Boston College Athletics
Clemmensen Happy To Wear The Mask For The Eagles
February 04, 2001 | Men's Hockey
Feb. 4, 2001
CLEEEMMM-ENSEN! The sound resonates throughout the rafters as the Boston College Eagles play another HOCKEY EAST road game.
CLEEEMMM-ENSEN! The chorus picks up as the throngs in the student section rain down their derisive chant upon the maroon-and-gold clad Eagle netminder.
CLEEEMMM-ENSEN! Now at full bravado, it is no longer possible to ignore the sea of students lined up low after row - wearing their home-team colors - projecting their disdain in the direction of the ice surface.
What comes next isn't fit for printing in this game program, or many other publications for that matter. Abhorred my most fans, the chant is sweet music to BC goaltender Scott Clemmensen. No one ever said that goalies weren't a rare breed.
"Playing at home and having the fans cheer loudly gets me pumped up," explains the Urbandale, Iowa native. "Conversely, having the fans cheer negatively against me gets me just as pumped up." As the focal point of the ire of thousands of jeering fans every night, Clemmensen understands that a good dig is a good did - as long as it doesn't get him off his game.
"You don't let it get to you when some kid from Northeastern, sitting in section 12, is yelling that I'm awful, and the game is tied 0-0." Clemmensen point out that the main reason he wears his mask, besides protection, is to hide the occasional grin. "There have been times I've laughed at a comment, but not enough to get off my game. Typically, when we go to places like Boston University or Northeastern, I hear a lot of funny stuff. Every once in a while I'll hear one and I can't help but crack a smile. I have to laugh. If I couldn't I'd go insane.
When it comes to Clemmensen's goaltending, insanity is usually reserved for opposing players and coaches, as the senior has compiled a career record of 86-33-9 in games played through January. Add to the resume a school-record 11 shutouts and a career goals-against average of 2.57 and it's easy to see why Clemmensen proves to be a thorn in the sides of Eagle opponents on a regular basis.
What is not easy to understand, though, is how a young Scott Clemmensen could rise to play at the highest level of collegiate hockey. You see, Clemmensen was brought up as a goaltender in the hockey hotbed known as . . . Urbandale, Iowa?
"First of all, Urbandale is not a hockey hotbed," laments Clemmensen. "I wish I could say that it was." Compared to young hockey players from other parts of the country, who have a variety of options when it comes to where to play and how to get there, Clemmensen had but one path to take if he was to get to where he wanted to go.
"There's no way that I would be playing right now if there wasn't a junior team in Des Moines, because no one is going to scout an Iowa high school league." Clemmensen spent two seasons with the Des Moines Buccaneers of the United States Hockey League, and was drafted out of the junior league by the NHL's New Jersey Devils in the eighth round of the 1997 Entry Draft.
"That was a big jump for me, going from my high school team to a junior "A" team in Des Moines," Clemmensen says. "I didn't have any other options, though. I had one route to get to where I am now, and it was a long shot at that. It was an unusual path, but my teammates and I all ended up in the same place."
Clemmensen had little idea of what was in store for him and his teammates when he arrived at Chestnut Hill in the fall of 1997. It was in January of his freshman year that the young goaltender from the middle of Iowa set the collegiate hockey world on its collective ear.
"I didn't know about it, or any of the NCAA records," Clemmensen says. It started with a 17-save performance in a scoreless tie against Maine, and ended two weeks and three games later with the freshman becoming the NCAA regular season record holder for consecutive shutout minutes (254:23).
"I didn't even think about it until we were going into the fourth game against UMass Amherst, when I only needed like eight minutes for the record. All of a sudden there was a huge media outburst around me and everyone started focusing on it," Clemmensen recalls. "I was pretty much oblivious to it at that point, and that was probably one of the reasons that I had gotten to that point." Clemmensen went on to set the record, and a few minutes afterward gave up the goal that ended the streak. "When it ends, that's when you look back on it and you see some of the lucky things that happened for and against you."
So started Clemmensen's career as Boston College's "Shutout King." Since that game against UMass Amherst, he has registered eight more shutouts, and has become somewhat of an expert on the art of the shutout.
"There is always going to be some little thing that happens in those games where you look back and say `Wow, I was really lucky,'" Clemmensen has seen too many bad bounces on soft ice, pucks jumping over teammates' sticks, and bad line changes that lead to breakaways, to know that luck plays an important role in the shutout.
"I look at the games that we win 6-1, and I think about that one goal and say `That puck just barely hit the pipe and went in, if it had hit the outside of the post and bounced out, I'd have another shutout.' It could be something that subtle."
Just as subtle to Clemmensen is the fine line that exists between the good and the bad goaltenders in HOCKEY EAST. The high level of play in the league dictates that its goaltenders be fundamentally sound. The difference, then, lies in what each goalie has in his head.
"I've seen a lot of goalies with a ton of talent but they just couldn't make it work. When they get scored on they get really rattled," says Clemmensen. He's seen the opposite as well, a goalie who doesn't seem to have the talent, but has it together in his mind He knows that when he isn't playing well, he has nobody to blame but himself.
"When you're not playing well, you're your own worst enemy. No one can take away your physical ability, but your mental capacity is where everything can change."
The Eagles will need to clear a number of familiar hurdles, such as the Beanpot, the HOCKEY EAST regular season and tournament championships and the national championship in order to consider the season a success.
"Many of these hurdles will come very close to one another at the very end of the year, and we have to put ourselves in a position to face those hurdles. We don't want to eliminate the hurdle before we even get to it," explains the seasoned BC veteran. "Are we going to win the national championship? It's very difficult, but it's not something that's unattainable. We can do it."
