Gophers Win the WCHA Final Five
Sunday, March 18th, 2007Unless you’re from a state that starts with M in the USA, college hockey probably doesn’t matter to you. Fortunately, I’m from one of those M states :).
This weekend were the divisional playoffs for the WCHA, the division the University of Minnesota Gophers play for. Since the tournament is usually dominated by Minnesota, St. Cloud State, UND, Wisconsin, and other regional schools, it’s held at our beautiful Excel Energy Center in St. Paul, MN….nothing like a 20000 person capacity hockey arena in the middle of largest city in the state of hockey.
After winning their first round game against the Wisconsin Badgers, the Gophers played their final match against the UND Fighting Sioux. Both teams played extremely well, and the score was 2-2 at the end of regulation.
A couple minutes into the first overtime period, the Gophers broke out from a defensive play and sent Blake Wheeler a long pass down the side. He dove down to the ice to beat the icing call. Had the puck reached the red line before he touched it, it would have meant a face off in our zone. He touched it perfectly so that it went over the left shoulder of the UND goalie and into the far corner. We didn’t know this yet. We were just cheering because he had sprinted to beat the icing.
Suddenly, there was a loud roar (120 decibels), and the goalie judge’s light lit up as Blake Wheeler sprinted into the corner with his team right behind him. We looked at each other in disbelief that the entire tournament had been decided by what seemed like an impossible, yet spectacular goal. Check out the video.
[youtube EuepVP-NBrs]
Congrats, Gophers.
March 19th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Thanks for putting that link up, I’d heard about the goal but missed to news replay. I can’t believe the UND goalie missed the save. Does your dad still have season tickets? I can’t wait for the NHL playoffs to start!
March 19th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
No problem. It was so exciting to be there. We don’t get season tickets to the gophers anymore, but I still go to a few games a year and usually most of the Final 5 tournament. Are you planning to watch the NCAA tournament?
March 20th, 2007 at 12:50 am
Indeed a great goal, to bad there isn’t much (ice)hockey on tv here in the Netherlands. We have to wait for the winter olympics.
March 20th, 2007 at 7:50 am
I would watch but I don’t think any of the games are on network t.v. and I don’t have cable. So unless I go to a bar or a friend’s house I’m out of luck on college hockey.
March 26th, 2007 at 7:20 am
What happened to the Gophers this weekend? I guess what goes around comes around. I can’t believe we got beat by a wrap-around and that nobody was trying to take him off the puck.
March 26th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
I’m still glad they had frazee in the net. I haven’t ever felt good about briggs in the playoffs. North Dakota showed up and played a good game. We had our usual dry spell in the 2nd period. Oh well.