The Black Bears huddle around Albin Boija’s net before Sunday’s loss at BC. (Photo courtesy of Meg Kelly.)

After a disappointing and humbling sweep at the hands of the #2 nationally ranked Boston College Eagles last weekend, the #7 Maine Black Bears are hopping right back in the saddle. They’re set to do battle with another Commonwealth Avenue foe, long-time rival the #11 Boston University Terriers, at Alfond Arena on Friday and Saturday night.

While the Black Bears’ first two losses of the season were a sucker punch to the team and fans alike, they do come with a silver lining. They provide a clear picture of Maine’s shortcomings and deficiencies, which could prove invaluable as the Black Bears strive to raise themselves to the next level.

“You have to take it as a learning experience,” senior defenseman David Breazeale said. “It was a great opportunity this past weekend to play against a really good team and a good benchmark for us to recognize where we are and where we need to go to get where we want to be.”

Maine is hoping that the idiom: ‘take one step back to take two steps forward’ will ring true.

What went wrong in Chestnut Hill?

Friday evening’s gut-wrenching loss, which saw Maine squander a third-period two-goal lead before being held scoreless for the first time this season on Sunday afternoon, showed that the Black Bears’ biggest strength, their culture, still needs to be improved.

The Black Bears pride themselves on their mental fortitude, but at Boston College, the moment — a marquee top-five showdown — looked to have gotten too big for many of Maine’s players.

“We have some work to do on ourselves; we’re not talking about this player or that player; it’s the culture as a whole that is not where it needs to be to go in there and win a game or two against a really good team on the road, right now. That was disappointing, and that’s not because our guys don’t work hard; it’s a mentality that we need to change,” Head Coach Ben Barr said on the Black Bear Coaches Show. “We had probably a handful of guys each night that were a little overwhelmed, and that’s a mental thing, not a physical thing. That’s why we need to keep working on our culture.”

In the national spotlight against BC, the Black Bears looked as though they were gripping their sticks too tight, lacking the composure to execute in the games’ crucial moments.

Maine was unable to capitalize on any of the five full or partial breakaway opportunities they had last weekend, as well as a grade-A 3-on-1 golden scoring chance Sunday afternoon. Meanwhile, Boston College’s best players stepped up in the moments that mattered the most, while Maine’s could not.

“We were deficient in certain circumstances where big-time players come up big, and their big-time players showed up,” Barr said after Tuesday’s practice.

It wasn’t just in front of Boston College’s net where Maine’s offense failed to execute. In all areas of the ice, the Black Bears struggled to maintain possession of the puck and produce something productive with it, which, against an offensive-minded team like BC, was a recipe for disaster. The stakes this weekend won’t be any different against another offensive juggernaut in BU.

“Puck possession is going to be key again this weekend. That was where we really failed last weekend. It’s where we gave so many pucks back to them that were on our tape. We panicked with it, we didn’t want it on our tape, we stopped our feet moving, turned pucks over,” Barr said.

While last weekend’s results will still have the Black Bears licking their wounds, Maine has the wonderful opportunity this weekend to get right back on the horse and right their wrongs, with very few more meaningful opponents to do this against than their century-old rival, Boston University.

“That’s kind of the beauty of sports sometimes: you get knocked down; how fast can you get back up and figure it out again?” Barr said.

A rivalry 100 years in the making

The Black Bears and Terriers first faced off on February 2nd, 1924, outdoors at Alumni Field Rink, now the Alfond Sports Stadium, the football stadium across from Alfond Arena.

In the rivalry’s inaugural game in Maine’s second-ever season, the Black Bears won 4-2 under Head Coach Stanley Wallace, who led Maine to a 4-8 record that season. The Maine hockey program would disband after the season’s end, not returning until 1977 as a Division II program before going D-1 in 1979. Meanwhile, Boston University’s program would remain intact, winning two National Championships, while the University of Maine sat without a hockey team.

The Black Bears and Terriers have played in many memorable games during their 146 meetings.

The rivalry reached fever-pitch in the late 80s and continued to boil throughout the 90s, with both programs battling head to head for the highest honors in college hockey, each spearheaded by the fiery personalities of their legendary head coaches, Maine’s Shawn Walsh and BU’s Jack Parker.

“Those two were always butting heads about one thing or another, and that’s when that all began: in the late eighties and early nineties. It was some great competition, great fun,” Jack Loftus, a Maine season-ticket holder since 1983, said. “I think Shawn really found a soft spot in Maine fans; he created this bitter, very bitter rivalry. Both coaches fed into it.”

While younger generations of Maine fans might consider UNH as Maine’s primary rival, for Loftus and many of the original fanbase, the age-old enemy has always been Boston University. This was due in large part to UNH’s lack of success until the mid-to-late 90s compared to the Terriers and Black Bears, who were constantly battling head-to-head for championships.

“Beating UNH to me is like beating your sister. I don’t see anything great about beating  UNH. You beat BU, and you’ve beaten a great team and a good program. That is still instilled in people who were there during that era,” Loftus said.

Similar sentiments were felt from a Terrier perspective.

