Terriers Claim Unlikeliest Title

WASHINGTON -- Colby Cohen saw it before anyone in the building.

The puck launched off Kevin Roeder's stick and fluttered toward the net, end over end like a coin lazily flipped up into the air. It was a 50-50 shot and it was about to come up a loser for the RedHawks. It tucked softly beneath the crossbar just inside the right post, ending a raucous overtime with a silent thud before a roar right out of a Logan runway crushed everything on the ice. Cohen threw his hands before it hit the twine, his stick falling to the ice.

Miami netminder Cody Reichard never saw the puck, but he saw a celebration, heard a celebration, and felt a celebration that must have felt like a gut punch from every one of the 18,151 in the stands. He must've seen Cohen's stick start to slide, but he never saw the puck that would end the RedHawks season.

The puck fell to the ice and Reichard collapsed forward like the breath had just been vacuumed out of his lungs.

In a tournament of the unlikely, the likely finally happened. But only in the most preposterous way possible.

There were two goals in the final 59.5 seconds, a comeback, a puck arcing in so perfectly you might've thought someone on the Boston University bench had in on a string. And after all the improbable, there was the most probable result of all.

Boston University, the nation's No. 1 team, was the national champion, 4-3, in an extra period that should've never happened against a team that never should've been there.

And for Miami, the next to the last team in the field, a Cinderella, midnight finally struck, even if the clock was running in a different time zone, about an hour behind when the RedHawks should've been swept from the ice.

"All I can think of is that it's the greatest game comeback I've been involved in," said Terrier coach Jack Parker, the man who, after 36 years and four titles is such a Boston landmark you half expect him to spit out the old tokens to the Boston T when he clears his throat.

It was miraculous in a way that would have befit the program's most famous alumnus and one of its most vocal cheerleaders on this night. Mike Eruzione, the former Terrier who led Team USA past the Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympics was in the building.

So too was another miracle on another sheet of ice.

" The dramatics of it," said Hobey Baker winning defenseman Matt Gilroy, trailing off. "What just happened now is still I'm in awe over it and it's a great feeling.

"It was unbelievable"

But unbelievable didn't quite describe it. The tournament had been unbelievable. This was the championship of the unbelievable.

There had been Bemidji State's run to the Frozen Four, the first overall bottom seed to make the final weekend. There was Miami's first ever trip to play for a national title in any sport, and that as a No. 4 seed. Before this season only one No. 4 seed had made it as far as the Frozen Four. There were two game-tying goals in the final second, one by Minnesota-Duluth in the opening round with .8 remaining, another by New Hampshire in the regional finals with .1 remaining.

Even mighty Boston University had to stage a comeback against Hockey East also-ran Vermont to survive, scoring two goals in the final minutes of a wild 5-4 semifinal win Thursday night.

And the title game proved even more improbable, starting just when the game should've been over.

After the two teams played to a 1-1 draw through better than two-and-a-half periods, Miami's Tommy Wingels scored his third goal of the Frozen Four punching in a rebound past Terrier goalie Kieran Millan with 7:29 left. Three minutes and 21 second later, after yet another Boston University penalty, Trent Vogelhuber fired a wrist shot from the high slot using Cohen, later the game winner, as a screen. It was just the freshman's second ... of the season.

And as it turned out, one goal too few.

"We're a resilient bunch," Gilroy said of the Terriers' mood after what seemed like the season-ending goal. "We're going to do everything we can to tie it up and hopefully push it to overtime."

Boston pulled the goalie with 3:38 remaining but it was until 59.5 seconds left that it finally broke through as Zach Cohen flipped a rebound through nothing more than a hint of space, the puck bouncing off Reichard and sneaking in between his arm and his body like it had a GPS embedded somewhere.

And that goal, a punch through an opening barely bigger than the length of a hockey blade would be the most likely thing to happen the rest of the way.

