Taken from The Providence Journal, Friday, March 31, 1995.
 
THE LONG AND LONG OF IT
Endurance test goes to Maine in third overtime
by Jim Donaldson
 
No one ever will forget the ending, Maine's Dan Shermerhorn sliding the
puck under Michigan goalie Marty Turco in the 101st minute of play, giving
the Black Bears a 4-3 victory in the longest NCAA hockey tournament game
in history.
 
It is the beginning that's hard to remember.
 
Wasn't Red Berenson playing for Michigan when the game started, and
coaching the team when it ended?
 
Weren't the players bareheaded at the opening faceoff, and using straight
sticks?  And didn't they resurface the ice after the first period with
scrapers and squeegies?
 
Then - it was the second period, I think - the goalies came out wearing
masks.  Sometime in the third period, it seemed, players started using
curved sticks.
 
In the first overtime, everyone put on a helmet.  And then, in the second,
they added face shields.
 
Hockey history was being made at the Civic Center yesterday afternoon.
 
The problem was that by the time the game ended, 4 hours and 34 minutes
after it began, it seemed like ancient history.
 
It was a game for the ages, in part because it took ages to play.
 
It seemed to begin back in the Gordie Howe era, went on through the Bobby
Hull era and the Bobby Orr era, and into the Wayne Gretzky era.
 
It spanned the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic eras.
 
It went on and on, through more than four full periods and into a fifth,
through 106 shots and 99 saves - seemingly 98 of them of the spectacular
variety - and through at least 1,500 renditions of "Hail to the Victors,"
the Michigan fight song.
 
It went on so long that the NCAA ruled the guys who didn't get off the
bench could count the game as a redshirt season.
 
It was the hockey equivalent of War and Peace - a certified classic, but,
hey, enough already.
 
"In the old days," Maine coach Shawn Walsh said, "this would have been a
five-overtime game."
 
In the old days, overtimes were 10 minutes long.  Yesterday, Walsh's
Bears and Berenson's Wolverines played through two 20-minute overtimes
before Maine scored just 28 seconds into the third overtime.
 
It had gone on for so long and, suddenly, dramatically, it was over.
 
In the beginning, it had seemed as if the game was over almost as soon
as it had started.
 
It took Michigan only 1:05 to score its first goal, and the Wolverines
made it 2-0 just 4:16 into the first period.
 
But they would score just one more goal in the final 96:12, as they
were frustrated time after time after time by Maine goalie Blair Allison.
 
"It certainly looked like it was going to be easy, when we jumped out to
that 2-0 lead," Michigan winger Mike Knuble said.  "But they jumped
back in the game, as quality teams will."
 
The Wolverines dominated the first half of the first period, narrowly
missing several other scoring chances.
 
Then Maine scored on a power play goal in the final two minutes of the
first period, and scored again 1:06 into the second period, tying the
game, 2-2.
 
Maine made it 3-2 on a power play goal with only six minutes left in
regulation, but Michigan tied the score with a power play goal of its
own just 49 seconds later.
 
NO GOALS, NO WHISTLES
 
There wasn't another goal scored for more than 45 minutes.  Nor was there
another penalty called.
 
The referees could have gone home at the end of regulation.  The only
whistle heard in overtime was the linesman's, as icing and offsides were
the only things called.
 
But neither team gained an advantage from the ref's whistle-in-the-pocket
approach and, as evening approached, the tension and fatigue mounted as
the two teams played through one extra period, and then another, and then
on into a third.
 
"It became an endurance contest," Berenson said.
 
It had people on the edge of their seats.  Partly from excitement.  Partly
because they were sore from sitting so long.
 
"It was getting to be a marathon out there," Walsh said.  "It was Heartbreak
Hill for some people.  Others got their second wind."  [Heartbreak Hill
is a section of the Boston Marathon that does in many runners near the
end.  - mike]
 
This was Gone With the Wind.  This was an epic.
 
"It was a great game to play in, and a tough game to lose," Berenson said.
 
"That was just a phenomenal hockey game between two terrific teams,"
said Walsh.
 
It was the longest game in NCAA tournament history, the second longest
college hockey game ever played.
 
No one ever will forget the ending.  But don't blame them if they're a
little fuzzy about the beginning.
 
END
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Mike Machnik                                            [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93