Keeler: How did DU Pios hockey turn Denver into Ten-ver? Bragging Boston Terriers and one all-time spelling mistake
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The preamble is almost as good as the proscess. DU hockey’s little love affair with St. Paul can be explained in about five words and one catch: Only four of them were spelled correctly.
Before we circle back to maybe the single greatest typo in Pios history, though, Gabe Levin offered up a little backstory.
“The year (in 2016) that we got Boston University in the West Regionals, they did a selection show, and I remember we never did a big production where they had cameras in our locker room,” the former Pios forward said of his alma mater’s previous NCAA tourney tussle with the Terriers, eight years earlier, in advance of Thursday’s Frozen Four showdown. “But BU did. And I remember they had this voice in their locker room. One guy yelled, ‘TOO EASY’ when they saw ‘Denver’ come up on the screen.
“I just remember from the time we heard him say ‘TOO EASY,’ there was never a doubt in our mind that we were winning this game.”
Too easy, man. Too. Easy.
“They were a very-hyped team, had a lot of high draft picks,” said Levin, a senior forward at DU in the spring of 2016. “We kind of thought they had a mentality that they were going to walk all over us, because they were bigger, badder and more highly recruited than we were. (DU) hadn’t been to a Frozen Four since 2005, while BU had been on this run in the late ’00s. So our programs had been in different places. I just remember hearing them say ‘TOO EASY’ and we were basically like, ‘expletive’ you guys. I said, ‘Guess we’ll see you at Xcel.’”
He’ll see them again this week, only from the stands this time. If his Pios (30-9-3) are to turn Denver into Ten-ver, if DU’s to bring home an NCAA-record 10th national hockey championship, they’ll have to outlast the Terriers in the semis on Thursday. It’s the first meeting in the NCAAs between the two on-ice giants since that aforementioned tussle at the 2016 West Regionals, which also took place inside Xcel.
“This year, (BU) and (DU) are in different places than they were in 2016,” Levin continued. “I don’t know if (the Pios) are still viewed that way, as sort of the underdogs that we were back in 2016.
“I guess the guys (on the roster) from DU, I could see them having a bit of a chip on their shoulders.”
They’ll sure as heck have one on their necks. If you look inside the back collar of a DU sweater this weekend, you’ll find the other three words, a mission statement born in St. Paul by accident.
TRUST THE PROSCESS
The Pios’ roster then, as now, is smarter than the average bear. So you can imagine the looks on their faces when they entered the locker room at Xcel to prep for that 2016 showdown with BU to find then-coach Jim Montgomery’s three favorite words written at the top of a whiteboard.
“The guys realized pretty quick that it was wrong,” Levin recalled with a chuckle. “But there were a couple wondering what everybody was laughing about.”
Some didn’t notice. Others cocked their heads to the side the way a Labrador does when it thinks you’re about to go for a ride to the lake. PROSCESS?
The orthographical error has since become DU legend. Future coach David Carle, then a Pios assistant, was in such haste to get the game plan down on said board that he didn’t proofread his work.
“There may have been guys there at the time that didn’t think about it,” Levin said. “But definitely the guys were looking at it like, ‘Did he mean to do that? That’s wrong, right?’ And that stuck.”
Pios 7, Terriers 2.
Two easy, man. Two. Easy.
“I don’t remember when he was called out on the incorrect spelling,” Levin said. “Spelling is not a prerequisite for winning national titles.”
The Proscess was. Still is.
Montgomery kept a checklist of seven points. He told Levin and his teammates that if you nail at least four of those at home and five on the road, you should take the game. Faceoffs. Winning in front of the net. Limiting dumb penalties. It was a mission statement of DU’s eternal verities, the commandments of a hockey dynasty.
Carle’s since put his own spin on it, but the core principles, those concrete pillars, remain more or less the same. Since they adopted a corrigendum as gospel, the program’s never felt more right. After whupping BU in St. Paul, the Pios have been to four more Frozen Fours and won two more national titles.
“I mean, it’s pretty crazy,” defenseman Zeev Buium, one of those super frosh who’ve helped carry DU, told me earlier this week. “I think that’s kind of been the message this entire year, is that ‘Race To 10 (titles).’”
The Proscess, meanwhile, a howler born in Minnesota, lives on the backs of T-shirts. It’s posted in huge letters inside the DU locker room at Magness Arena. Some guys have been known to even touch the typo for good luck on their way out to the ice.
“Coming into the year, (I was) just really confident of knowing what I can do and just kind of stuck to that daily process every day,” Buium said. “And it was working.”
You shouldn’t spell “process” with a third letter “S.” But you can’t spell “proud” without a little “DU” at the end, either.
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