Purely on paper, the Boston University women’s hockey team travelled 3,000 miles this week to play a pair of games that don’t really matter.
The three teams that made the trip with them to the inaugural women’s Friendship Series, which begins Friday in Belfast, Northern Ireland, are all non-conference opponents. BU plays Quinnipiac on Friday (7 p.m. local, 2 p.m. ET) in the semifinal to kick off its spring semester, then either Harvard or Minnesota-Duluth on Saturday, and the only postseason implications either game provides involve NPI, the ranking system that decides the six at-large bids to the NCAA tournament.
And BU is currently 31st. Even if the Terriers win the “Belpot,” they’re still realistically too far back to contend for an at-large.
So what kind of opportunity does a tournament like this provide? Refer to the little number that’ll appear next to Quinnipiac’s name on the scoreboard Friday, and potentially Duluth on Saturday. The Bobcats are the nation’s eighth-ranked team and the Bulldogs are its seventh. For a BU team that’s 4-11-2 and has had to tell itself it’s better than its record all season, a win against either would be quite the proof of concept.
“It would just help you look past the record even more,” head coach Tara Watchorn told the Blog on Wednesday. “And knowing that it doesn’t always have to look the same every year — that we’re a good hockey team and we feel good about our progress.”
Watchorn makes a good point there, because, yes, even though this BU squad has mostly looked a shell of the one that won Hockey East last season (at this point in 2024-25, the Terriers were 11-5-1), Watchorn’s third team could still reach the exact same destination as her second. All BU has to do to defend its Bertagna Trophy is win three (or four) straight games in March. The Terriers’ record through the fall semester, whether it’s 4-11-2 or 11-5-1 or somewhere in between, will hardly be a concern come the Hockey East tournament. Regardless of the journey it took to get there, if BU plays good enough hockey at the right time, nothing else matters.
Hence why indicators of forward progress are so important. And when you remember that one of the main reasons BU’s record is so bad is because it went 0-5 against strong non-conference opponents to start the season, a victory over Quinnipiac (14-5-1) and perhaps Duluth (12-6-0) would underscore Watchorn’s point even more.
“It’s another opportunity to play some of the best,” she said. “To see if we can handle the stress better. To see if we can play a more complete game. It’s a good measuring stick to see how far we’ve come.”
Last we saw of the Terriers — in a home-and-home series at the start of December against No. 5 UConn to conclude the fall semester — they looked like a team far more capable of beating elite competition than they did at the start of the year. Before falling 3-2 in the series finale due to a last-second concession, BU tied 1-1 with the Huskies in the opener and won the shootout. Not technically a win, but senior captain Maeve Carey referred to it as a victory on Wednesday. (It’s also worth noting that last year’s team, as good as it was, lost all three meetings against UConn, so even a tie is no small thing.)
“One of the best series we’ve played,” Carey said. “To beat them in a shootout, just to beat them in general, was such a big accomplishment for the team. It’s always such a roadblock that we have, so to come out with one win was really big for us.”
The landmark result was ultimately a culmination of the very real progress BU had made in the couple weeks prior — the Terriers’ performances, both by the eye test and the numbers, in the seven games after a series split at Maine were lightyears better than in the season’s first 10 games. BU entered the winter break with legitimate momentum for the first time all season.
But there’s a long way to go until March, of course. If BU’s best remaining hope for this season is to peak at the right time, the Terriers better not lose their momentum on January 2. That’s why, even if the Friendship Series won’t affect the Hockey East standings and probably won’t matter much in NPI, BU could really use a win.
“We’re a work in progress,” Watchorn said. “But if we show up together every day and we’re willing to work for each other — I’m honestly curious to see where it goes.”
It is probably not the journey they would’ve chosen, but if these Terriers are to reach their desired destination, this is the path they’ll have to take.
Mari’s net to lose
For all the (justified) hype surrounding the addition of graduate goalie Michelle Pasiechnyk, and the understandable assumption it meant junior Mari Pietersen would once again be second choice in BU’s goal, Pietersen enters the spring semester on a run of five consecutive starts.
She’s been tremendous in those games, too, having allowed just seven total goals and boasting a .952 save percentage. She won two shootouts and recorded BU’s first shutout of the season during that stretch, in which BU went 2-1-2.
When Pietersen and Pasiechnyk were splitting the net early in the year, Watchorn implied she’d stick with whichever goalie was helping the team win. It was hard for her to do that, obviously, because BU started 2-8. But if you count the shootouts, the Terriers emerged victorious in four of Pietersen’s five starts to conclude the first semester.
A lot could have happened over the break — and Watchorn’s lineup decisions aren’t exactly easy to predict — but it’s hard to imagine No. 92 isn’t in BU’s net at SSE Arena on Friday night.
Scouting the Bobcats, Bulldogs and Crimson
Quinnipiac owns the ECAC’s best overall record but is only 5-4-1 in conference and thus fourth in the standings. But the Bobcats played each of Hockey East’s two best teams in non-conference, UConn and Northeastern, and went 3-1; they also swept Maine and Providence. They’re sixth in the country in goals per game (3.3) and tied for third in goals allowed per game (1.5).
Kahlen Lamarche has been a superstar — her 22 goals lead the country. Fellow junior forward Alex Law, a BU transfer, had five points through the season’s first five games (including a hat trick at Providence) but hasn’t played since.
Harvard, another ECAC outfit, is enjoying its best season since the Katey Stone scandal rocked the program. The Crimson went 7-48-4 in coach Laura Bellamy’s first two seasons but are 7-6-1 this season, including a win over Maine. Sophomore Ella Lucia (two goals, seven assists) leads Harvard with nine points.
Still, it’d be a seismic upset if the Crimson took down Duluth in their semifinal. The Bulldogs are a bona fide blueblood and sit fourth in the powerhouse WCHA. Forwards Thea Johansson (a senior) and Caitlin Kraemer (a sophomore) lead Duluth with 18 points each.
This story was reported from Barcelona.