A head for the game...

As we speak, John Curry is reinventing the storybook ending.

His tale has been told time and time again across the spans of college hockey. From third-string walk-on to Hobey Baker candidate, the Boston University senior netminder is heads above his competition.

But Curry is more than just pads and pucks, and the shots he'll see from the likes of No. 17 University of Vermont's Torrey Mitchell and Dean Strong on the ice Friday and Saturday nights (8 p.m. and 7 p.m.) in the final homestand of the No. 5/6 Terriers' regular-season are nothing compared to the shots he takes from his own teammates over dinner or 18 holes of late-night Tiger Woods.

While the 2006-07 Terriers - led by a dynamic senior class - share a lot of things, there's one thing that they won't share with Curry, not if they can help it. Because according to his teammates, what Curry lacks in the size of his ego, he makes up for in the size of his head.

"Every hat he borrows never comes back," said senior defenseman Kevin Schaeffer. "It's three times too big."

Just call him Mr. Met, said fellow senior and ex-roomie Eric Thomassian.

"I mean it's true. I have a pretty oversized head," Curry said. "I mean, it's not oversized. It's no bigger than a couple other guys on the team. I don't feel bad throwing them under the bus, Karson Gillespie has the same head size as me, Craig Sanders has a big head -

they all just love to give me crap."

The average male head size is 7 1/8, according to the National Park Service. Where does Curry fall on the spectrum?

"[I'm] 7 3/4," he said, "which isn't that big. If I broke 8, I'd be worried."

Terriers' captain Sean Sullivan first noticed almost four years ago, when he walked into Shelton Hall, Room 605, to meet his roommates for the first time. And Curry's teammates have been ragging on him ever since.

"It's been going on since he started ruining all our hats," said Sullivan.

Curry ruins some of his own hats, too. Take, for instance, the most recent addition to his hat collection, the 2007 Beanpot Champs cap.

"The recent Beanpot hat was one size fits all," Curry said sheepishly. "But I tested that limit pretty good. It was a little snug."

The hat problem has been the biggest problem for Curry's current roommate Tom Morrow, who has lived with the goalie since freshman year.

"He wore my hats and they don't fit me anymore," said the 6-foot-7 Morrow. "He stretched out my stretch hat - one size fits all. It does not fit all, now it only fits John."

This is the price Curry pays for being that good. He has a goals-against-average of 1.81 (No. 3 in the nation) entering this two-game home set with Vermont to complement a .936 save percentage (No. 2) and six shutouts (T-No. 1), and he has lead the Terriers to a 17-5-9 record (12-4-8 Hockey East).

He's so good that his teammates are running out of hockey-related things to say about him.

"Well, what else can you say about Curry," said a satisfied Sullivan after a 4-1 road victory over Merrimack College back on Oct. 21.

"He's got a big head," Thomassian said.

"Literally," said junior Pete MacArthur.

"Huge," Sullivan said, before MacArthur could finish.

They bantered, back and forth.

"It's pretty round."

"It's like a beach ball."

"It's like a tennis ball," MacArthur said. "I mean it's circular. It's like a perfect circle."

"I think his hair's like a tennis ball," Sullivan said.

"I'll give you guys a couple bucks if you say John Curry, also known as Mr. Met," Thomassian said.

"He'll be out of practice next week," Sullivan said, pointing at Thomassian, "getting beat."

Curry's hat size puts his head somewhere around 24.5 inches, a measurement taken 1/2 inch above the ears. But to Curry's teammates, it's not <>> about circumference. It's shape, too.

And so Curry is Mr. Met. He is Dome-a-Roma, Basketball Head, Melon Head and The Perfect Circle.

Down the line, the seniors rattle off their favorite names for the one who has been keeping them in games all season long. And while Curry (sort of) shrugs the names off now, that wasn't always the case.

"I got a little defensive because when I look in the mirror I don't see an oversized head, but that's the way they make it look, calling me Mr. Met and whatnot," he said. "Obviously I know it's a joke, but I try to make them know it's not a funny joke anymore."

But Curry has supporters in powerful and informed places when it comes to cranium size and shape. Louie Fenerlis is Curry's barber, and he deals with heads of every kind all day long.

