Terriers Practice At Fenway

Post Practice Remarks From Parker, Shattenkirk and Gryba


This is starting to get pretty exciting folks.  Your head coach, captain and alternate all talked to the media after skating on the ice at "America's Most Beloved Ballpark" today, and we've got some of the highlights.




Jack Parker On the variables of playing at Fenway Park:
 "I think it’s different because of the wind and the snow. It isn’t different in one aspect in that it’s going to be the exact same for the other team. That aspect of it equals it out. I don’t think that 35,000 people are going to be a problem. I think it will probably sound less of a crowd than we had at Madison Square Garden or sometimes at the Beanpot because they’re not right on top of you. So I don’t know if it will be played as loud or quiet as exciting that way. I think the biggest problem is the sightlines and the fact that you’re looking up over the boards as you don’t see fans, you see distance before you see anyone else. That might be a problem for goalies. The other situation is that it’s always different for us to get used to an NHL rink because there’s so little room behind the net. It’s really tough for the defensemen to adjust that way sometimes. With this rink in particular it’s small with the corners and the radius being real tight so there are small corners too. Then you add the extra four feet at the attack and blue line so the whole zone is different. In some ways it makes it easier to fore-check but otherwise it makes it more difficult to get the puck out of the zone. It gives you more time on the power play at the points, but it gives you less time at the corners of the power play. There are a lot of adjustments here that both BC and BU don’t play at a rink like this during the regular season but we get adjusted usually pretty quickly when we go to the Garden or Lowell. All the variables are there to make it distracting if you want to make it distracting for both clubs."


Eric Gryba on Skating on an Outdoor Rink:
“Just being outside in this atmosphere has everyone is having a lot fun playing out there. I think the guys really enjoyed it. You could tell guys were having fun. We seemed like a bunch of 12 year olds out there playing hockey again.”


Kevin Shattenkirk on Playing at Fenway:
"I think today everyone walked out there and took everything in. I think Friday nights is going to that much different when there;s close to 40,000 people there watching you. Hopefully guys can get past that. I think it’s great that we played at Madison Square Garden earlier in the year just to have a larger crowd and being used to that might work in our favor in terms of getting past the shock value.”


If you want to read the full transcript of Thursday's press conferences, the wonderful BU Athletics department essentially has the entire day, word for word, posted up here.

Read, and enjoy.