What an incredible weekend. The Seawolves of Alaska-Anchorage, who
many people believed didn't belong in this tournament, closed out
a sweep of Hockey East regular season champion Boston College with
a 3-1 win tonight. UAA now goes to Northern Michigan next weekend.
BC ended the season 27-12-0 and lost its last three games, all at home,
after beginning the season with an unblemished 17-0-0 mark in the
friendly confines of Conte Forum. UAA is 19-15-4 in NCAA games,
22-15-4 overall.
All four goals in the game came on the power play. While Shepherd
called a fine game last night, there was really no flow at all to
Game Two, a result of the 19 minors called in the first two periods.
BC was 1 for 7 over that stretch, but Anchorage was 3 for 10. Yet, BC
did themselves in, I'd say, by taking really idiotic penalties with
their team already losing the series *and* behind in this game.
Shepherd took a large amount of vicious abuse from the BC students,
who didn't realize until the third period that he wasn't the reason
their team was trailing. Emma, Cleary, Guerin, etc. spent a lot of
time jawing at Shepherd, but if they had spent more energy worrying
about Alaska-Anchorage, they might have had a better chance to win.
But I doubt it.
Ceglarski made two big changes for BC tonight. He played Galuppo in
net instead of LaGrand, but goaltending was not his problem. He
also yanked Steve Heinze off the top line and replaced him with
Guerin to reunite the GEM line. It made no difference whatsoever.
Guerin had two goals in the series, but Emma, McInnis, and Heinze
pulled no-shows again.
Anchorage did not change their style one bit from Game One, and if
anything, they executed it better. The first period saw the teams
exchange power play goals. At 16:09, Anchorage got on the board.
Tim Kollman, a senior defenseman (one of only four seniors), took
a pass from Rob Conn (1-1--2 last night) and blasted the puck from
the top of the left circle. It went right along the ice and in
past Sandy Galuppo, then it ricocheted out, but Shepherd was right
there and signaled the goal. It was goal #11 for Kollman.
BC got that back with a PPG of their own at 17:17. Guerin deflected
in Ted Crowley's shot from the right point for his 26th goal. Emma
also assisted as he had fed Crowley. That was to be BC's last goal
of the year. In fact, of the three goals BC got in the series, you
can only fault Krake on one (Pergola's stuff in from behind the net).
Krake ended up stopping 81 of 84 shots (1.50, .964), clearly the
MVP of the series for the Seawolves.
BC was hit with two dumb penalties late in the period and it would
do them in. Heinze went off for slashing at 19:19, then the Eagles
got a bench minor at 19:46 to give Anchorage a 5-on-3 for 1:33. UAA
capitalized 1:05 into the second when Jeff Batters shot the puck through
a screen from the left circle past Galuppo for his 14th, the eventual
game-winner. Kollman and Steve Bogoyevac (GWG Game One) also assisted.
After UAA went up 2-1, they got socked with three consecutive penalties
at 1:22, 6:13, and 9:33, to give BC nearly six minutes on the power play,
and the Eagles couldn't do anything. UAA's men covering the point were
particularly effective all weekend in forcing bad passes and blocking
shots. Emma and McInnis had great chances but Krake came up big.
Then, BC started getting hit with penalties. The one that resulted
in the third UAA goal was the dumbest of the night. Guerin stole the
puck, came up to the faceoff dot and shot the puck, but Krake gloved
it and held on. Guerin kept coming, with no one near him, and took a
whack at Krake. This came with Cleary already in the box and put the
Eagles down 5-on-3 again. It was also what set off the students'
abuse of Shepherd, although of course he didn't deserve it. BC killed
off the 5-on-3 portion, but with five seconds left on Guerin's minor
UAA scored their third PPG of the night. Conn was battling for the
puck down low and slid the puck across the crease to Galuppo's left,
where no one was covering Trent Pankewicz. He quickly potted his 18th
goal, a huge one.
BTW, UAA had two more goals called back tonight. Late in the first
period, Bogoyevac appeared to score and I thought Shepherd signaled
the goal, but then he pointed for a faceoff instead. Then what would
have been their fourth goal was disallowed in the second because a man
was in the crease.
Conte Forum has two huge video screens that they use for replays, and with
BC down 2 entering the third, the people who run the scoreboard put up the
video of John Belushi's famous "It's not over until we say it's over!"
speech from "Animal House". This drove the crowd into a frenzy and they
rocked the building when BC hit the ice for the third (again played in
halves). Unfortunately for them, the Eagles didn't respond. They did
outplay UAA and generated more scoring chances than they had in the first
two periods, but the key players like Emma, Crowley, McInnis, Heinze were
fanning on shots, shooting the puck wide, losing the puck at the point.
Much of the period consisted of UAA dumping the puck in and letting BC
try to breakout; they are obviously a very well-coached team defensively.
They made BC look absolutely awful, worse than I have ever seen a BC
team look.
BC's lethargic offense received a wake-up call about halfway through the
period on the only power play (Shepherd called 19 minors in the first
two, and one in the third), but it fell back asleep very quickly. Defeat
was in the air, and there was nothing BC could do to avert it. As the
final horn sounded, the celebration on the ice was very reminiscent of
one I had to suffer through three years ago, when Merrimack upset
Northeastern in the opening round. For only the second time since the
independents had been given an automatic bid, an independent had won a
series. And, Alaska-Anchorage had become the first independent ever
to win a best-of-three *and* sweep a best-of-three in the DivI tourney.
(That *is* correct. :-) )
Emma was visibly upset afterwards, and as is the BC custom at Conte,
even in defeat, the Eagles gathered at center ice and together rapped
their sticks on the ice and lifted them toward the balcony in salute to
the students - but it was not with much enthusiasm. Emma, the captain,
waited for the rest of his teammates to leave the ice, then, with the
fans chanting "Hobey, Hobey", he saluted them just as his teammates
had, then he left the ice for the final time as a college player. In
defeat, this was a classy way to go out, I have to say.
The anti-BC fans were really out in force tonight, smelling the kill.
A large section of fans spent the whole game jeering David Emma ("Emma
wears a bra", "Hobey Faker") and Bill Guerin. In the third period,
after the ten minute mark, at every one-minute interval they counted
down - "Seven minutes to elimination!" This is really what BC deserved,
because they were so damn cocky they seemed to think Anchorage should
have just mailed in the two losses. After all, they're BC. That
attitude permeated right down to the people who run the scoreboard at
BC. Both games, they kept showing a message that urged fans to get
their Final Four tickets now, along with the address & phone. That
didn't appear in the third period tonight.
Even more amazing, they kept a number "6" superimposed in the upper right
corner of the scoreboard throughout the entire game last night; it wasn't
until near the end of the second period last night that we learned
what it stood for. At first I jokingly suggested it was supposed to be
the spread. It turns out, it was the number of wins BC had left until
the national championship! Needless to say, after five periods, that "6"
was gone in the third tonight. But I can't believe Ceglarski would allow
them to do that. You just do not go around doing things like that. If
you do, you pay for it. And they did.
Congratulations to Anchorage fans, I was very impressed with the way the
Seawolves stuck to their game plan, played smart hockey and stood nose to
nose with a team many had figured to sweep the series. I don't think I
have seen as fabulous a goaltending performance in a weekend as I saw
from Paul Krake. If he stays hot, Northern Michigan will have their
hands full. Alaska-Anchorage has definitely earned some respect this
weekend.
- mike
p.s. haven't heard a thing about any other games tonight yet.
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