Something funny happened to the winning tradition of Boston University hockey about four years ago.

It quickly became a losing tradition.

And that was hard to accept for the Terriers' Tom O'Regan, who enrolled at B.U.--about four years ago--because the "didn't like to lose."

"It finally chose B.U. became B.U. hockey meant winning." O'Regan says. "All of a sudden, it meant losing."

But times have changed for the Cambridge native. After three years of many nights and lows, the senior center has emerged as one of the nation's premier hockey players.

Tommy really came into his own last season. B.U. Coach Jack Parker says. "During the second half of the season, he was the player the rest of the team looked to for offense. He began to concentrate on the little things and that was a key season why his game improved so greatly."

And perhaps O'Regan, the co-captain of this year's Terrier squad, is the key to B.U.'s newfound success. The Terriers posted their first winning record in three years last year, have compiled a 12-9-0 record far this year and enter this year's Beanpot as the defending champions.

O'Regan's fellow players and coaches once a connection between the team's fortunes and the play of the stocky Business Management major.

"The team certainly seems to play up to the way he's playing," Parker says. "If he's on, the team seems to be on. This team has certainly played some great games when he's been on."

These may be no better example of that than what O'Regan calls the greatest moment of his life--last year's Beanpot final against Boston College. In that game, the local hero scored two goals and had one assist. His efforts earned him tournament MVP honors.

"Scoring the final goal to ice the game was perhaps the greatest feeling I've ever had," he recalls. "I had grown up watching the Beanpot and it was something I had always dreamed about. As soon as I scored that goal I was tackled by my teammates. By the time I got up. I realized there were 15,000 people there all screaming for me. That moment is something I'll always cherish and remember."

Times have not always been so easy on the ice for the Matignon High graduate. Heralded as the Terriers top recruit in 1979. O'Regan found the transition from high school to the college game a difficult one.

"I came in expecting to win and to play," says O'Regan, who was named the Eastern Massachusetts MVP his senior year at Matingnon. "I had played high school hockey for three years and in all that time we only lost five games. We won the state title when I was a junior and were state runners-up the other two years.

"So losing was a new experience Looking back. I really can't pinpoint what happened. We had so much talent, won our first three games, were ranked third in the country, and then we fell apart. No one was used to losing and we really didn't know how to react."

But the high school football and baseball standout began to show promise as his freshman year slid by. That year, he finished in a fifth-place tie for team scoring honors while playing on the Terriers' fourth line.