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Hill-Murray trailed by a goal with less than a minute left to play in regulation in Saturday’s Hockey Day Minnesota matchup against rival White Bear Lake. The Pioneers had pulled their goalie coming out of a timeout when suddenly fireworks began going off prematurely.
But neither the gravity of the situation, nor the chaos lighting up the late-January sky rattled senior Brady Ingebritson, who scored off a rebound to tie the score, then later notched the game-winner in overtime as Hill-Murray upset the Bears 3-2 at Polar Lakes Park in White Bear Township.
“We knew we could win this game,” Ingebritson said. “We said before we came back out (on the ice) to keep it simple. To take the goalie’s eyes away and just throw pucks along net. That’s what we did, and success came our way.”
Pioneers coach Bill Lechner said he made a point of stressing that even-keel approach during the timeout.
“We’re still in a hockey game,” he told his team. “Just calm down. Don’t worry about it.
“We always talk about playing between the glass. If they’re really focused, they don’t know if there’s 10 people watching or 10,000.”
Or if there are pyrotechnics in play.
“That just got me fired up,” Ingebritson said of the exploding fireworks. “It got my adrenaline going.”
Despite temperatures in the single digits, both teams started the game hot.
Hill-Murray got on the board first when sophomore Boden Sampair scored less than a minute in, but White Bear Lake wasted no time responding, tying things 1-1 on a goal by senior Aiden Welch just 51 seconds later.
From there, though, things cooled off considerably. In fact, no one would score again until Bears junior Nolan Roed put his team on top 2-1 with 6:48 to play. Before that, the two teams combined for a total of just three shots on goal during a scoreless second period.
“Our emotions were so high,” Ingebritson said. “The game was physical. It was good hockey in that second period. It was going back-and-forth. Then once they scored, our energy rose. We know we’re a good enough team to come back in a short amount of time.”
It took until the final minute, though, when it looked like White Bear Lake – ranked No. 9 in the state in Class 2A – was ready to skate away with the victory.
Instead, Hill-Murray did, thanks to Ingebritson, whose first goal came with only 46.7 seconds left on the clock in regulation, and whose second came at the 2:06 mark of overtime.
“(Teammate) Landon Cottingham made a great play,” Ingebritson said of his game-winner. “He shot it low on the pads. We said that before we came out there. Keep it low. Shoot it on the pads. I was just in the right spot at the right time and tapped it in.”
The loss was a tough one for the Bears, whose community was this year’s Hockey Day Minnesota host.
“It sucks,” Roed said. “We always want to beat these guys. We just didn’t do what we needed to do to win.
But despite the loss, he said the whole Hockey Day experience has been an amazing one.
“It’s unbelievable,” he said. “Not many kids get to play in this event, let alone host it. So it’s pretty special for us. It’s a day I’ll never forget.”
It’s one Ingebritson is likely to remember for a long time as well.
“I’m at a loss for words,” he said. “To play in Hockey Day Minnesota against White Bear Lake. You couldn’t ask for much better than this.”
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