The Miracle in North Dakota

Scoring a historic upset in the NCAA Western Regionals, Holy Cross hockey comes of age.

By John Gearan ’65

Tony Quesada ’06 had his secret ingredients prepared to concoct a single oversized pancake, which he would not eat, but, instead, would carefully burn to a crisp. That ritual, he claims, wards off bad vibes. Quesada had abandoned his pre-game practice of sharing pancakes with teammates when he felt they were becoming sluggish.

Tyler McGregor ’06 had his soccer ball pumped up for impromptu ceremonial juggling.

Coach Paul Pearl ’89 had inspected the trim on his players’ playoff beards, a hirsute male-bonding rite that he had allowed for the first time.

With superstitions satisfied and personal quirks aligned to please the hockey deities, the Don Quixotes of eastern hockey ventured forth to slay Minnesota, a Bunyanesque hockey power quaintly misnomered as the Golden Gophers.

The Crusaders, intrepidly invading a foreign territory known as the NCAA Western Regionals in Grand Forks, N.D., may as well have been traveling to Little Big Horn with General George Custer leading the charge.

            For some perspective, consider these facts:

• Minnesota, ranked No. 3, had reigned five times as NCAA hockey champs, including winning back-to-back titles in 2002 and 2003. Herb Brooks, who coached the USA to its 1980 “Miracle on Ice” victory over the Soviet Union, guided Minnesota to three NCAA crowns in the 1970s. Holy Cross, ranked No. 19 and representing the upstart Atlantic Hockey Association, had never won a single game in the 58-year history of the NCAA hockey tourney.
• Minnesota had 14 players on its roster who had been drafted by the National Hockey League. Holy Cross had none.
• There were 18 Gophers on full athletic scholarships while about half the Crusaders receive need-based grants to lighten their financial packages. Minnesota-Twin Cities is a supersized university, with an enrollment of 51,000; Holy Cross has about 2,700 undergrads.

In plain-speak, Holy Cross didn’t have a prayer against Minnesota.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum, a.k.a., The Ralph Engelstad Arena.

A perfect storm was brewing on the North Dakota horizon. A distant drumbeat could be heard throbbing in the Land of the Fighting Sioux. A tribal chant, “Kill the Gophers!” whispered like tumbleweed blowing across the desolate flatlands outside Grand Forks on the Minnesota border.

Magically, the Crusaders walked into a “home game” a half-continent away from Worcester. A record crowd of 11,151 partisans may have not known Bob Cousy from Bob Wright. But the Fighting Sioux fanatics understood they hated their archrivals from bordering Minnesota with a purple passion. They wore “Go HC” t-shirts, held signs urging the extermination of gophers, cheered every Crusader stride and lustily booed every Minnesotan move.

“I couldn’t believe it. Here I was, in front of a sellout crowd of cheering North Dakota fans, on national TV (ESPN-U) playing goalie against the one team I’ve always dreamed of playing,’’ remarks Tony Quesada, whose mother, Strandy, and her family are Minnesota natives.

Even Quesada’s 22 relatives (“huge Gopher fans”) found themselves rooting for Tony and his teammates.

What unfolded was “surreal,” the one-word summary provided by Tyler McGregor.

“Once we got in that arena, we absorbed the atmosphere,” says McGregor. “Right off, we heard no heckling, just cheering. On paper we were no match. Minnesota recruits the elite of the elite. But we had a genuine belief that we belonged.”

The momentum built. A scoreless first period demonstrated the Crusaders were no pushovers, definitely more seasoned than the College team that lost 3-0 to North Dakota in the 2004 NCAA first round.

Dale Reinhardt ’08 beat Minnesota goalie Kellen Briggs at 8:49 of the second period, spiking the team’s confidence as the Crusaders took a 1-0 lead.

Nearly five minutes later, on a power play that followed a Minnesota goal, McGregor fired a shot into the left corner of the net to put Holy Cross back on top, 2-1.

“That one proved to us the first one wasn’t a fluke,” recalls McGregor. “They were running and gunning, and we were keeping up with them. We had a little hop in our step, and we weren’t going away.”

The fans, sensing they may be witnessing perhaps the greatest upset in college hockey history, were going bonkers. Pierre Napert-Frenette ’06 alertly poked in the rebound after a shot by Sean Nappo ’07 hit the post, tying the game at 3-3 with 12:07 left in the third period.

The Miracle in North Dakota continued >>