A dose of déjà vu nearly befell Munn Ice Arena on Saturday night, as a Zamboni mishap delayed the start of the second period by about 15 minutes.

During the first intermission, a Munn employee sitting on the Zamboni attempted to throw a giveaway T-shirt into the crowd, but his toss failed to clear the glass in the northeast corner of the rink.

The Zamboni, just starting its first lap around the ice, couldn’t help but run over the fallen T-shirt and was rendered useless - giving some Spartan players eerie flashbacks to a similar incident in Sault Ste. Marie last season.

“Someone came in and said the Zamboni was broke and we were just like, ‘Oh God, Lake Superior State,’” MSU junior defenseman John-Michael Liles said.

That Zamboni breakdown melted a patch of ice at Lake Superior’s Taffy Abel Arena during pregame ice resurfacing Jan. 13. CCHA officials deemed the makeshift repairs inadequate and postponed the second game of the MSU-Lake Superior series to the following afternoon.

The consequences of Saturday’s incident at Munn weren’t quite as dire, but still evoked a few groans of disbelief from those involved.

“We were kind of chuckling it up in the locker room (Saturday),” Liles said. “But we knew we had a couple Zambonis, so it never really went into anybody’s mind that we’d have to play (Sunday). But everyone got a little chuckle about it, and we had to wait awhile.”

Fortunes were definitely better Saturday night than they were in the Upper Peninsula in January. After a few minutes surveying the damage, MSU Zamboni driver Sam Gonzalez diagnosed the stalled machine and retrieved Munn’s backup resurfacer to smooth things over.

“I guess it was a T-shirt incident,” MSU junior goaltender Ryan Miller said, laughing. “We kind of held our breath there, but we know we have two Zambonis here, so we just had to get that fired up and we were fine.”

The original Zamboni returned to action during the second intermission.