Pretty incredible

That’s a subdued way to described last night’s NCAA Division I hockey championship game between the upstart Miami (OH) RedHawks and the Boston University Terriers.  The underdog RedHawks dominated, absolutely dominated the game, especially the first 19 minutes of the third period.  With 60 seconds to go, they held a 3-1 lead.  It looked like the school would win their first national championship in any sport.

But then …!!!  BU had been playing without a goalie since about the 3 min mark (well, except when there were face-offs outside of the MU zone).  The extra skater payed off when they scored with 59 seconds left in the game, and again with 17 seconds remaining.  Stunning, especially since they had been lethargic and totally outplayed until this point.

This set up overtime.  Sudden death overtime in hockey is the most exciting, tense, enthralling spectacle in sport (IMO, at least).  In this case, it ended 11+ minutes into OT, a slapshot deflecting off a sliding MU defender over the goalie’s shoulder ….

Read more here and here (Dan Shaughnessy already calls it the greatest college hockey game ever).  I haven’t seen that many, and I expect RedHawk fans would call it more a nightmare, but it was pretty exciting.

Rooting interests – I’m a Bostonian at heart, but my good friend and collaborator is a professor at Miami.  So I’m pretty torn by this.  In a good sort of way. (Well, except in knowing that my alma mater, UMass Lowell, lost their chance to get into the NCAA tournament by one goal to, um, BU.)

One more dig – the Frozen Four beat the heck out of the Final Four this year.