But the play did not go unnoticed. He always preached never dying on the ice, not taking that fake applause when you get up. If I had died out there on the ice, the whistle would have blown and we would not have scored. McLaughlin is not the type to back out of a game for any reason. When he broke his foot as a sophomore at Belmont Hill, he gamely finished his shift, evoking another positive reaction out of Gallagher, who coincidentally coaches the junior varsity baseball team at Harvard.
College hockey is a taxing sport.
Perhaps a student stayed up late writing a paper, and does not react in time to a bodycheck in practice the next day. Maybe the team is running a power play drill, and a slap shot catches the player on the side of the foot. The chances for injury are countless. Yet somehow, McLaughlin avoided them all. Through the first 114 games of his varsity career, No. 20 was standing on the blue line when the national anthem was sung.