BU’s 1978 championship run is considered the beginning of goaltender Jim Craig’s glory story, a two-year sports fairy tale that culminated with a gold medal at the Lake Placid Olympic Winter Games. Craig was the man celebrating between the pipes when BU hoisted its 1978 Beanpot and NCAA hardware. But when discussing the topic of goaltending with members of that squad, to a man, every player spoke of not one but two outstanding goalies from that 1978 championship team: Craig and senior cocaptain Brian Durocher.
Fading newspaper clips and statistics in agate type bear out those claims. For much of the 1977-78 season, Durocher was a shutdown goalie who stood tall in big games against top rivals. Twice Craig was shelved with nagging injuries, twice Durocher doubled up on his workload and kept BU on track. It is true that only Craig went undefeated, and he was immense in BU’s three NCAA games, but it is an irrefutable fact that BU goaltending was a two-headed monster in 1977-78. The Terriers had a pair of prodigious talents, co-captain Brian and the gifted Jimmy, combining to fill the most important position in the rink.
Despite being surrounded by a wealth of love in the smalltown suburbs of Boston, Jim Craig grew up below middle class by today’s standards. A town with twenty thousand residents, North Easton was one of those little communities that harbors no secrets. Young Jimmy was a good athlete, but undersized. "I was five-foot-three and weighed 130 pounds going into my junior year of high school." When the lakes froze, he played pond hockey like the rest of the kids, but he owned no equipment other than stick and skates.