With 17.5 seconds left, Nick Bonino fired a shot from the right circle and the tournament under a diving Miami defenseman, over Reichard's glove hand and somewhere into the improbable.

"I've never seen nothing like this where it seems like we were getting a big goal here, big goal there," Parker said. "It Always seems like they're always late. It's the momentum. "

The rest was just prologue to Cohen's game-winner, that fluttering, arcing puck that hit the back of the net when his stick went high and everyone else went crazy. It snuck in so that Gilroy didn't see it from the bench or Reichard from the crease, so that the scoreboard operator ran off two more seconds after it had already gone in before the clock froze for the season at 8:13.



The Terriers out-shot the RedHawks 9-4 in overtime and it was clear all period that all they had to do was make the likely happen.

And that may have been the most unlikely thing of all.

On the dais, as three Boston players and their legendary coach answered questions, there was laughter.

Asked about his game-winning goal, Cohen went through the replay before Bonino stopped him.

"Colby," he said, "You closed your eyes."

On the Miami bench, heads bowed in unison as the ice erupted in a mix of gloves and sticks as the Terriers tossed everything under 20 pounds in the air like it was graduation day.

Reichard remained collapsed in his crease for minutes after the horn had sounded and the celebration had begun. Teammates Wingel, Bill Loupee and backup goalie Conner Knapp skated out to join him in the blue paint and the three talked as the Terriers reveled.

"I just told Cody it just wasn't meant to be and I'm just so proud to be your teammate and to be a RedHawk," said Wingels, who still wore his team sweater some 20 minutes after the final horn. "And that's why I'm wearing my jersey right now. I'm sure that's why Brian is. We're just so happy to be part of Miami's hockey team."

Miami's first national title in any sport had been half a minute away, about the length of a commercial, less than the amount of time you could hold your breath. And had slipped away like puck that just wouldn't hold onto the tape.

It was improbable that the RedHawks were there in the first place, survivors as the next-to-last team in that didn't even with their league title, and improbable that they'd lasted 70 minutes with one of hockey's powerhouses, a team that would crash Goliath into the boards and drop gloves with the big fella.

There were plenty of words about stepping stones afterwards and about Boston College, who turned two straight final defeats into a national title last year.

"What the boys did this week, the last couple of weeks, is they made history," RedHawk coach Enrico Blasi said. "No other team in Miami history has ever gone to a semifinal. No other team has played for a national championship. And we've done that. Hopefully this is a setup for more to come.

"Nobody gave them a chance two weeks ago."

And for Boston University, it was a celebration of yet another championship. Players lingered on the ice after it was over, bowed to the raucous BU section and cradled the school's fifth national title around the ice like it was a newborn and they were passing out cigars.

"It's something the senior class will never ever forget," Gilroy said. "It's unbelievable to go out the way we did."

And when it was over, there was a list of accomplishments longer than the list of Sullivans in Boston phonebook. Parker set the NCAA tournament record for wins with his 30th, the Terriers won their sixth tournament this season and seventh championship, finished a school-record 19 game unbeaten streak away from home, brought home a Hobey Baker for Gilroy and a third title for Parker.

And they managed one of the greatest comebacks in one of the greatest hockey games ever played.

Meanwhile, Miami put a program on the verge, onto the map, even earning the admiration of Parker, who, when first asked about the school Thursday joked about it being sunny there, intentionally confusing the Oxford, Ohio school with its better known Florida namesake.

" I was impressed with Miami on the film when I saw them," Parker said. "I was more impressed with them tonight when I saw how hard they played and they certainly deserve -- we kind of snatch victory right out of what happened. And I'm sure it was a tough thing for them to watch and have happen to them. But as I said before, everybody goes home as a loser instead of the one that wins the championship."

That might be all Parker was wrong about all night. There was a fluttering puck, an improbable comeback, a program that finally puts its mark on the national stage and all-time great team. But there was no real loser.

In a game like this, in a tournament that, what could've been more unlikely?