Talk to new Hockey Hall of Famer Jack Parker, and you’re gonna have a good conversation.
Parker coached Boston University’s men’s team for 40 years, winning three national championships along the way, while helping develop countless NHL stars including Keith Tkachuk, Tony Amonte and Chris Drury. Parker was inducted into the Hall as part of this year’s class and did so with a great amount of humility.
“I looked up at my plaque with all the other inductees and the first thing that hit me was ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ ” he said. “I’m very, very surprised and very grateful.”
He shouldn’t have been surprised, however.
Parker had an incredible career and, on top of all the players he graduated, he was also part of what many regard to be the greatest college hockey championship game of all-time: the 1991 final between BU and Northern Michigan, which NMU won 8-7 in triple overtime. The Terriers led 3-0 after the first period; the Wildcats led 5-3 after the second period. But Parker has another classic he prefers.
“I call the 2009 one the best,” he said, referring to BU’s 4-3 OT win over Miami. “Because we were down by two with a minute to go, then came back and won it. Against Northern Michigan, we were down by two, tied it up but didn’t win it. It went three overtimes. Rick Comley was the coach at Northern Michigan and we were really good friends. Fabulous guy. We were starting the third overtime, and we’re talking outside the dressing room, saying ‘How long is this going to go on?’ But it was quite a game, no question about it. I think it really helped attract fans to college hockey.”
Right now, college hockey is getting an unprecedented amount of the spotlight thanks to an influx of high-end talent led by the likes of Gavin McKenna, Porter Martone and Jack Ivankovic – all Canadians who played major junior the year before.
“They’re obviously very, very talented and will make a big impact on college hockey and make it better,” Parker said. “But the question is, how will college hockey survive the transfer rule and the money that is involved.”
The loosening of the transfer rules has indeed led to players jumping from one to school to another – and sometimes another – in the past couple years, while NIL and other funding is already a hot topic in hockey.
“They’re getting paid by the schools, and the schools that have the most money are going to be the ones that win the national championship from now on,” Parker said. “The Big Ten schools have plenty of money coming in from football and basketball. I wonder what’s going to happen to the BUs and Colorado Colleges of the world because they don’t have that type of money coming in.”
Parker has no problem with kids leaving school early if they’re ready, but he is concerned with the amount of transfers he has seen already.
“If a kid is good enough to leave, he should be able to leave,” he said. “Leaving to sign an NHL contract is legit. Macklin Celebrini made a pretty good decision to leave after his freshman year. He had a fabulous freshman year at BU and BU was lucky to have him. But leaving to go to another school…the transfer rules really turn things upside-down.”
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Coaching, on the other hand, seems as stable as ever in the NCAA. Denver’s David Carle, for example, has a lot of NHL fans hoping he’ll leave the Pioneers for their franchise, but so far he has resisted those temptations, just as Parker resisted the NHL during his decades in Boston.
“Look at the history of the NHL coach,” Parker said. “I stayed at BU for 40 years. Red Berenson was at Michigan a long time. Billy Cleary was at Harvard a long time, Jerry York was a long time at B.C. and Bowling Green. In college hockey, the players leave every three or four years and the coaches stay. In pro hockey, the coaches leave every two years. They want a different voice, they don’t want to hear the same guy all the time. The Mike Sullivans of the world, coaching the same NHL team for 10, 12 years are unique. When you go to the NHL as a coach, you’re going to get fired. I never got fired.”
Instead, Parker became a legend at Boston University and now he’s in the Hockey Hall of Fame. And yes, Jack, you belong there.
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