
ST. LOUIS — Standing frozen on the ice as celebration erupted around him, Shane Lachance was fighting a losing battle with the tears in his eyes.
The sophomore captain had dreamt of this night — playing in a national championship game for the Boston University men’s hockey team — since before he learned how to ride a bike. It just wasn’t supposed to end like this.
After skating their way through an up-and-down regular season, Lachance and the Terriers willed themselves through the NCAA Tournament to a place the program had not been in 10 years.
But BU could not find its way past Western Michigan in Saturday’s title game, losing 6-2 at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis.
“I’ve grown up playing — going to BU and watching games and stuff like that,” said Lachance, who is the grandson of legendary former head coach Jack Parker. “You dream of winning a national championship. It just sucks that we came up short.”
As the final buzzer sounded and the Broncos (34-7-1) tossed their sticks into the air, Lachance skated over to console freshman goaltender Mikhail Yegorov (22 saves), before making the rounds to the rest of his teammates.
Much of BU’s season was marked by inconsistency, which head coach Jay Pandolfo harped on in press conferences all season long.
But Pandolfo had no qualms with his team’s effort Saturday night. The Terriers (24-14-2) hung tough with the Broncos deep into the third period, trailing by just one goal before the game slipped away in the final 10 minutes.
“It was a good game,” Pandolfo said. “I don’t think it was quite a 6-2 game. Obviously we were pushing really hard there. It’s 3-2, we’re pushing hard. We’re getting our chances, the puck’s not going in the net.”
The Terriers never led, and trailed by margins of 1-0, 2-1, 3-1 and 3-2 before Western Michigan rattled off three unanswered goals to seal its first title in program history.
The pivotal sequence came partway through the third period, with the Broncos holding a 3-2 edge. Playing with clear desperation, the Terriers had several quality chances on net — including multiple from freshman forward Cole Eiserman and freshman defenseman Cole Hutson, and others from fourth-liner freshmen Nick Roukounakis and Brandon Svoboda.
But Western Michigan freshman netminder Hampton Slukynsky made each save. Soon after, Hutson whiffed on a one-timer in the offensive zone, and Western Michigan forward Owen Michaels burst down the other end to give his team a 4-2 advantage.

The Terriers had a final push, and thought they scored to make it 4-3 with 8:04 to go when senior forward Matt Copponi jammed in a rebound that trickled across the goal line. But the referee had blown the play dead before Copponi reached the puck. The officials waved it off on the ice, which was confirmed after a review.
“Someone said it was on top of his pad and we pushed it in,” Pandolfo said. “It’s hard to comment when I haven’t seen the replay yet.”
The Broncos took over from there, taking full control after freshman forward Iiro Hakkarainen made it 5-2 at 16:02 of the third. By the time Michaels scored his second of the night on an empty-netter at 17:52, the party in Kalamazoo was well underway.
Eiserman and Lachance provided the goals for BU — both of them scrappy tallies off rebounds. It was that kind of night for the Terriers, who had to scrape and claw for every inch of space against a Western Michigan team Pandolfo called “heavy” and “structured.”
As the reality of the result set in for the Terriers late in the third period, most of the team buried their heads in the bench as the emotions began to flow. There was nothing left to do but watch.
When it was all over, some players hunched over on the ice, others stood motionless and a few, including Lachance and senior goaltender Mathieu Caron, skated over to console various teammates.
After a few moments, players began to file into BU’s locker room, where they would sit in dead silence for the next 40 minutes — jerseys still on.
Once the rest of the team skated off the ice, all that remained was Lachance, on one end, and the raucous Western Michigan celebration on the other.
It was time to go, and the program’s favorite son tapped his stick twice, hung his head low and slipped off into the tunnel.