New England Hockey Journal Replica Sample - 12

NCAA FROZEN FOUR

Harvard Crimson

Inspired by a Navy Seal and with Mark Messier as a booster, the 'Magnificent Seven'-led
Harvard Crimson put forth a valiant Frozen Four effort, only to suffer an excruciating fate

WINDY CITY HEART
By Tim Rappleye

arvard's splendid hockey
campaign of 2016-17 perished due to the whims
of a magic bullet. Down a
goal with six ticks left in
their national semifinal vs. MinnesotaDuluth, Crimson senior Luke Esposito
(Greenwich, Conn.) miraculously found
himself with time and space between
the hashmarks, with Minnesota-Duluth
goalie Hunter Miska dead to rights.
With the game on the line, Duluth coach
Scott Sandelin expected the worst.
"If he gets that chance 10 times, he's
going to put it in seven or eight."
With Miska scrambling to cover the
bottom of the net, Espo launched what
appeared to be the tying goal, destined
for the top corner of the vacated glove
side. But a second look from ESPN's
super slo-mo replay, the 21st century's
version of the Zapruder film, you see
Bulldogs freshman defender Nick Wolff
lay out in desperation, getting his lower
body in the path of the black disc. That
puck's flight would determine the legacy
of the Crimson's best season in 23 years.
Frame-by-frame, the puck leaves Esposito's left-curved blade with authority ... click-click-click ... Wolff slides

into view ... click-click-click ... the puck
merely grazes the maroon thigh pad of
the prone Wolff ... click-click-click ... the
projectile's path is altered after contact,
now at a steeper angle toward the top
of the net; the sprawling Miska flashes
a glove two feet below the puck ... clickclick-click ... the top third of the puck
makes contact with the crossbar, inside
the right post by five inches, a near perfect shot. You can see the entire blue

12 NEW ENGLAND HOCKEY JOURNAL May 2017

NCAA logo of the puck is below the bar,
safely feet above Miska's glove, a swath
of virgin white twine gaping below. The
final frame is what you would expect to
see from the classic "bar-down" goal.
Esposito's magic bullet miraculously
stayed out of the net. The top third of the
puck caught enough of the bar to create
a carom past the shoulder of Miska and
away from the onrushing Crimson. The
film reverts to live action, revealing fans

grabbing their heads, players scrambling
to recover, the clock in seeming hyperspeed for the remaining five ticks, the
buzzer sounding. The team in white celebrates in sheer relief, having survived
two pipes in the closing 13 seconds; the
team in Crimson in stunned disbelief, a
season of glory cruelly snuffed out.
Esposito's uncle, Mark Messier, had
the exact same look at the net as nephew
Luke, albeit 220 feet away, 12 rows up in
the far end zone. An incredibly positive
life force in his post-playing days, Messier
allowed his head to drop along with the
entire Crimson team that he had learned
to love over the past four years. When
it comes to hockey, the man known as
"Mess" lives by the sport's brutal creed:
"There are only two states - winning and
misery." This was clearly the latter.
Over the course of their gripping
semifinal, Harvard had withstood the
brutish physicality of the Duluth Bulldogs, and their premier skating legs had
managed to tilt the ice in the Crimson's
favor. They had outshot Duluth 16-12 in
that fateful final frame, and even scored
an apparent go-ahead goal midway
through the third, only to have it disallowed after a lengthy review. Duluth
nudged in its winning goal with a mere
26 seconds remaining, setting the stage

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