In Play(er) of the Week, we seek to highlight outstanding Wesleyan athletes or segments from games that deserve extra attention.

Jake Lachance ’23 is the first player after the goalies on the ice for every game, but he’s the last person to take credit for his achievements. Lachance is an assistant captain and defenseman for the Wesleyan men’s ice hockey team. He currently leads the NESCAC in total assists, assists per game, and total points. He became the first Cardinal this season to earn the honor of NESCAC Player of the Week on Jan. 16, and was recently named a semifinalist for the Joe Concannon Award, which is given to the best American-born NCAA Division II/III men’s ice hockey player in New England. The Argus sat down with him to talk about his pregame rituals, being the son of NHL player Scott Lachance and grandson of retired Boston University men’s ice hockey head coach Jack Parker, and how it feels to be the number one seed going into the postseason.

The Argus: Can you introduce yourself?

Jake Lachance: My name’s Jake Lachance. I’m a senior, economics major, and assistant captain on the Wesleyan [men’s ice] hockey team.

TA: Do your teammates have a nickname for you?

JL: Yeah, Chance or Chancer.

TA: According to your teammate Go [Uemura ’23], you guys are very superstitious. So what are your pregame superstitions?

JL: I have a few, I’d say. One is [that] Go and I always, about an hour before the game, sit in the stands. I’ll have to be a few rows above him. And then he gets up and he gets ready to go dress and he gives me a little salute and I give it back. And then I have to be one of the last ones in the locker room before we get dressed. Also, before going out for warmups or for one of the periods, I have to be the first one on the ice after the goalies. We’re a very superstitious team. When we do our off ice warmups, we have to do three lines and everyone goes in the same line every single time. In on-ice warmups we do a few laps shooting around. Colin [Cobb ’23] and I have to pass the puck every time [for] the first three laps around. That’s just to name a few.

TA: How did you start playing ice hockey? 

JL: I was probably four or five years old. I was lucky enough to be a part of a big hockey family. My dad played in the NHL for 13 years and my grandfather coached Boston University hockey for 40 years. So I was kind of born into it. I was put on skates really young and my dad and his father, my other grandpa, would help build a rink in our backyard. So I’d always be skating. I would go to BU games at a really young age and my dad’s games, too. But I don’t really remember it. He retired when I was too young. So that’s really how I got into it, and it stuck with me and my two younger brothers, as well.

TA: Who did your dad play for?

JL: He was drafted by the Islanders. He played there for a while and then Montreal, Vancouver, Columbus, and then ended his career with New Jersey, where he works now.

TA: How did you end up at Wesleyan?

JL: So I did four years at Andover High School playing hockey. I kind of developed late. I didn’t really have a great year stats wise until my senior year at Andover, probably. And I was lucky enough to do a PG [postgraduate] year at Berkshire [School] which worked out great for me. [I] played a lot, which was ideal, and I wanted to try and go to a good school after that and go right in. I reached out to a few NESCAC schools and [head coach Chris] Potter saw me a couple times. I didn’t play great one game, but luckily enough he came back and watched me. I think I played pretty well the second time. And he talked to me after the game and the weekend after I came and visited the school and just loved it. I saw all the campus and the rink and immediately knew this is where I wanted to be.

TA: What would you say makes the Wesleyan ice hockey team special?

JL: I think it’s the closeness of the team, how we do everything together. The seniors preached that to [us] when we were first years. So we wanted to keep that tradition going and obviously we listened to them, because our first year we won the NESCAC Championship, led by them. So they were doing something right and wanted to keep that going. I think how close of a team we are does translate to on-ice success.

TA: What would you say some of your favorite memories from your time on the team are?

JL: I think winter break is one of the best times of the year. We get to come back and don’t have too many responsibilities. It’s just [about] focusing on hockey. It’s a great time. We’ll stay at the rink all day and just hang out in the locker room. Little things like that [are] probably the best memories.

TA: How do you like your role as one of the captains this year?

JL: I really like it. I think a little bit of—I don’t want to say pressure—but responsibility comes with it. But it’s definitely an honor, and you don’t want to change how you are just because you have a letter on. You wanna do the same things you’ve been doing all four years. So it’s an exciting role, for sure. And [co-captains] Wiggle [Kerbrat ’23] and Emmet [Powell ’23] have been great, as well as all the seniors, too. I’d say we lead really well as a class.

TA: So you’re number seven. Is there any significance behind why you picked that number? 

JL: Yeah, I wore that at Berkshire as well, so I was lucky enough to keep that. But I actually wore 11 all my life because my dad wore 11 when he played at BU. But he also wore number seven in the NHL for a couple teams. So when 11 wasn’t available at Berkshire, seven was the next pick, so it worked out great and I wanted to keep it going. 

TA: What would you say your favorite part of ice hockey is, and what would you say the hardest part is?