“It was a lot of fun playing Maine back in the early to mid-nineties. Both programs were pretty strong at that point. At that point when I was at BU, BC was down a little bit, so Maine was probably our bigger rivalry for us at that point,” said Boston University Head Coach Jay Pandolfo, who played for the Terriers from 1992-1996.

In late February of 1993 at Alfond Arena, the Terriers handed the Black Bears their only loss of the season. Maine was up 6-2 in the second period but eventually fell in overtime, 7-6, when BU’s Mike Prendergast netted a cross-crease pass past goaltender Mike Dunham. It was the Black Bears' first loss at the Alfond in over three years.

“It’s not how hard you fall; it’s how quick you get up,” Coach Walsh told his team after that game. Words that are once again being uttered by a different Black Bear head coach 31 years later in that very same dressing room.

The next night, the Black Bears snarled to a 6-1 thumping over the Terriers, with Chris Immes blasting home an early slapshot to open the scoring early in the game. Freshman forward Chirs Ferraro would score, as would sophomore defenseman Dave Maclssac. Meanwhile, goaltender Garth Snow closed the door on the BU offense, making 22 saves as the victory earned Maine their second-straight Hockey East Regular Season Championship.

A month later, Maine would become 1993’s Hockey East Tournament Champions with a 5-2 win over the Terriers at the Boston Garden, where up-stepped Black Bears captain Jim Montgomery to score twice. Montgomery’s first goal was an unbelievable individual coast-to-coast effort in which the Montreal native danced through the Terriers' defense in the first period.  Montgomery’s second goal came from a Chris Immes pass on a quick developing play that the current Boston Bruins head coach stuffed into the back of the net on a slick forehand to backhand move in the third period. Meanwhile, fellow Quebecois Mike Latendresse scored the Black Bear’s championship-winning goal, while Garth Snow stood tall in Maine’s net, stopping 28 BU shots to seal out Maine’s second-consecutive Hockey East Championship. At the time, Maine was the only team to have ever done so.

Those Black Bears would go on to win the program’s first National Championship a few weeks later in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Maine defeated Michigan in overtime during the Frozen Four semifinals before clinching the championship 5-4 over Lake Superior State.

While 1993 was the only time the Black Bears and Terriers faced off in a championship game, they have played in six Hockey East semifinal contests, with the Black Bears winning five of the six meetings at the Garden in Boston, their only loss coming last season. Maine defeated BU in the semifinals in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2010, and 2012, going on to win the Championship game the next night in 2000 and 2004.

The Terriers and Black Bears faced off in the 1995 National Championship game in Providence, Rhode Island, with BU skating to a 6-2 win.

The only other time Maine and BU have played in the big dance of the National Tournament was in 2002, when the Black Bears sealed their third trip to the Frozen Four in four seasons during Tim Whitehead’s first year in charge of the program. Playing in Worcester, Massachusetts, Maine’s Róbert Liščák opened the scoring early in the first period only for BU’s Mike Pandolfo, the younger brother of current Terrier Head Coach Jay Pandolfo, to knot the game at even just minutes later. Junior forward Lucas Lawson would end up tallying three points in the game for the Black Bears, including scoring twice in a back-and-forth third period. Maine’s freshman forward Colin Shields scored the game-winning goal late in the period, sending the Black Bears to the Frozen Four.

Maine would end up defeating New Hampshire in the semifinal but fell to Minnesota in the National Championship game in overtime after the Golden Gophers evened up the contest with only one minute remaining in the third.

On January 24th, 2004, the Black Bears and Terriers would set an all-time record for most penalty minutes in a game (268) after a 1-0 BU victory resulted in an on-ice melee. The record still stands in the men’s game to this day.

Longtime Maine season ticket holder Loftus recalled a memorable incident that took place that night between Terrier Coach Parker and the frenzied Alfond crowd incensed about officiating during an on-ice skirmish.

“During that melee, Parker picked up a water bottle and threw it out on the ice while one of his assistant coaches was trying to climb over the glass in order to get after a guy in our section, that was section D now. And so he’s trying to climb over the glass to get at this guy, another coach was hooking him by the belt trying to pull him down, and all hell was breaking loose,” Loftus said.

The next night, all the players and coaches from each team were permitted to return, except for the particular official with whom Parker was incensed, who was mysteriously replaced for the second game. Years later, Loftus had the chance to catch up with Parker and ask him about the events that led to the change in officials.

“I said, ‘Did you have anything to do with that?’ And [Parker] grinned and said, ‘I hope so.’ Us Maine fans always thought it was the Boston Boys Club with the officials and the Boston teams,” Loftus said.

Maine and BU last faced off at TD Garden, where the Terriers got the better of the Black Bears 4-1.

A much needed Black Bear bounceback

Last season, in all three of the Black Bears’ matchups against the Terriers, twice at Agganis Arena in November and then in the Hockey East semifinal at TD Garden in March, Maine more than held their own against a BU team oozing with high-end talent. That year, Boston University had fourteen players on their roster having been drafted into the NHL, with that upcoming draft’s first overall pick Macklin Celebrini also playing for the Terriers. Meanwhile, Maine had just one player drafted, Bradly Nadeau.

