Parker entering Hall of Fame 'kind of a capstone,' humbling to longtime coach

The 2025 Hockey Hall of Fame induction is Nov. 10. This year's class includes Jennifer Botterill, Zdeno Chara, Brianna Decker, Duncan Keith, Alexander Mogilny and Joe Thornton in the Player category and Jack Parker and Daniele Sauvageau in the Builder category. Here, NHL.com senior writer Tom Gulitti profiles Parker.

When Jack Parker's phone rang June 24, the former Boston University coach was on a launch on the way out to his sailboat in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and couldn't read the number in the bright sun. He had a hunch that the call was about the 2025 Hockey Hall of Fame induction class, though.

"I knew it was the day they were voting and I knew it was the day they were going to announce," Parker said. "I thought they were calling to talk to me about one of my former players, Keith Tkachuk. I really thought that he would get in. And he will be in sooner or later."

Outgoing Hall of Fame chairman Lanny McDonald was on the other end of the phone, but he wasn't calling about Tkachuk.

"He said, 'You've been inducted into the Hall of Fame. What do you think?'" Parker said. "And I said to him, 'Two things jump out at me: I know who you are, Lanny, and I know you have no idea who I am.'"

Typically modest, Parker never expected to be voted into the Hall of Fame or that McDonald and the rest of the selection committee were well aware of his impressive resume, which includes 897 wins, a record 24 NCAA tournament appearances, three NCAA championships (1978, 1995, 2009), 21 Beanpot tournament titles, four consecutive Eastern College Athletic Conference championships and seven Hockey East titles during his 40 seasons at Boston University (1973 to 2013).

Parker will be inducted into the Hall of Fame as a Builder along with former Canada women's hockey coach, general manager and coaching consultant Daniele Sauvageau and players Jennifer Botterill, Zdeno Chara, Brianna Decker, Duncan Keith, Alexander Mogilny and Joe Thornton.

"It's kind of a capstone," Parker said. "I've been inducted into a few halls of fame, and this is THE Hall of Fame, so it's really humbling, but also pretty cool."

Parker's long list of previous honors includes being inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame (2017), Beanpot Hall of Fame (1995) and BU Athletic Hall of Fame (1994), winning the Spencer Penrose Memorial Trophy as the NCAA Coach of the Year three times (1975, 1978, 2009), being named New England Coach of the Year seven times (1978, 1984, 1986, 2000, 2005, 2006) and selected Hockey East Coach of the Year five times (1986, 1992, 2000, 2005, 2006).

Becoming a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame was the only distinction missing for the 80-year-old native of Somerville, Massachusetts.

"My initial reaction was, 'What took so long?'" said Mike Eruzione, captain of the gold-medal winning 1980 United States Olympic team who played four seasons for Parker at BU (1973-77). "I'm ecstatic for him. He deserves it. When you look at the people who are in the Hall of Fame, Jack Parker belongs with all of them."

Parker hadn't planned to go into coaching after graduating from Boston University with a business degree in 1968. He'd played three seasons as a center on the varsity hockey team (1966-68), was captain as a senior and helped the Terriers win the Beanpot three times and qualify for the NCAA tournament twice, but thought he'd go into banking or finance.

An opportunity to be an assistant at Medford High School outside Boston fell into Parker's lap a few months after graduation. Former BU teammate Bill Riley Jr. suggested Parker as his replacement at Medford when Riley, later the longtime coach at UMass-Lowell, was offered a job at Lehigh University.

Jack Kelley, Parker's coach at BU, hired him as an assistant a year later. When Kelley left in 1972, following back-to-back NCAA titles, to become coach and general manager of the New England Whalers in the World Hockey Association, Parker remained as an assistant under Leon Abbott.

When Abbott was fired six games into the 1973-74 season, Parker was promoted to replace him, beginning a four-decade run with the Terriers he never imagined.

"My whole life just happened to me," Parker said. "I had no intention of being a hockey coach. I had no intention of being a hockey player. And I became a hockey player, then a hockey coach and then I stayed there 40 years."

Parker had a .643 winning percentage (897-472-115) at BU, winning at least 20 games in 27 of his 40 seasons. Jerry York (1,123) and Ron Mason (924) are the only coaches with more NCAA wins.

York, a 2019 Hockey Hall of Fame inductee who coached rival Boston College for 28 seasons (1994-22), cherished going head-to-head with Parker, competing for NCAA, Hockey East and Beanpot titles and recruits.

