Senior Series: Tommy Kelley

This is the first post in the 2016-2017 Senior Series: Posts on Nick Roberto and Doyle Somerby to follow.


Tommy Kelley arrived at Boston University as a true freshman right out of St.. Sebastian's high school. At St. Seb's,  Kelley put up 66 points including 34 goals over his last two seasons. That production was good enough to earn a spot on a roster at BU as he was recruited by former BU coaches , the legend Jack Parker and former associate head coach Mike Bavis. Kelley arrived on campus for the 2013-2014 despite a change in the coaching staff as former head coach Jack Parker retired and new coach David Quinn took over. I would imagine that this was a tough situation for a freshman who reportedly was not set to arrive on campus for sure until there were departures from Matt Nieto and Sahir Gill after the previous season. Kelley made the most of his opportunities and played in 32 games his freshman season under the new bench boss.


via GIPHY



Kelley would go on to play 86 games for the BU Terriers over four seasons and accumulate 8 points for the Terriers with the above goal being my personal favorite. Kelley went from a freshman trying to find his role under a new coach to one of the leaders on this year's team. Kelley played 32 games his freshman year on a  sub .500 team and then only four games his sophomore year on a team that went to the national championship game and then back to 30+ games in each of his junior and senior season on teams that went to the NCAA tournament. He was a normal penalty killer on this year's BU team who lead Hockey East in penalty kill %. In other words, Kelley has been through the ups and downs while at BU and certainly has a promising career moving forward whether it's in hockey or not. Kelley will have options if he wants to continue to purse hockey. He could lead the SPHL in pts/game like Mike Moran, who is a first year pro who graduated from last year's BU team. He certainly always appeared to handle himself the correct way on the ice and was well liked by his teammates. I certainly wish Tommy the best of luck moving forward.

PS: I don't really remember when I started to refer to him as the TK Lounge on twitter but I think I listened to one too many bad Dane Cook skits about the BK lounge in high school and that's where it came from.