Sean Patchell’s most recent NCAA Tournament memory is not a happy one.
Last March, the then-junior Spartan left wing was sitting alone in the locker-room during MSU’s first-round NCAA Tournament game versus Boston College in Minneapolis, Minn.
Patchell had just been whistled for a major penalty for checking star BC forward Brian Gionta from behind in overtime, and he was justifiably worried.
For the next five minutes, the Eagles would skate with a 5-on-4 advantage, needing only one goal to advance to the regional final and end MSU’s season.
And making things even harder on Patchell, he had to sit there and listen to every excited gasp from the BC fans as the Eagles peppered MSU goaltender Ryan Miller with shot after shot - without being able to do anything about it.
In the end, his Spartan teammates valiantly killed off 4:54 of the penalty - all but six seconds - but BC forward Jeff Farkas sealed the Eagles’ 6-5 victory at the 11:53 mark of the extra frame.
The rest of the Spartans trudged into the locker room and their expressions told Patchell everything he needed to know. Their season was over and Patchell couldn’t help but feel a little guilty.
“I’ve never had a worse feeling,” Patchell said. “At the time, my heart really went out to the seniors because we didn’t deserve to lose, especially the way it went down.”
To this day, Patchell maintains his hit was clean and he shouldn’t have been penalized.
“(Senior center Andrew) Bogle and I both made contact with (Gionta) at the same time, but when they originally called the penalty, they called it on (senior right wing John) Nail,” Patchell said. “Nail wasn’t even on the ice and I told the referee ‘you don’t even know what’s going on. You didn’t even give the penalty to the right guy.
“That’s what (MSU head coach Ron) Mason was saying too, but coach eventually had to pick somebody that was right there (to serve the penalty).”
Patchell’s penalty was a turning point in the seesaw playoff game in which MSU gave up four leads en route to the season-ending loss.
Junior right wing Adam Hall said he has seen Patchell’s hit a couple times on replay and also doesn’t think it warranted a major penalty.
“A five-minute call in overtime is tough to take, but I think even tougher was that we killed almost all of it off,” Hall said.
Patchell says Gionta, a three-time Hobey Baker Award finalist, did a little acting job on the play.
“Gionta’s a small guy to begin with, so anytime you hit him, it’s going to look worse than it is,” Patchell said. “But he’s also notorious for making a hit look a little worse than it is.
“Even though it was a clean hit, it wasn’t a good decision on my part to come across the ice and hit a guy like Gionta. It could’ve appeared like it was a cheap hit by me, but everything happened so fast. I shouldn’t have even put myself in position to have the referee make that call.”
Mason, who’s seen his share of hockey in 22 years behind the Spartan bench, called the BC game “very weird,” which is probably an understatement.
Renowned for its stellar defense, MSU gave up six goals after they had shut out both of its previous two opponents.
And, considering MSU held a 5-4 lead with one minute remaining in the third period, just the fact that BC extended the game to an overtime period was quite an accomplishment. The Eagles evened the score and set up the overtime drama on a power play goal with 50 seconds left in regulation.
MSU opens this year’s NCAA Tournament at 2 p.m. Sunday against the winner of No. 4-seed Wisconsin and No. 5-seed Providence.
Hall hopes the Spartans’ fortunes turn around this season.
“We haven’t had too much luck in the tournament, but we feel like we’re due this year,” he said.
