#smitty lore

"During Will's last year at USA, he came home for a break, so we went over to a (BC) game, and there were only about 2,000 people, and it was kind of dull," Bill Smith said. "And he says to me, 'Next year, we're going to sell this place out every game, and we're going to go to a national championship game.'

"I told him not to get a little bit above himself. Sure enough, they sold out every game and went to the national championship game. He called it."

For most of that 2023-24 season, BC and BU alternated with the nation's No. 1 ranking, all the way to the Frozen Four. Denver, however, blocked both teams' hopes for the national title, taking down the Terriers in the semifinals and Eagles in the title game.

"After we lost in the Beanpot, we didn't lose until the national championship game," Smith said. "Still think about (the 2-0 loss to Denver) every day. If we played them nine more times, we'd beat them nine times in a row."

Smith also has struck up a special friendship with Celebrini, the former BU rival who headed to Italy to skate for Team Canada at the Olympics.

"We were enemies," Smith said with a smile. "We played each other about 10 times before we met and never said a word to each other. On a faceoff or anything. We were in the scoring race together freshman year.

"He got drafted, and in development camp, we kind of just hit it off, and now we're best buds."

"He's smart, skilled, he can do it all," Perreault, now of the New York Rangers, said of Smith, after having played in Madison Square Garden the night before.