"I don't really see much difference compared to anyone else's head," he said. "If it is big, I haven't noticed, and there's a lot going on in that head obviously. A goaltender's got a lot to think about."

But if Curry can take shot after shot after shot come game time, he can certainly find a little bit of humor when he takes them off the ice, too.

"I'll borrow an adjustable hat and I have to readjust it, obviously, and usually I go to the ends of the things and I forget to put it back when I give the hat back," he said with a smirk. "And sure enough, it just goes right down on their eyes when I give it back to them."

But it's not just hats.

"You know what else you don't want to lend him?" Morrow said. "Sunglasses. He stretches those out too. He borrowed two pairs of mine and seriously they don't fit."

"It's true, I like to steal Tom's hats and I might stretch them out a little bit, but I don't really care," Curry shot back. "The more you make fun of me, the more I want to steal his hats and his sunglasses and ruin them for him, so I don't feel bad about anything."

Curry has made 743 saves heading into tonight's matchup with Vermont (16-12-4, 11-8-4), many of them giving new meaning to the phrase "standing on his head."

"Well, he's got a lot of head to stand on," Morrow said.

So much so that Curry's custom-fitted goalie helmet is the first one of his career to fit properly.

"Yeah, that's true. I've always had different types of helmets growing up and I've always gotten the pressure points on my forehead and whatnot, but they haven't been that bad," he said. "But this one is really nice. They put plaster on my face and on my head and formed it so it fits exactly how it is.

"I'm sure if a couple of the other guys put it on it wouldn't fit them too well, but it works for me."

Kinda like how well Curry fits between the pipes in his Scarlet and White. His crease, like his helmet, wouldn't fit anyone else. Because being a BU netminder isn't one size fits all. Instead, all sizes fit Curry - and <<>> works for the team, even if they have to lose a hat or two along the way.

"I've tried [his helmet] on," Morrow said. "It was going all over the place, but I've got an egghead, so it doesn't work out with a basketball head."

"I wouldn't dare [try it on]," Sullivan said. "I'd get lost."

The irony is that will all the success he's had over the past three seasons - culminating this year in his best season yet - Curry's head is as deflated as yesterday's birthday party.

"The great thing about him is he's very, very grounded," said BU coach Jack Parker. "He's self-assured but has humility as well. He knows he's good but he knows he can get better. He appreciates the fact that he's been given this god-given talent and the opportunity and he's taken advantage of it, but he's not cocky by any stretch of the imagination.

"You don't have to look far to figure out why he's like he is - just meet his mother and father and you'll understand," Parker continued. "They've never pumped him up or told him how great he is or told him how much he was getting screwed when he wasn't playing. They just told him they were proud of him, play hard. I think that he's the epitome of what you'd like your son to be, the type of player you'd like to coach - does everything right in school, does everything right with his teammates. He understands the importance of doing the next right thing, and that's a lesson that a lot of us could learn."

Curry's humility - as cliché as it may sound - comes from his insatiable thirst for improvement, for perfection.

"I never have really liked all the attention, so to speak," he said. "I've never really been satisfied, and I think that's one of the things that's helped me improve. I never let it get to my head, thinking that I've made it at any point. I always try to improve upon things.

"Even in my sophomore year when I got the starting job I wasn't satisfied with the year that I had," he continued. "I think that's one of the things that's helped my success, is that at no point have I really been complacent. I've never been satisfied and I'm still not, so hopefully I'll keep getting better."

His ego-less mentality comes from his unwillingness to be content simply being college hockey's top goaltender.

"He hates it when [the student section] does the Hobey Baker chant," Morrow said. "When they call him Johnny Baker - he absolutely hates it.

"If he starts ripping on you and you don't know what to say back, you can just be like, 'Whatever, All-American or whatever, Second Teamer,'" Morrow added. "He gets so mad, he gets so fired up."

You won't find Curry's Eberly Trophy or Beanpot MVP decorating his dorm room. You won't find awards scattered across the walls, waiting for their next admirer, either. Curry won't even let his parents show him off.

"We showed up to his house this summer and his dad hung up all of his awards down in the basement," Morrow said. "I came over to meet up with him, and I was like, 'John, I'm gonna run downstairs and grab something.' He was like 'No no, I'll run down there.' So I run down and on the far wall in the corner are all his awards, and he just walks up to me hanging his head and he was like, 'Man, I didn't want you to see that. It's embarrassing.'"

