[1] Meagher began attending Boston University in 1972 but was unable to make the varsity ice hockey roster until his junior season.
That year, head coach Leon Abbott was fired for a second instance of recruiting violations and was replaced by his assistant Jack Parker.
[4] In 1983 Meagher received his first head coaching job when Sid Watson, the long-time bench boss at Bowdoin, retired.
Meagher received the Edward Jeremiah Award for the quick turnaround and kept the Polar Bears as one of the top teams in Division III college hockey.
The Bears were the last team in the conference tournament and faced a dominant Middlebury squad in the quarterfinals, but the defense held and limited the Panthers to a single goal.
The win propelled Bowdoin into the semifinals where they held #3 Connecticut to one goal as well, and they finished off their tournament with a championship victory over Salem State.
The next season saw a similar result from the Bears but Meagher team also saw its first Sid Watson Award winner when Charlie Gaffney was named as the National Player of the Year.
In 1997 Bowdoin nearly pulled off another upset in the ECAC East Tournament by making the finals as a seven seed, but the team fell on hard time afterward, failing to win a postseason game for the remainder of the decade.
Unfortunately, Bowdoin was again unable to escape the quarterfinals when they met Oswego for a rematch, despite the game finishing much closer with a 5–7 loss.
Meagher got the team to its sixth national tournament the following year, but they had to face Oswego again and were still unable to overcome the Lakers.