Northeastern Huskies Are 2019 Friendship Four Champions

(Photo: William Cherry/Presseye)

Let’s face it, if you were a director of a hockey movie and you were trying to come up with scenes that showed goal scoring, edge-of-your-seat plays, near misses, intense competition, and a close game, you would need only look to the championship tilt between the Northeastern University Huskies and the Colgate University Raiders that took place in Belfast on Saturday night in the final game of the 2019 Friendship Four.

And like any good movie, these two teams have a backstory to go along with their present. Northeastern and Colgate were two of the original teams to participate in the inaugural Friendship Four in 2015. They lost their Friday games to the University of Massachusetts-Lowell River Hawks and Brown University respectively and found themselves playing in the consolation game that Saturday afternoon. Northeastern took that game with an astounding 7-1 score, but more importantly it turned their 2015-16 season around. They arrived in Belfast with a 2-10-2 record, but after the tournament they finished the season with a 22-14-5 record.

Given how strong Colgate had been in their preliminary match against the Princeton University Tigers on Friday, it seemed unlikely at the first puck drop that the Huskies would achieve a blowout such as they had in 2015. After some feeling out by both teams of their opponent, Northeastern notched the first goal of the game at 7:43, when Jayden Struble potted his second goal of the season. Twelve seconds later, before anyone could even announce or report Struble’s goal, Matt DeMelis gave the Huskies their second goal of the period. But the Huskies weren’t slowing down. While Liam Watson-Brawn sat in the box for Colgate, called for a tripping, Tyler Madden put his 12th goal of the season behind Colgate’s goaltender Andrew Farrier, just 43 seconds later. The Huskies scored three goals in 55 seconds on their first three shots of the game—the only three shots they got in the opening period.

Colgate’s head coach, Don Vaughan, used his timeout to refocus his players, which worked. Three minutes later it was Colgate who was celebrating, as John Snodgrass put the Raiders on the board. Northeastern carried their two-goal lead into the first intermission.

What still looked like a solid lead for the Huskies turned into anything but when just one minute into the middle frame Ben Sharf—who scored two goals in Colgate’s win over Princeton on Friday—put the Raiders within one.

“Talking about the game, I think it was up and down for sure. I mean, we started off good, and they took it to us, I would say, for close to a whole period. But I mean, we’re going to be in games like that all year when it’s 4-3, 3-2, 2-1, so we kind of just bought into that. And we’re not gonna be beating teams by seven, eight goals. And it was a classic championship game,” said Huskies captain Ryan Shea after the game.

While the animosity and the intensity increased in the second period, Huskies goaltender Craig Pantano continued to keep the Raiders at bay and his team in the lead, albeit just by a goal, into the second intermission.

The third period saw John Picking sent to the box at 2:06 for a tripping penalty, offering Colgate their fourth opportunity on the power play in the game. Certainly not what Northeastern wanted with such a tenuous lead. However, as was seen the night before, Colgate has struggled on the power play so far this season, and once again they could not convert.

Then came an onslaught of penalties called on Colgate. The first, an interference on Josh McKechney was whistled at 6:54. With 20 second remaining on McKechney’s penalty, the Raiders went down another player, Watson-Brawn took his second of the game, this time a slashing. Colgate weathered the short five-on-three situation keeping Northeastern from doing any damage. The Raiders then had a brief shift, as in 31 seconds, down just Watson-Brawn before they again found themselves back killing a five-on-three. This time it would be for 61 seconds, if they survived, when Nick Austin went off for a trip.

Colgate managed to kill off everything, which certainly had the potential to tilt the ice in their favor, but the experience of the upper classmen and the coaching staff on the Northeastern bench helped keep the relatively young team on task.

“Well, that was an opportunity for us to put the game away, and we didn’t. And as a coaching staff you think when you don’t get that goal, you know, that the penalties are gonna balance themselves out somewhat towards the end of the night. And you know when you don’t score on a five-on-three, I think we had a minute nine, the first five-on-three was only 22 seconds, the last one was a minute nine, you know that’s not usually a good omen in terms of success. But hats off to our guys. We just talked to them about staying in the moment, staying present, and just keep grinding away, and that’s what they did,” said Huskies head coach Jim Madigan.

As Coach Madigan predicted, there was some balancing out of penalties, when the Huskies were called first at 12:58 for a slashing that sent Collin Murphy to the box. Once again Colgate couldn’t convert.

The clock continued to count down, but nothing would be easy in this game. Northeastern was back on the penalty kill with just 2:22 remaining in regulation Struble who started the scoring in the first would sit for possibly two minutes of the time remaining, offering the Raiders one more opportunity to tie things up and force the game to overtime. Perhaps one of the things that may have helped Northeastern at this point was Coach Vaughan’s decision not to pull Farrier until his power play unit was set up. As a result, there was only 59 seconds remaining on the clock before Farrier headed to the bench.

Three seconds later Ryan Shea had netted a shorthanded, empty-netter, for the Huskies, putting them up 4-2. That goal would become even more important. Just four seconds after the Huskies returned to full strength, Colgate again got themselves within one. Farrier was again out of his net giving Colgate the extra attacker when Bobby McMann rifled one past Pantano with 12 seconds remaining on the clock.

The clock ran out, the buzzer sounded, and if you were the director you would cue the cheering crowds, the cheering Northeastern hockey players, and undoubtedly would have panned over the faces of the crestfallen players from Colgate.

Six years ago Boston’s mayor, Marty Walsh, announced his support of the Odyssey Trust’s intention to have a college hockey tournament in Belfast, Northern Ireland similar to the annual Beanpot, which originally had many thinking that Mayor Walsh wanted to export the Beanpot tournament. He didn’t. However, it took five years of the tournament for an actual college from Boston to win the Friendship Four, which has been nicknamed the Belpot. And it happened with Marty Walsh watching in Belfast.

“I think it was great. I mean, it’s pretty cool. Usually you lift up a trophy. Over here you’re ringing one. So, I thought it was cool. I thought Coach was kind of joking when he said, ‘Yeah, they’re gonna give you a bell, and you ring it at center ice.’ And it honestly gave me chills when I started ringing it. I saw everyone in the stands, hands up, and then my whole team going nuts. I like it. I like the idea of the bell,” Ryan Shea said of his getting to ring the 100-year-old school bell.

The game had everything imaginable. And while Northeastern didn’t come into this tournament with the record of 2015, they are undoubtedly planning to embrace this experience and apply it to the rest of their season. Afterall, the Beanpot is only about two months away.