Best and Worst Moments in NCAA Hockey Tournament
With Michigan breaking their tourney drought this season and it being selection Sunday for the hockey tourney, I was thinking back on good and bad times we've enjoyed. Single elimination hockey is heaven and hell all wrapped up into 60 minutes of gut wrenching and wringling of nerves.
Best: The game against North Dakota in the semifinals in 2011. They were supposed to walk all over us and they were the tourney favorites that year IIRC. We struck first and then had to withstand an assault on our end. Remember being nervous the entire game and pacing the entire time after we opened the scoring. We all gave North Dakota the finger that night.
Worst: Getting screwed against Miami and The Dynasty a year earlier. After they waived off our goal, there was absolutely no part of me that thought we were going to pull it out. Every review since then has triggered PTSD in our fanbase. Fuck Miami.
March 20th, 2016 at 11:15 AM ^
The worst has to be Air Force.
March 20th, 2016 at 11:53 AM ^
March 20th, 2016 at 11:22 AM ^
Best: National Championships in 96, 98...upset of North Dakota in 11
Worst: upset in 97, 08 in frozen fours, 11 loss in NC Game in OT
Obviously the two championship wins were the peak moments. As a senior, traveling to Minneapolis to watch them beat the ND team in 2011 was beyond special
97 might go down as the best team to not win a NC, that loss was just awful. 2008 was such a weird year with most "powerful" programs having down years, we were a buzz saw, riding high and then Sauer collapsing in Denver, fighting back, still losing in OT, painful. 2011, again being there as a senior, chance to witness my team win a championship live, they just didn't have enough left in the tank to win that one. Being there live might make it the most depressing loss.
March 20th, 2016 at 12:39 PM ^
I was at that game in 1997 - Ugh!
March 20th, 2016 at 11:25 AM ^
March 20th, 2016 at 11:45 AM ^
March 20th, 2016 at 12:24 PM ^
And I don't know if I've ever been as upset about a sporting event as that Miami OT game. We got completely hosed and would have been very hot going into the frozen 4
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
We had a great shot. Totally hosed.
March 20th, 2016 at 12:36 PM ^
2008. Red takes Billy Sauer to the press conference in Denver the day before the Frozen Four, where the press proceeds to grill him about what happened the year before, in the same arena, in a total bonanza of a fuckup game in which Michigan lost something like 7-5, despite scoring two goals in the first minute of the first two periods. (This was also the infamous TJ Hensick "the ref thought I said a bad word" game that probably cost him the Hobey, too.) Sauer was also an Avs draft pick at the time, IIRC, so it was doubly bad.
So Sauer completely blows it in 2007, comes into Denver again on a hot streak the next season, Red takes him to the presser, and he completely loses his confidence. Maybe the best team Red had since the 98 team chokes hard. Red flat-out admitted he screwed up. The guys on the team were like ghosts walking around the team hotel that night--they knew how badly they'd blown it, given what was coming up in the final. That was as winnable a Frozen Four as Michigan had seen in a decade.
I was there for both games. It's one thing to be so amazingly dumbfounded at a hockey result , but it's another to have it happen even worse the next season.
I ended up in the elevator at the hotel with Aaron Palushaj and another player whose name is currently escaping me (might have been Pacioretty? I'm blanking right now) that evening after the game.
This lady got on the elevator who obviously wasn't a hockey fan, but asked them how the game went since they were wearing their team warmups. Sucked the air out of the damn place. It was awful.
"So how'd the game go?"
"We blew it. We totally blew it."
"It's OK, there's always tomorrow."
"There's no game tomorrow."
"Oh... Um..." (Door opens, lady runs out)
I went to a TON of games that year. Did away trips to WMU and MSU. Did all the JLA games. Did the game against ND at the Palace. Did both the regional and the FF. I loved that team more than any Michigan sports team I've ever followed--it was magical night in and night out.
And then Denver happened.
