Re: Best college hockey game you've ever seen
Not sure if this is the "best" game I was ever at, but it's the most memorable, the most epic, the most taxing.
Most in attendance had their Frozen Four tickets for Milwaukee already bought and we had been the best team all season. It couldn't end in the regionals could it? To Cornell? Now nothing against Cornell as they were our toughest opponent in the NCAA's that year and they played a whale of a game that day, but the train wasn't supposed to come off the tracks in the regional.
What a gut wrenching marathon of a game where as the periods passed without a goal, it became clear that one slip by either team was going to be the difference. Nerves on end for about 4.5 straight hours.
I was also at the FF a couple of weeks later, but this was the game of games for me.
When I saw this thread a few minutes ago, I knew someone would have beaten me to this game as an answer - the 2006 regional final, Cornell vs. Wisconsin. You know it must have been an incredible game for a Cornell fan to think it was the best game he's ever seen even though Cornell lost.
We had some decent firepower on that team - three future NHLers in Moulson, Bitz, and O'Byrne - and Dave McKee in the net, just one year after making the Hobey Hat Trick. But by all rights, we probably shouldn't have even been there. We'd finished 3rd in the ECAC regular season, and it took us two double-overtime games in a row (!!) to dispense with Clarkson in the quarterfinals. After an uneventful shutout of Colgate, we got pasted by Harvard in the finals. We'd had a great regular season, so we got an at-large bid, which was wonderful, but of course that meant getting shipped out to Green Bay.
There was a beautiful if unexpected comeback against Colorado College in the opening round game, after being down 0-2 in the first period. So spirits were high, but Wisconsin was still the #1 overall seed, and we were still #8. We were realistic. But it was still a shot at the Frozen Four.
Then the game happened. Oh, Lord, what a game. You could tell Wisconsin was the better team - I'm pretty sure Cornell didn't even get a shot on net for the first nine minutes, including on a power play. But Cornell was scrappy, and they hit hard. They had fewer chances, but McKee was doing everything he needed to do on the other end - even against 19 Wisconsin shots in the third period alone. I remember thinking in the first period, though, during a 4x4 after matching minors, that I really didn't want to see us go to 4x4 again, because Wisconsin definitely had the better of it with more room on the ice for their speed.
Of course I would've still preferred 4x4 to 4x5, but nevertheless we gave Wisconsin five more power plays in a row while not getting any more for ourselves, as if things needed to be any more difficult than they already were. And McKee was still putting on a ridiculous goaltending clinic - as was Brian Elliott for Wisconsin, for that matter. 99 total saves in the game, when it was all said and done, and I'd probably put three or four of each goalie's saves on any highlight reel of the best twenty-five saves I've ever seen.
I don't like overtime. I don't like losing in regulation, either, so I'd always rather see Cornell tie it up and have a chance in OT - but I feel like every overtime game takes about a year off my life. If that's true, these three overtimes took ten years off. Chance after chance after chance - and make no mistake about it, Cornell actually had some good opportunities to pot one, about as many as Wisconsin for a change. Could the tide be turning? Maybe if we were the better-conditioned team, maybe if we kept hitting, maybe the Badgers would just be too **** worn down to keep us off the scoreboard, and we could pull off a miracle to get to the Frozen Four in Milwaukee.
Then came the matching roughing minors halfway through the third overtime, after the game had already gone for 110 minutes. And I remember saying out loud something I'll always regret, though I obviously don't think it changed the outcome: "We won't survive two minutes of 4 on 4."
When Josh Engel flipped the puck off the wall into the slot to Jack Skille, I knew it was over. I didn't even have to watch the shot go in. And that was one of the most devastating moments of my (at the time) 19 years of Cornell hockey fandom, to see a miraculous run come to an end after an absurd, herculean effort. It took days to get over it.
The Frozen Four was in Milwaukee that year, and obviously Wisconsin was playing, so I knew I would encounter an absurd number of Badger fans. I wear my Cornell game-worn to the Frozen Four every year, and I wasn't sure what to expect. Sure enough, every single one of the Wisconsin fans who came up to me during those few days,
every single one, remarked on what an incredible game that had been, and what a shame it was that anybody had to lose it. If there was any doubt before, that sportsmanship and shared awe is what pushed this game over the edge to become the best I'd ever seen.
Runners-Up:
2003 ECAC title game - Cornell 3, Harvard 2 (OT)
2003 NCAA regional final - Cornell 2, Boston College 1 (2OT)
1997 regular season - Cornell 4, Brown 3 (Cornell was down 1-3 with 6:20 remaining; we scored with 4:01 left, 1:25 left with the extra man, and then again with 1:02 left to take the lead. You don't see too many games where both teams have to pull their goalies.)
ETA:
2004 NC - Denver 1, Maine 0 despite Maine skating 6x3 for the last minute or so. Crazy finish.
