Volume CXXXIII, Number 12 December 7, 2001 f

Coach Meagher gets 300th win
CHRIS SAUNDERS
STAFF WRITER

At the start of the 2001-2002 men's ice hockey season, head coach Terry Meagher was just four wins shy of his 300th career victory at Bowdoin.

Head coach Terry Meagher. (Henry Coppola, Bowdoin Orient)

The Polar Bears won their first three of the year, giving Meagher 299, before facing off against Skidmore last Friday night. The Bears scored on their first three shots of the game, and the win was secured almost before Skidmore realized that the game had started.

Over the game's duration, the Polar Bears tacked nine more goals onto that 3-0 lead, giving Coach Meagher a 12-1 victory to commemorate his historic accomplishment.

At the conclusion of the game, senior team captains Michael Carosi and Brian Shuman presented Meagher with a plaque in a small ceremony that received a standing ovation from fan-filled Dayton Arena.

Since taking over as head coach of the hockey team in 1983, Meagher has posted a record of 300 wins, 144 loses, and 24 ties, second only to Sid Watson, the coach whom he succeeded.

In Meagher's eighteen seasons as head coach, he has taken the Polar Bears to eight ECAC East championships. The team has won two, in 1986 and 1993.
In the 24 seasons that Watson coached at Bowdoin, he compiled a 326-210-11 record. Although he won't reach Watson's mark this year, Meagher is well on his way to taking over the school wins record.

Meagher said that it was hard to pick one or two seasons that have stood out over the course of his career. "Certainly the year that we won the ECAC Championship, going over and winning in Middlebury, and then getting to play in front of our fans on our own ice [was memorable]," he said.

In 1986 and then again in 1989, Meagher received the Edward Jeremiah Memorial trophy, which is awarded to the National College Division Coach of the Year. He has also been honored by the New England Hockey Writers' Association, which has named him the New England Coach of the Year three times.

By becoming the second 300-win coach in the College's history books, Meagher has put the Bowdoin hockey program into a small, elite group of schools that have two coaches with 300 wins. The only schools that can claim the same are Division I heavyweights Boston College, Harvard, and Michigan State.

Meagher graduated from Boston University in 1976 and then enrolled at Illinois State, where he earned a Master's in 1977. At BU, he was a distinguished member of the ice hockey team that went to the DI national championship three times.

In his senior year, Meagher was the leading scorer on the team and was recognized as the Most Valuable Player in the ECAC tournament.

Tomorrow, Meagher's team travels up to Colby to challenge the White Mules for the top rank in the NESCAC. Remarking on whether Saturday would be the day of his 301st win, Meagher remarked, "Colby is really one of the traditionally strong opponents that we face every year in the NESCAC. It is really a special rivalry, that has to be one of the top four in the nation, right up there with Boston College-Boston University and Michigan-Michigan State."

Whether or not Bowdoin wins tomorrow, and regardless of how the Polar Bears do this year, Meagher said that he would be pleased. "One of the most special things about my time at Bowdoin is the tremendous support that the staff, the students and members of the community have shown for this hockey program," he said.

So, to those of you who were planning to head to the Junior-Senior Ball, ditch your dates and head to Waterville instead, and support our Polar Bears as they face off against Colby in what promises to be one of the most exciting games of the year.