 wins.
BU has a potential Hobey Baker Award winner in freshman center Macklin Celebrini and one of the nation’s best defenseman in Lane Hutson while the Nadeau brothers have given UMaine two of the most prolific freshmen in school history behind Hobey Baker Award winner Paul Kariya.
Let the rivalry continue.