The on-paper differences aside, the Black Bears showed a great account of themselves in all three games, although falling 3-2, 5-4, and 4-1, respectively. Maine gave the Terriers everything they could handle, especially when playing 5-on-5, but they just couldn’t put together the complete performance needed to beat a team as good as BU was that year.

The difference-maker was BU’s highly-skilled power play, which ruthlessly executed every time Maine made a mistake. Six of BU’s twelve goals against the Black Bears last season came on the power play.

“You want to stay out of the box for sure. You don’t want to give their players time and space, and on the power play, that’s what happens. They can build a lot of confidence through the power play if they are scoring goals,” Breazeale said.

Breazeale, like many of Maine’s players from last season, has been patiently waiting months since the loss to BU at the Garden, eagerly anticipating the chance for redemption.

Obviously, [it left] a sour taste in our mouths from last year. It was a bummer. It felt like we played a good game, and they got us in a big semi. We’ve definitely been looking forward to playing them again,” Breazeale said.

Barr, on the other hand, is more interested in changing the tide of the rivalry, which has been quite one-sided under his tutelage, losing in eight of the nine contests he has coached against BU. Maine’s lone win over the Terriers under Barr, an 8-1 victory in March of his first season, is an outlier. In his eyes, it has not been much of a rivalry whatsoever but rather a one-sided bludgeoning.

“If there’s any payback, it’s from the last three years,” Barr said. “It’s hard for me to comment on the rivalry just because we haven’t made it a rivalry since we’ve been here yet, in all honesty. You make it a rivalry when you have some success, which we haven’t had, really, since our staff has been here, so that’s up for us to change.”

It is quite poetic that after Maine’s shortcomings at Boston College, their next opponent is Boston University. This is not just because these are both big-time Boston schools, but because the makeup of their teams and the style in which they play are quite similar, which will immediately test the Black Bears in the same areas where they were found to be deficient last weekend.

Mentality, puck possession, and execution.

Although BU has had a rocky start to its season, heading into the weekend with a 5-4-0 record, they have had one of the most difficult schedules imaginable, including a trip to North Dakota, which they split, a home series against Michigan, where they lost both games and a home-and-home split last weekend with a resurgent UMass-Lowell. But the Black Bears aren’t going to allow themselves to be fooled by BU’s spotty record.

They are just as good as they have been,” Barr said. “I think they do everything well. They are really well coached, and they have really good players, that’s usually a pretty good combination,” Barr said.

Although BU lost Macklin Celebrini and Lane Hutson to the NHL in the offseason, they have retooled with plenty of new firepower. This includes yet another Hutson brother, defenseman #44 Cole Hutson (2g-7a-9pts), and forward #34 Cole Eiserman (6g-3a-9pts), both of whom were drafted last spring.

The Terriers are also returning a boatload of high-end, super-skilled talent from last season, including forwards #17 Quinn Hutson (3g-7a-10pts), #9 Ryan Greene (3g-5a-8pts), and #18 Shane Lachance (4g-5a-9pts), while also getting plenty of production from defenseman #5 Tom Willander (2g-5a-7pts).

Despite their record, Boston University has had no problem scoring goals this season, with a 3.6 goals per game average. But they’ve also shown a weakness, leaking goals in front of senior netminder #62 Matthieu Caron. BU has, on average, given up 3.6 goals per game this season.

Improving their puck possession will be critical for the Black Bears as it will not only allow them more opportunities to create scoring chances but also keeps the puck off the dangerous Terrier sticks.

“When we have the puck, move our feet, do something productive with it. When you’re playing a team that is really skilled, wants the puck, and wants to be an offensive-oriented team, you have to take that away from them; that will be key again this weekend,” Barr said.

But Maine is less worried about the team they are playing and are instead intensely focused on themselves, believing that if they can get back to playing their style to the best of their ability, they have the chance to beat anyone.

“We are at a point now, with our team, we are veteran enough that if we take care of our own stuff, we believe we will be okay. And we didn’t take care of it enough last weekend,” Barr said. “It doesn’t change anything that we do; we know we are going up against a really talented squad, a team that’s beat us it feels like thirty-five times in a row, so how do we change that? That’s up to us to figure out.”

Maine will need to be good in every area they weren’t last weekend. The Black Bears will need to not let the moment get too big for them. They will need to play composed, execute in front of the net, establish their hard-hitting, heavy game, and get a positive performance from everyone in their lineup.

“I think we have to play heavy, we have to play to our identity, Black Bear hockey, our style, be great on the forecheck, be tight in the D-zone, don’t give their skilled players time to make plays,” Breazeale said. “[We’re] not thinking too much about the opponent, but focusing on our game, not going out there and thinking too much, but being proactive, being on our toes, and really taking the game to them, we can’t sit back and let really good players make plays and build confidence.”

A Black Bear bounceback is much needed. No better place to do it than the Alfond and no better opponent to do it against than BU.

There isn’t going to be anyplace on earth more electric than the Alfond this weekend.

Maine-BU battling it out on a frozen sheet in Orono. There’s nothing better than that.