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Julia Shaunessy is leaning on lessons from her father to help BU women’s hockey end its Beanpot drought
“I’m so excited that I have another opportunity to actually play in the [tournament], and I think there’s definitely a bit of excitement but also nervousness around the team.”
More than anything, Julia Shaunessy remembers the people.
She remembers looking up to the TD Garden stands and seeing thousands of eyes staring back down at her. She remembers the cheers, and how the noise rang in her ears long after she left the ice. She remembers thinking everyone had come to watch her, a 6-year-old in a too-big Duxbury Youth Hockey jersey, waddle around on skates between periods at a Bruins game.
Even as a first-grader, Shaunessy knew what a big deal it was to play at TD Garden. She was raised on tales of Beanpot glory that came from Garden ice. The tournament was something she revered growing up — and still does — because of the stories told by her father, Scott, who played four years at Boston University and won two Beanpots in the 1980s.
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Shaunessy, now a fifth-year defender at BU, is out to write a similar tale for herself.
BU hasn’t won a Women’s Beanpot since the Terriers beat Harvard, 3-2, in overtime in 2019 — Shaunessy’s junior year at Tabor Academy.
They came close to repeating in 2020 but fell to Northeastern in double overtime and didn’t reach another championship game until last season, when the Huskies once again came out on top with a 2-1 overtime win in front of a crowd of 10,633 at TD Garden. It was the first time the women’s championship game was held at the Garden, and it drew the largest crowd for a women’s hockey game in the city’s history.
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But Shaunessy sat out that game with an MCL tear — the fourth such injury of her collegiate career — and watched from the stands as her teammates came agonizingly close to ending their Beanpot drought.
“I didn’t know if I was going to be playing at BU another year, so that was definitely upsetting,” Shaunessy said.
But the cards fell in her favor after the conclusion of last season, and Shaunessy is back at BU and healthy for her final year of eligibility. She’s having the best statistical season of her career, as her 12 points are third on a team ranked 13th in the PairWise with a 13-6-1 record.
BU will face Harvard in the first round of the Women’s Beanpot Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. at Matthews Arena. Northeastern will take on Boston College at 7:30 p.m. Both games will be broadcast on NESN+.
The consolation and championship games, set for Jan. 21, will again be held at TD Garden.
“I’m so excited that I have another opportunity to actually play in the [tournament], and I think there’s definitely a bit of excitement but also nervousness around the team,” Shaunessy said. “We have that pressure on us because we haven’t won it in so long.”
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Shaunessy’s father knows the feeling. There was a time when he thought TD Garden was cursed. He and St. John’s Prep lost in the boys’ hockey state final at the Garden his senior year. As a freshman at BU, he and the Terriers lost the Beanpot final and the ECAC final at the Garden. Then, as a sophomore, they lost the Beanpot final again. (They also lost the Hockey East final that season, but that game was played in Providence.)
“I was beginning to wonder, ‘Am I ever going to win one of these championship games at the Garden?’ ” he said.
Finally, when Scott Shaunessy was a junior in 1986, the Terriers broke through, beating Northeastern in the first round and BC in the final for the team’s first Beanpot title in four years. They went on to win it again the following year, beating Northeastern, 4-3, in overtime.
“It was this incredible feeling of relief,” Scott Shaunessy said. “You only realize afterward how big a deal it is to win it.”
He wants nothing more than for his daughter to experience that same feeling.
“To break through and win it, you can never take that feeling away,” he said. “It’s a memory that lives forever.”
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