RE>Boston Garden memories?
As usual, Mike has suggested an excellent topic.  Two college
hockey Boston Garden events stand out in my mind, in each
case featuring an improbable comeback.
 
1. If your team is ahead by two goals with less than a minute
to go, you probably feel pretty comfortable, right?  Clarkson
fans who were at the Garden for the ECAC semifinal with
Providence in 1981 will probably never feel that way again.
The Knights led by two when future NHL defenseman Scot
Kleinendorst scored from the blue line with, as memory serves,
around 42 seconds to go to cut the lead to 4-3.  With under 20
seconds left, rookie forward Gates Orlando hit Dan Miele with a
cross-ice pass in the neutral zone to send Miele in on a breakway,
which he converted to tie the game.  The over time was all Providence
until Steve Anderson ended it to put the Friars in the final.
 
2. Maine fans will point to varying events as "turning points" for
the program on its rise to national prominence, but it's hard for
any of them to ignore the first game the Black Bears ever
played in the Garden when discussing that subject.  It was 1987
and the Hockey East semifinal opponent was Lowell, which had
finished the regular season in second place, three points ahead
of third-place Maine.  The Black Bears trailed 4-2 in that game
when they began a comeback ignited by a goal scored by Bob
Corkum, who clearly knocked the puck in with his hand, a detail
that was missed by the referees.  The heart and soul of those
Maine teams, Mike McHugh, scored the game-winner late in the
third period as Maine won 5-4.  It would be their last win of
the season as they lost to BC in the championship game and then
got swamped by Michigan State in the NCAA quarterfinals, but
the win got Maine into the NCAA tournament for the first time,
beginning a streak of tournament appearances that would last
seven years, culminating in the 1993 national title.
 
An aside on Normand Leveille: Bruce Crowder, the current
UMass-Lowell coach and former Bruin teammate of Leveille's,
was sitting next to Levielle in the B's locker room when the
budding superstar collapsed from that aneurysm in Vancouver.
 
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