Notre Dame loses in hockey title game

Notre Dame's magical, unexpected run through ice hockey's NCAA Tournament ended one step short of a national title, as Boston College beat the Irish 4-1 last night.

I neglected to post about this last night (sorry!), but on a different post, several commenters complained that the Irish got screwed by a wrongly disallowed goal that totally changed the momentum of the game. *sigh*

Regardless, and despite the loss, an amazing run for the Irish.

Comments

[Andrew]

"Changed the momentum"? I'd buy that as an excuse if it was 2-1, or even 3-1 that included an empty-net goal at the end, but 4-1 means the Irish just couldn't hang with their superior foes from BC.

[NDLauren]

When the disallowed goal happened, the score was 3-1. The goal would have made it 3-2. 35 seconds later after the ruling was made, BC scored to make it 4-1. I'm not trying to say the outcome would have definitely been different, as BC played an absolutely perfect game, but what I am saying is that the Irish truly would have had some momentum at 3-2. BC potentially starts to think about the past two years and the championship games they lost. The freshman Muse tending the net starts to potentially get a bit jittery. Was BC superior? Yes, definitely. But sometimes in the game of hockey, swings in momentum and lucky breaks make all the difference. The replay official didn't have enough evidence to make the call they did and they should have left the call on the ice.

[Brendan Loy]

Andrew, your comment is silly. You say you would "buy" the "changed the momentum" excuse if the final score was 2-1 (or 3-1 with an empty netter), but in those situations, the "excuse" wouldn't be that the disallowed goal merely "changed the momentum" of the game -- it would be that the goal was directly responsible for the Eagles' margin of victory. So in actuality, you wouldn't be "buy[ing] that as an excuse," you'd be buying an entirely different excuse. In effect, you're rejecting categorically the whole concept of a "changed the momentum" excuse (since that excuse is ONLY ever voiced when the disputed call was NOT directly responsible for the final margin of victory). Which is fine, if you want to do that, but let's be clear about what you're saying and what you're not saying.

Personally, I think it's perfectly obvious that a bad call can "change the momentum" of game, even when it doesn't mathematically decide said game; and I think it's equally obvious that this was a textbook case where that happened. However, that doesn't mean it's the one and only cause of Notre Dame's loss (duh) -- nor, obviously, as everyone has said, does it mean the Irish definitely would have won (or even sent the game to OT) if the call had gone the other way. Nevertheless, as a factual statement, it's true that the call "changed the momentum" of the game, and if you reject that "excuse" in this case, you are effectively rejecting it in all cases where it would ever be raised (as opposed to the "direct cause" excuse).

[Wobbly H]

You know you're a lawyer when you use "said" as an adjective, Brenners :)

[Mike's brother Matt]

Plus there's the issue that it wasn't even remotely reasonable. There's few things more deflating to a team than to have a perfectly valid goal taken off the board, as then you start looking over your shoulder for 'How's this one going to get taken away?' every time you break in on goal. ND was playing outstanding hockey for a while before the goal was taken away, and clearly were disparing afterwards.

[Andrew]

Sorry Matt, I call bullshit on that one. If you can't get your ass motivated for a chance at a title in a tournament title game, a classic do-or-die situation, then you shouldn't have been competing in the first place. "Oh, they took the goal away, well I guess we'll just give up now since the refs are against us" -- yeah, I'm sure that's exactly what the players were thinking and feeling.

As for Brendan's comments, momentum changes many times in a competitive game. I'm sure the Domers had plenty of opportunities to reverse the adverse momentum.

[Brendan Loy]

Andrew, that's certainly true. It's also not responsive to my comment.