Curry's never-ending selflessness and unwavering poise are even sparking comparisons with BU's last - and only - Hobey Baker winner, Chris Drury, now of the Buffalo Sabres.

"You never see [Curry] get rattled, even from the first time he went in there," Parker said. "We put him in when we were losing 7-0 against Michigan his sophomore year - he never seemed to get nervous or shaken up.

"Some guys have that gift," he added. "I remember asking Chris Drury one time after a big game, probably a day later, 'Chris, lemme ask you, were you nervous last night?' He look at me, almost incredulous, and he said, 'I never get nervous.' I don't think John gets nervous. I don't think he gets rattled, I think he just knows if a goal goes in, it goes in, if it doesn't, it doesn't. If I make a big save, so what? I'm gonna be asked to make another one."

It's exactly the mentality that, as much as he doesn't want to hear about it, could very well win him the most coveted college hockey honors.

"I can't think of anybody else who deserves it more than him," said MacArthur, as he has said all season.

"He's kept us in way more games than anyone I can think of," Sullivan said. "I mean, shame on us for not winning more games for him, but we could have a lot more losses if it wasn't for him, and he absolutely deserves it. I don't think there's been anyone in this country this year that's done more for a team than he has."

It's doubtful that his bigger-than-average head gives him those bigger-than-average stats. But for all the thoughts that must be going through his head after every close call and every big save, Curry doesn't let one of them sneak out of him mouth, keeping a code of silence come game time.

"I think we're the ones that should be saying stuff to him, like 'Thanks John. Thanks for saving my butt out there,'" Sullivan said.

"More like 'Thanks, again," Schaeffer said.

They all appreciate Curry, despite their love of giving him hell.

"He's the most modest kid I've ever known," Morrow said. "For everything that he's gotten, he doesn't act like it at all."

"Pretty ironic, too," Schaeffer said, "that he has a big head."

But there's more to the secret life of John Curry than his head. Curry doesn't actually want to be an All-American goalie, according to his teammates.

"He wants to be an All-American center," Sullivan said. "Every day after practice, he takes all his stuff off and goes out and skates with a regular stick and takes slappers. He's always stick-handling stuff."

"He has a cannon of a shot," MacArthur added.

But maybe Curry just wants that one celebration, that one chance to raise his fists, pump his stick and crash into the glass if front of screaming fans.

"It's true," Curry said. "I have not given up yet. I've talked to Coach a couple times about getting on the power play, maybe when I'm not playing, and let a few bombs go. I've tried to get into the hardest shot contest for the last couple years - haven't broken in, but I think everyone's just too scared to let me go in the contest."

Curry also has a flair for all things virtual, and roommates past and present attest to his record-setting dedication to video games, including a 13-hour day at the mercy of a controller and a television screen.

"He yells at little kids on Xbox Live," laughs MacArthur.

"He does drafts for NHL," Morrow said. "Till three in the morning, he'd have a pad and paper and he'd be writing down the top-5 draft picks so he could trade for them."

Between draft days, it was Tiger Woods.

"Freshman year, he'd be like, 'I'm gonna head to bed,' and he'd hop in bed and be like, 'I'm gonna play a quick 18 before I go to bed,'" Morrow said.

But his classmates - roommate Morrow, especially - can lay off the noggin every now and again and find some other essential body parts of Curry's to rip on. A chorus of laughter confirmed that the goalie does, indeed, have large calves as well.

"That's why he can't run," everyone agreed. "They weigh him down."

"He does have the record for the longest two-mile run in the history of the BU hockey team," Morrow said. "He's still going right now. He started freshman year."

But if there is one nickname that gets under the skin of the star netminder, it's probably the team's favorite.

"Mr. Met, that's definitely the worst," Curry said. "The Basketball is pretty bad, too."

But no matter who or what his teammates are poking fun at, their favorite characteristic of their most-valued teammate stays fresh in their minds.

"Curry's got the worst pair of sandals on earth," Morrow said. "They're pea-green crocs, and he wears socks with them. I leave in the mornings early a lot of times so I don't have to walk with him to breakfast, 'cause I'm just embarrassed to see him in those things."

"Plus," Sullivan added, "his head's huge."