JL: I think the favorite part is probably just coming to the rink every day and practicing with the team. The guys just make it so enjoyable to come every day. You’re not like, “I gotta go to practice.” You want to go to the rink and the guys make it great. Even before Wesleyan, you build up so many friendships over the years with the hockey culture. So with this team especially, too, we’re really close friends and we will be for life. The hardest part is probably any time you’re going through a little bit of a tough stretch, and staying positive is definitely a bit challenging, but I think that’s definitely important to do.

TA: During your first year at Wes, the team won their first ever NESCAC title. What was it like being a part of the team during that experience? 

JL: That was really exciting. I knew the year before I got there they had a heartbreaking double overtime loss in the semifinals, so they were a really good team and probably deserved to win it the year before. So I knew especially the seniors would really want to win it. And, like I said before, they were all great guys and just showed how we need to be a close team to have success and it was just great. We were kind of along for the ride and definitely contributed a bit. I did not know what to expect coming in my first year and it was everything I could have imagined. 

TA: You play defense, however, currently you are the conference leader in assists, assists per game, and points per game. How does it feel to be able to contribute so much offensively as a defensive player?

JL: You always want to contribute, right? Whenever you get the chance to help contribute to goals that’s huge. And as a team we have the most goals in the league. So that obviously helps. We have a lot of guys who can put the puck in the net and I get some assists on those. But truthfully, I don’t know where the offensive stuff came from. I don’t know how many points I had last year, not even close to this many. But it helps when you’re moving the puck up the ice and we have really skilled forwards to make plays and put the puck in the net. But yeah, I can’t tell you I was expecting that coming into this year.

TA: You have 25 points this season, and last year you had eight. 

JL: A little bit of a jump.

TA: Just over a month ago, you won NESCAC Player of the Week. How did it feel getting that?

JL: That was a big honor. You never think it’s really gonna happen and then when it does, it’s a pretty cool feeling, for sure. And that was a great team week for us, too. I think I found out right after practice when we were still shooting around. And all the guys [were] really happy for me, so [it was a] cool feeling. 

TA: Coming into this weekend, Trinity was ranked nationally, they were top of the conference, and they hadn’t lost a game since last year. And you guys had unfortunately had a down week the previous week so there was a lot riding on these two games. That being said, you guys ended up sweeping them and you got yourself three points from two games. How did it feel to get those results and what do you attribute the team’s performance this week [to]?

JL: That was obviously a huge weekend and like you said, we came off a kind of a down weekend up in Maine. But we still controlled our own destiny coming into Trinity and we knew that our work was cut out for us. We knew we had to get all six points and that’s two regulation wins. But we kept saying to the guys, “We need to just take it game by game.” You can’t get all six points if you don’t win on Friday. So we knew it was gonna be a big game. But I think we were just really bought into really wanting to win. And everyone [was] blocking shots and really good in the D zone and [had] some puck luck going in the net. And Eric Voloshin [’24] played really well for us both games, with him getting NESCAC Player of the Week this week. He kept us in the first period Friday night against Trinity, and I think we settled in after that and got back to our game and controlled a lot of the play and [were] able to have some success.

TA: With this weekend, that means that you guys are the regular season champions for the first time ever for the program. How do you feel about that? 

JL: That was really exciting. We were all happy for each other and especially happy for coach Potter, too, because he’s a great coach and has had some great teams over his 20 years here. Getting first place in the regular season’s hard and to be part of the team that does it, it’s definitely special and we celebrated in the locker room after. It’s a huge accomplishment. But that was our goal for the regular season and now it’s kind of a new season in playoffs so we want to shift our focus to that. 

TA: What are your hopes for the season going forward?

JL: We want to win the NESCAC Championship, but we need to just focus on this upcoming weekend first.You can’t win next Sunday if you don’t take care of the quarterfinals this weekend. So we’re really focusing on Williams now and do[ing] what we need to to take care of business at home. 

TA: How does it feel to be a senior looking back on your past four years here?

JL: It’s gone by so fast for sure. I’ll remember a lot and it’s been a great four years. I couldn’t have asked for anything better. I think the only thing that kind of stinks was the COVID year where we missed a season our sophomore year. That was difficult but [we] still made the most of it, and we’ve had a lot of memories and I really couldn’t have asked for a better experience here at Wesleyan and hoping it ends with a championship for our senior year.

TA: What are you hoping the legacy of [your] class is and what do you want the team to look like after you guys are gone?

JL: Obviously you remember the on-ice accomplishments, but you want the younger guys to remember us in the way that we were all good teammates. But if we walk away with two championships that’d be something special, for sure. You just want everyone to remember us by the way we were good people and good hockey players as well. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

If you would like to nominate a Play(er) of the Week, please reach out to ebyerly@wesleyan.edu with either the athlete’s name and once sentence about why they deserve to be nominated, or the team, date of the game, and players involved, and the segment that you would wish to highlight.

Erin Byerly can be reached at ebyerly@wesleyan.edu.