An overlooked design flaw in a steam main at the Appleton Family Ice Center resulted in a catastrophic earthquake-like fissure in the ice during the third period of Lawrence’s MCHA semifinal game against U of MN-Crookston last Saturday. Eyewitnesses compared the phenomenon to a tense moment of the classic film “Ghostbusters.” When Zul takes power, the sky turns black and a New York street splits open, swallowing the ‘busters.
Aside from the previous paragraph being complete bullhonkey, last weekend was just about as emotionally taxing for LU hockey enthusiasts as the Manhattan fracture was for Egon, Peter, Ray, and Winston.
The weekend began with a swell 3-2 win over third-seeded Crookston. It was Crookston’s first conference loss since beginning its dominant stretch of 10 straight wins in early January. The success continued into the second game of the series as the Vikings held the lead within the last few minutes.
Then things turned rotten.
With 40 seconds remaining, an empty-net last-ditch effort by Crookston resulted in a goal and the need for an overtime period. To make it to the conference finals, all Lawrence needed to do was hold Crookston off for 5 minutes. They couldn’t manage more than a minute as Crookston quickly put one away to force a 20-minute mini-game to determine the series winner.
As if things weren’t wacky enough, the mini-game went scoreless. It forced a sudden death mini-game overtime. Nine minutes and 36 seconds into overtime, Crookston converted one final time, thus ending the Lawrence season.
This year’s seniors will surely be missed. Seven team members, including two first-line forwards, will graduate this spring. Hats off to them and cheers to their contributions to an improving team over the past four years.
Tragedy strikes on the ice
