Detroit - The Spartans headed for their Joe Louis Arena locker room just seconds before being subjected to an unwelcome sight - archrival Michigan hoisting the Mason Cup, which is named after MSU’s longtime head coach Ron Mason.
The trophy signified U-M’s CCHA Tournament Championship, which it won Sunday with an impressive 3-2 victory over MSU in front of 16,452 fans. The top-seeded Wolverines used their strength and speed down low to doom the Spartans.
The playoff championship gave U-M a clean sweep of CCHA honors this season because it also won the regular season crown - by two points over MSU.
Mason was obviously upset about the loss after the game, but he lauded his team’s effort.
“It was a great game,” Mason said. “Hey, this series is even this year. We started in ‘The Cold War’ and we finished here. We’ve seen each team get a win and two ties and you can’t ask for much more than that. Neither one of us will see a better team than we saw tonight.
“They’ve got a good team and so do we. We always talk about how young Michigan is, but we had eight freshmen in the lineup tonight, too. We did as good of a job as they did this year. Actually, we had a better overall record, but it doesn’t mean anything.”
On Sunday, junior goaltender Ryan Miller made 24 saves for MSU (27-8-5), while Josh Blackburn stopped 21 for U-M (26-10-5).
The Wolverines got on the scoreboard first, breaking a streak of eight straight games between the schools in which MSU notched the opening goal. U-M right wing Mark Mink took advantage of a 3-on-1 offensive zone rush and backhanded his own rebound past Miller’s stick-side 3:43 into the game.
MSU evened the score on its only power play of the first period when freshman center Ash Goldie roofed the rebound of junior defenseman Brad Fast’s shot for his ninth goal of the season.
But U-M scored another rebound goal to reclaim a one-goal lead at 8:54 of the second period. Wolverine center Mike Cammalleri ripped a slap shot from the top of the slot that Miller saved, but right wing Jed Ortmeyer swept in the rebound.
“Not to be a smart ass, but they bounced off me and went right to their players,” Miller said when asked to recall U-M’s first two goals. “I can’t really describe it any better.
“There was a lot of hitting and a lot of hatred out there. I’m not happy, but I’m over it. We’re going to NCAAs and we’ll have to see how we do there. It’s unfortunate that we lost tonight - it doesn’t exactly fit our plans - but plans change.
“We’re just gonna take a different route to the NCAA title.”
The loss was Miller’s first ever in the CCHA Tournament - dropping his career record to 11-1. MSU had won the last two tournament titles and three of the last four.
The defeat also snapped MSU’s six-game unbeaten streak against the Wolverines (4-0-2), dating to January 2001. It was the longest such Spartan streak since 1988-89.
Despite being mostly outplayed in Sunday’s second period, MSU fought back to tie the game 2-2 with 1:04 left in the stanza. Unlikely contributor Steve Clark, a junior left wing, scored his first goal of the season when U-M defenseman Mike Roemensky tipped Clark’s centering pass into his own net.
“You’re on top of the world and then you’re just bottom of the barrel again,” Clark said about his goal and the team’s loss. “We still got a shot at things and hopefully we get another shot at these guys, because I think everyone on the team knows we can beat them.”
The back-and-forth nature of Sunday’s game continued 4:39 into the third period when Ortmeyer tallied his second goal of the game. Skating on a U-M power play, Ortmeyer one-timed left wing Eric Nystrom’s cross-crease pass past Miller on the stick-side for the game-winner.
And while it was tough to see the Wolverines raise their banner to the Joe Louis roof, the Spartans say they are trying to keep their collective heads up.
“I remember a few years back (1998) when it seemed like State won the league and the playoffs and Michigan won the national championship,” senior right wing Adam Hall said. “I think that would be a beautiful way to end our season.”
CCHA All-Tournament Team: Cammalleri, F; Ortmeyer, F; Chris Gobert, NMU, F; Fast, D; Mike Komisarek, U-M, D; Blackburn, G. Cammalleri was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.
