ESPN Gets it Right

On a night where nothing really special was happening in the world of sports, ESPN finally put the right thing on television. The NCAA Hockey championship is this week and today started the frozen four, which included Boston College and North Dakota, and Notre Dame and Michigan. Boston College played earlier on ESPN winning 6-1 over the Fighting Sioux. But at 9:30 eastern time, my Irish played rival and number one seed overall Michigan Wolverines. Notre Dame skipped out to a 3-0 lead midway through the second period, but sloppy defense with around ten minutes left let up two goals in less than 30 seconds making it a one goal lead for the Irish. Then late in the third period, with the score at 4-3 in favor of the Irish, Michigan dumped it in their offensive corner and got a lucky bounce of the boards. Michigan shot on goal and Jordan Pearce, 07'-08' team most valuable player, got lazy and let the shot ricochet off of his left skate and into the net when he should have been all the way against the post. So the game was off to overtime where whoever scores first wins and heads to the championship. The underdog Notre Dame was getting demolished off the face off; they lost 40 of them in regulation. So with about fifteen minutes to go in OT, the Irish finally won a face off and freshman forward from Stockholm Sweden, Calle Ridderwall got a rebound from a hard slap shot and put a nice wrist shot in the top left shelf, sealing a Notre Dame victory, and a chance to play another rival, BC in the NCAA championship hockey game. So as sure as I stand here at 12:48 in the morning, I am glad that ESPN finally aired a hockey game, their first of the season, especially in college hockey, a sport that should be more appealing to hockey fans around the country.