Game Summary
WINONA, Minn. — The last time the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team beat St. Thomas, Ryan Stinson (Winona, Minn.) was playing junior hockey for the Minnesota Ice Hawks.
Bryan Trottier (Doylestown, Pa.) was playing for the New Mexico Ice Breakers, Peter Benecke (St. Louis, Mo.) was still at the Culver Military Academy and Eric Richardson (Skokie, Ill.) was tending goal for Lake Forest Academy.
In others words, SMU's four seniors had heard the stories of what it feels like to knock off the Cardinals' biggest rival and the cream of the MIAC crop, but they had never experienced the thrill for themselves.
Until Friday night.
Todd Hangge (Rochester, Minn.) — who, by the way, was a junior at Rochester John Marshall High School the last time SMU beat the Tommies, 6-2 on Jan. 16, 1998 — scored three goals and the Cardinals scored the game's final five goals en route to a 6-2 victory Friday evening in front of a packed house at the SMU Ice Arena.
"That was a fantastic game, all the way around," said SMU coach Don Olson, whose Cardinals improved to 6-0-1 in the MIAC — keeping them the lone team in the conference without a loss. "Obviously this is a very big win for our program. I said before the game that it's exciting to finally be back in a position where these games against St. Thomas meant something (in regards to the race for the conference championship).
"St. Thomas has had our number over the last three years, it's nice to see us finally get that monkey off our back."
Hangge certainly did his part to extract that King Kong-sized monkey, netting SMU's first goal at the 4:42 mark, then adding back-to-back goals two minutes apart late in the period to give SMU the lead for good, 4-2.
"I had a good feeling about tonight," admitted Olson. "We have been playing extremely well of late, and everyone was excited about the opportunity to play St. Thomas, to prove that this Cardinal team can play with the best teams in the conference."
And play they did.
After a scoreless first period, Tony Lawrence put St. Thomas on the board first, banging a rebound of a Jake Searles shot past Richardson 35 seconds into the second period.
Hangge knotted the game four minutes later as he tipped Benecke's slap shot from the point past UST goalie Bob Tallarico. The tie did not last long, however, as the Tommies regained the lead on Drew Palmgren's slap shot from the point.
From there, however, it was all SMU as Nick Meeker beat Tallarico on a breakaway with SMU shorthanded and Hangge followed with his third and fourth goals of the season as the Cardinals took a 4-2 lead into the locker room after two period.
"I think that second period really showed what type of character this team has," said Olson. "To give up a goal 35 seconds into the period is a momentum-killer, and then to give up another goal just 42 seconds after we tied it at 1-1, we could have easily just collapsed.
"But (after UST made it 2-1) nobody panicked, they just kept working hard," continued Olson, whose club got third-period goals from Jason Fillipp (Fox River Grove, Ill.) and Chad Damerow (Albert Lea, Minn.) to ice their fourth straight win. "When we step on the ice, we know we are going to battle for 60 minutes — and that's exactly what we did tonight."