"When I came here to Boston, it took a while to get our feet wet, but once we both had really good players, really good teams, whether it was the Beanpot, whether it was the NCAA regionals, there was a jump in our step, all of us," said York, who previously coached at Clarkson and Bowling Green. "It was great for college hockey and terrific for Boston hockey. We had some spectacular players on both teams, and we would recruit against each other all the time.

"Jack would get one, I'd get one and back and forth we'd go."

Dozens of Parker's players went on to play in the NHL and 24 played in the Olympics, including four members of the 1980 "Miracle On Ice" team: Eruzione, Dave Silk, Jack O'Callahan and Jim Craig. Several also have gone on to coach or work as NHL team executives, including Minnesota Wild coach John Hynes, San Jose Sharks general manager Mike Grier, New York Rangers coach Mike Sullivan and Rangers GM Chris Drury,

Jim Craig, Mike Eruzione, Jack O’Callahan and David Silk are honored by Jack Parker and Boston University at Walter Brown Arena after winning gold at the 1980 Olympics.

In fact, Sullivan's Rangers assistants David Quinn and Joe Sacco also played for Parker at BU. Sullivan will coach Team USA at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 with Quinn and Hynes among the assistants on his staff.

"The influence that he's had on all of us speaks volumes to the coach that he is, the coach that he was for us, and maybe more important, the person that he is," said Sullivan, who guided the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Stanley Cup in 2016 and 2017. "He had such an influence on all of our lives at an impressionable age when we were young."

Hynes, who got his start in coaching as a graduate assistant at BU in 1997 after a neck injury ended his playing career, said one of the keys to Parker's success was his ability to relate to his players beyond the game.

"He's not just a one-dimensional person," Hynes said. "You can talk to him about life. You can talk to him about hockey. He can be great, funny and laugh."

Those relationships didn't end when the players' days at BU were done. Parker remained close with many of them long after that.

"And he didn't just care about you on the ice," said Eruzione, who was a volunteer assistant under Parker on the Terriers' 1995 NCAA championship team and currently works as BU's director of special outreach. "He cared about you off the ice. He cared about your future, your family and even years later with your family."

Eruzione points to Travis Roy as the biggest example of this. Roy was paralyzed from the neck down on a play 11 seconds into his first shift at BU on Oct. 20, 1995. Although that was the end of Roy's playing career, it was only the beginning of a friendship with Parker that lasted until Roy's death at age 45 on Oct. 29, 2020.

"Once Travis broke his neck, Jack became a second father to him, especially the four years that he was at Boston University," said Lee Roy, Travis' father. "That relationship continued well after Travis graduated from BU. Jack's condo was probably a half mile from where Travis lived for 20 years, so that relationship continued throughout Travis' entire life."

Watching the work Roy put in to graduate and founding The Travis Roy Foundation in 1996 to help other spinal cord injury survivors and fund research, was among the most gratifying experiences of Parker's tenure at BU.

"I became closer to him than anyone of my former players and it was very rewarding for me to be around him all those years because if you wanted to see somebody face adversity and handle it with class, it was Travis Roy," Parker said. "I always tell people the worst thing that ever happened to me as the hockey coach at Boston University is the Travis Roy injury and the best thing that ever happened to me as the hockey coach at Boston University was the way the hockey community and Boston University itself reacted to Travis Roy's injury.

"It was a bad thing to see happen and it was such a rewarding thing to see how the hockey community reacted to Travis and to see what an unbelievable human being Travis Roy was to be able to do what he did all those years sitting in that wheelchair."

Connections like Parker had with Roy were among the reasons he remained at BU when others tried to lure him away. Kelley asked him to coach the Whalers in 1978. He turned down the Boston Bruins in 1991 and 1997.

Parkers remembers Bruins GM Harry Sinden telling him the second time, "I knew you wouldn't take the job."

"And I said, 'How can you say that? That's the most difficult decision I've ever had to make,'" Parker said. "Harry said, 'I'll tell you why. I would imagine that when you're sitting in your office some April or May day, and it's a beautiful day, some kid that played for you three, four years ago comes back with his wife and new baby to say hello and sees how you're doing. That never happens here.'

"But I think that was one of the great parts of the job is the relationship you have with the players while they're playing for you and the relationship you have with them when they're finished and years afterwards."

NHL.com senior writer Dan Rosen contributed to this report