Getting to First Base

Hockey heaven: UNO tops Ohio State in 7-round shootout

[Note: Photos are here! I took roughly 2 million, so it took a while to sift through them and find the best ones to share.]

When the puck dropped last night, it didn’t take long for Ohio State to score on Omaha goalie Jeremie DuPont. And it didn’t take long for them to score again – the Buckeyes had two goals before two minutes had passed in the game. It was going to be one of those games.

What other direction can a game like that take when the visitors stomp on the home team’s throat so early? Omaha looked feeble and overmatched, and I settled in for what I figured would be the biggest blowout loss I’d ever seen at the Qwest Center. (That would be an unbelievable disaster, given that I’ve seen the Mavs get blasted 7-1 before. Yikes.)

Oh, and a school-record crowd was on hand to witness this uncomfortable start to the game. It would have been one ugly night, if things kept going like those first two minutes.

But they didn’t. DuPont started stopping the occasional shot and Omaha finally penetrated OSU’s lines to take some shots of their own.

In the 2nd period, the Mavs were down 4-2, and freshman Terry Broadhurst decided to heft his entire team on his back and turn the game around himself. He scored at 11:03, and again at 17:18 to tie the score.

…and then he scored again to put the Mavs up 5-4 late in the third. A hat trick! I had never seen one in person before. All 3 of Broadhurt’s goals came on Mavs power plays. But still: HAT TRICK!

That last goal put Omaha up 5-4, but Ohio State answered with 1:34 left in regulation to send the game to overtime. Neither team scored in OT, so we went to a shootout. I barely remember the details of the shootout, because my heart quit beating like six times throughout. What I do know is, the thing was seven rounds long, Rich Purslow scored the winning goal, and I am still high from that epic game.

GO MAVS!