Cornell Women Lose In Triple Overtime

There really isn't too much to complain about this weekend if you're a Cornell sports fan, but here's one thing.

If you're going to play a sudden-death overtime period to decide who wins, then it seems logical that this period should be played according to the same rules as the first part of the game. Otherwise, the victor is not determined by who is better at hockey, but rather who is better at the particular version of hockey which is played during overtime.

For this reason, I think it's incredibly stupid to play 4-on-4 in overtime, or decide a victor based on penalty shots.

Today, as the NCAA women's hockey championship game went into overtime, we saw an expected change in officiating. The refs put away their whistles and called three penalties in 59 minutes. A Cornell powerplay in the first OT was allowed to last about 36 seconds before a make-up call came along and switched things to 4-on-4. Nothing else was called until the end of the third OT, when Cornell's Lauriane Rougeau went off for tripping. After some pressure, Minnesota-Duluth scored six seconds after their powerplay was over, and the game was finished.

During the 59 minutes of overtime hockey, there were plenty of additional penalties which could have been called. Tripping, body checking, cross-checking, hooking, you name it. But the game was called differently than it was during regulation. Cornell, with the No. 1 penalty kill and No. 4 powerplay in the NCAA, might have benefited if penalties were called as penalties.

But, such is life, and Big Red fans were handed another heartbreaking victory. Similarities can be drawn between this game and the men's team's triple OT loss to Wisconsin in the NCAA regional final in 2006. Fans can take solace in looking back at a great season -- this was far and away the best season ever for Cornell women's hockey -- but that doesn't do much to change the more poignant thoughts of what if. As with the men's lacrosse team's nightmarish loss in the NCAA final last year, fans and players can be proud of the team's accomplishment just to get to that point. But they will certainly spend time pondering what might have happened, if things had gone just a little differently.