The Associated Press April 3, 1988, Sunday, AM cycle

Lake Superior St. 4, St. Lawrence 3. OT

BYLINE: By JOHN KEKIS, AP Sports Writer
DATELINE: LAKE PLACID, N.Y.

"A national championship? This is only reserved for the North Dakotas, the Michigan States.
I mean, this is unbelievable!"
Those were the words of Lake Superior State hockey coach Frank Anzalone after his Soo Lakers
defeated St. Lawrence 4-3 in sudden-death overtime Saturday night to win their first NCAA
Division I title.

Truer words may never have been spoken.

The Brooklyn-born Anzalone ventured to Sault Ste. Marie in the northern extremes of
Michigan in 1982 to take a job as an assistant under Coach Bill Selman, who must have
figured that with players such as Ezio DiEmanuele, Con Metro, and Nick Bumbacco he was
better off out of hockey altogether. Selman soon resigned to go into private business and
Anzalone took over permanently in February 1983.

The Lakers went 5-10-1 under Anzalone the rest of that year, but he quickly gave the
program stability and credibility at a school with an enrollment of less than 3,000. This year
the team captured the Central Collegiate Hockey Association regular-season title and was
ranked at or near the top of the Division I poll all season.
Still. Lake Superior State? Come on, they lost to Bowling Green in the CCHA playoffs.

But the Lakers got a bye in the first round of the NCAA playoffs and ousted Merrimack in the
quarterfinals to reach the Final Four. But even though Anzalone and his team brought an
impressive 31-7-6 record into Lake Placid, not very many people were banking on a victory
over top-ranked Maine in the semifinals. Not even Anzalone, who all week sounded as if he
and his hard-hitting Lakers really shouldn't have been there.
But they totally dominated the Black Bears after falling behind 2-0 early in the first period
and won 6-3. And when St. Lawrence struggled to beat Minnesota 3-2 late Friday night on
Pete Lappin's game-winner with 12 seconds left in regulation, it seemed the Lakers would
have an edge over the fatigued Saints.
But St. Lawrence had other ideas.

"They did everything quickly tonight, they wasted little time in mid-zone getting back up the
ice," Anzalone said. "And as hard as it is to believe, we were just a drop flat, but Bruce
Hoffort was ready."

That he was. The Saints swarmed around the freshman goalie in the first period, but
Hoffort, who would win tournament MVP honors for his 49-save performance, turned away
all 20 shots while teammates Tim Harris and Kord Cernich staked the Lakers to a 2-0 lead.

"They got quite a few shots there, and Bruce was the key at that point in the game, so that
we stayed in there," Anzalone said. "Bruce has done that a lot this year, but never on that
scale. I mean, to stop 20 in a period."

Sophomore right wing Doug Murray finally beat Hoffort at 2:16 of the second period and
junior defenseman Russ Mann tied it at 7:39. When Cernich and McColgan traded power-
play goals before the period ended, the stage was set for the tension-filled third period,
when the Lakers slowly began to assert themselves.
"Obviously, St. Lawrence didn't tire from the Minnesota game," Anzalone said. "They kept us
on our heels all night because St. Lawrence, to their credit, took a lot of offensive chances.
"In the third period, we changed a lot of things, and I think it showed," added Anzalone,
who was named CCHA Coach of the Year. "We just really revamped things. We took some
real big chances in the third, and that's why in the third we had more shots than them.
Then in overtime we decided to go for it. We thought St. Lawrence might finally get a little
tired, and they were a little tired, and that might have helped us a bit."
Neither team scored in the third period, with St. Lawrence goalie Paul Cohen turning away 14
shots and Hoffort six.
The game may have been won by Laker left wing Pete Stauber, who purposely dislodged the
net with the puck precariously close to the Laker goal line and the Saints scrambling for a
rebound. But there was no call from the referee, probably because there were less than two
minutes remaining in regulation.

"We don't have any excuses," said Coach Joe Marsh, whose Saints won 29 and lost nine _
all by only one goal. "We took a lot of shots, maybe they weren't all great shots, but the
game was a close, even game."

The Saints looked anything but tired in the early stages of overtime. They nearly ended it
only 1:04 into the extra 10-minute period when junior defenseman Mike Hurlbut skated
down a wide-open lane directly in front of Hoffort.
The lucky net _ the same one that Mike Eruzione scored into to give the U.S. Olympic team
its victory over the Soviet Union in the 1980 Winter Olympics, the same one that Gino
Cavallini scored into at 7:11 of the fourth overtime four years ago to end the longest college
playoff game in history and give Bowling Green the Division I championship _ beckoned. But
Hoffort somehow managed to get a small piece of it and the puck sailed high over the glass
and into the disappointed partisan crowd.

When junior right wing Mark Vermette, the nation's leading goalscorer, scored the
championship-winning goal at 4:46, it ended a season of promise for the Saints, who were
making their first title-game appearance since they lost 12-2 to Denver in 1961.

"It was a tremendous hockey game, we're really impressed with their team and their work
ethic," Marsh said. "I think they mirror us a little bit, especially in the sense that we've got
two teams here that are a little bit more obscure than the others."
Not any more.