With the Olympic break in full swing, and me on vacation (Note: This post was scheduled a while ago, I’m not magically posting from my cruise. I can’t. And even if I could, I wouldn’t.), there were some volunteers to help keep the content here at BSB in full swing until the NHL returns to action. Over the course of the week, you will be seeing posts from readers here. This post is courtesy of Ben, the lead writer at Bettman’s Nightmare, who recalls the greatest hockey game that I now need to go and watch.
An Ode to a Perfect Game: 1991 NCAA College Hockey Final, Northern Michigan 8, Boston University 7 – 3 OT
The phrase “best game of all time” is a loaded, debatable, and exhaustive topic, full of heated arguments and empty threats to other people’s well-being. Not being a big person, I don’t take the phrase lightly.
If I had to put my ass on the line, though, I would say that the 1991 NCAA Final between the Wildcats and Terriers should go down as the best game ever played. Let me air my bias…growing up in the sticks introduced me to the value of VHS and HBO (there were later revelations but we won’t go there), in particular because my parents liked to tape random things and never tape over them. This included the Tom Hanks classic The Money Pit (put it on your list of 100 movies to see before you die), Elvis Stojko nailing a quadruple axle (I once thought he and Elvis Grbac were the same person), and the music video for Snow’s “Informer” (I like to think I half-“sticks”, half-“street”). There was also a tired old JVC of NCAA college hockey finals, including the 1991 game. I may have watched it two hundred times, though it was abbreviated because it was a replay of the game.
What parts were abbreviated? Only two of the overtimes…what a bunch of assholes…
When I started making money, I launched a crusade to find a full version, which took me to the Upper Peninsula and back with no luck. Finally, a couple of years ago NCAA On-Demand starting releasing DVD’s of championship games, and I got the whole thing in my grubby hands.
I proceeded to watch a masterpiece.
At the beginning of the game, you had the usual banter about the big players, including Scott Beattie of NMU who would be screwed out of two consecutive Hobey Bakers despite putting up 163 points over two seasons and 86 games. The Wildcats also featured the dynamic Dallas Drake, Jim Hiller, Brad Werenka, Mark Beaufait (who would go on the terrorize the IHL on the Orlando Solar Bears and then the German league with the Berlin Polar Bears), and goaltender Bill Pye. The Terriers? Only Keith Tkachuk, Tony Amonte, Shawn McEachern, and Scott LaChance; all of them would be playing in the NHL the next year.
NMU also featured a little-known pest of a player named Darryl Plandowski, who had been told by coach Rick Comley that his assignment that day was to shadow Tony Amonte.
Guest commentator Doug Woog (I called him the Wooger, rhymes with “booger”) jokingly predicted that, with all the high-powered offense, the score could end up 8 to 7. The other commentators chuckled.
Regrettably, the St. Paul Civic Center (where the game was played) had just recently switched from completely clear boards (glass and boards, not kidding) to the usual white boards.
Boston ran away with it in the first period, jumping out to a 3-0 lead as Pye looked downright terrible. Future NHLer Ed Ronan tallied twice on either side of a Sacco goal. By the second period, though, momentum flipped in a big way, as the high-octane NMU offense shifted into overdrive and leapt ahead 7(!) to 4. Beattie had posted a stunning hat trick among 6 unanswered goals, and Plandowski scored twice. BU pulled starting goalie John Bradley in favor of Scott Cashman, who summarily stopped the bleeding.
By the final period, it appeared that NMU would coast to the finish. What they hadn’t accounted for was that the shock of the NMU attack had worn off, and Jack Parker’s team wasn’t done by a long shot. Sparked by an amazing-effort assist by Amonte (splits D, flings the puck across to McEachern while sprawling to the ice), the Terriers inched within one of the Wildcats, 6-7. At about 40 seconds left, LaChance dove and chipped a crossing pass to Sacco to tie the game. The final 40 were absolute bedlam, with chances throwing Pye and Cashman around the crease like rag dolls. With 5 second left, Amonte beat his man and went in on a breakaway. Winding up, he ripped a low wrister with one second left.
Pye somehow gloved it.
For the next two overtimes, the post would be rung no less than 5 times. Chances for both sides exhausted the D and the goalies. By the third overtime, the entire pace was weary. Then, out of nowhere, NMU weaved together passes into the Boston zone. As the Terriers’ D scrambled to shut the play down, Plandowski sent a drop-pass between his legs on an overlap with Beaufait. Beaufait took it to the right post, driving to the net and drawing the Terriers towards him. At the last second, Beaufait threw a pass back to the slot to a wide-open Plandowski who put it home.
The crowd, chock-full of Michiganders, erupted. With the camera focused on the pile-up, an NMU player did a full “wild man” in front of the camera.
It had all the elements: an underdog upset, major lead changes, pivotal goals, flashy goals, and an unlikely hero in sudden death. Altogether, it’s a must-watch for any hockey fan, though you will probably have to buy it. Either way, it’s my pick for the greatest game of all time.