March 20th, 2016 at 12:37 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
March 20th, 2016 at 12:47 PM ^
March 20th, 2016 at 12:45 PM ^
We scored in OT, but the ass hat referee "lost sight" of the puck and blew the whistle. The worst part was it was at Munn and the LSSU band kept playing the spaty fight song. It was so sad to see Steve Shields never make a final four. Close second was the 3 OT loss to Maine the next year in the semis
Best: North Dakota 2011 - all their fans thought they'd win 5-0 or 6-0 and in a best of 7 series, they probably would've had a few. But in one game hockey, Tiny Jesus reigned supreme.
Worst: Losing to Notre Dame in OT in 2008 in the Frozen Four. Gut wrenching
This is a depressing thread. Many more bad times are remembered... I shall not return to this one.
Came back to score goal with a few minutes to go to take the lead 4-3. After a long delay the refs say that they lost sight of the puck and the whistled the play dead. Marlarkey! Gophers score in OT and win the title that should have been ours.
Michigan has a long and awful history with overtime. I've thought about posting a diary about it. There have been a couple of OT successes (96 and 98 being the most prominent) but OT is generally where Michigan's postseason dreams go to die.
Seasons in the Red Berenson era in which Michigan's season has ended in the NCAA tournament with a loss in overtime:
1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1999, 2003, 2004, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012.
92 and 93 were Frozen Four losses, but bac when Michigan was a building team. In 1993 it was remarkable that it was that close at all, since it was against a Maine team that was one of the best in college hockey history. 1995 was the FF as well, a triple-OT multiple-post gut-wrencher in a "transition" season for the program.
1999 was a regional loss to a superior UNH team. 2003 was a soul-crusher, with the "covered puck" moment and another sure winner by Jason Ryznar blocked by Minnesota defenseman Paul Martin's glove. Minnesota dominated UNH in the final--that should have been us.
In 2004 Michigan was outplayed by a superior BC team but managed to hang on into OT. It took a miracle shot by Ben Eaves to beat us; we weren't title material that year. 2008 was a Jeff Jackson/Billy Sauer debacle that Michigan still managed to come back to win. Some have said it was Michigan's best chance to win since 1998, but I believe the BC matchup would have been difficult that year, particularly in comparison with 2003.
2010 was the worst officiating crime of all crimes. Normally a regional loss wouldn't rate as bad as a loss in the FF, but this was a special case. Michigan was on an amazing streak, rallying around Rudy-come-Jimmy Chitwood Shawn Hunwick. A home Frozen Four in Detroit beckoned, which would have been incredible. And the way we lost... it was robbery. I feel worse about that loss, still, than about the loss to UMD in the title game.
Speaking of the title game, it's always devastating to lose in OT with a title within reach. Even if Michigan was outplayed (and by OT they were) all it takes is one shot or one bounce to win. But the winning goal was well-deserved by UMD, so when I left the arena I was not as crushed as I might have been--we were beaten by a better team. 2012 was just an epitaph.
Best moments in my time? 96 and 98. The North Dakota wins in 1998 and 2011.
You can put 2013 in there as a footnote as well as our season effectively ended in OT losing to Penn State in the BTT when I believe we only needed to win that game to make the tournament.
So as someone who's first full season watching Michigan hockey was 2007-2008, I've seen our season end in OT in 08, 10, 11, 12, and 13 so 5 of 7 seasons
March 20th, 2016 at 11:14 PM ^
March 21st, 2016 at 12:37 PM ^
Mine's from the CCHA, but meh. Better than the depressing crap.
Sprined/broke my ankle playing indoor soccer at the IM building during my freshman year in 97/98. Had tickets to the first game of the CCHA tourney against ND. Walked to Yost. Stood the whole game. Bummed a ride to UM hospital after. Couldn't be happier after a 4-2 win.
believe year was in 1999 vs Denver. Michigan outshot 13-1 by Denver in 1st period and trailed 3-0 in middle of the 2nd and would win 5-3 and outshoot Denver 21-1 from that point (trailing 3-0) to the end of the game.