U Weekly. Serving The Ohio State University in Columbus Ohio

Ferris State's weekend off

By Michael Amann

The seats in the Schottenstein Center that aren't curtained off are only about half full when the team comes out of the locker room. The Ohio State Men's hockey team is greeted with a warm but reserved welcome. Tonight they play the Ferris State Bulldogs, a team that is currently second in the Central College Hockey Association and, weird as it might seem for the Ohio State Buckeyes to be underdogs in anything to Ferris State, the men's hockey team is going out on the ice with the 10th-ranked Bulldogs as the favorite. Having navigated a rocky 11-13-1 season, the Buckeyes managed to get a signature home win the previous evening against Ferris State. They needed an epic 46-save game from their goalie Cal Heeter (9-5-1 on the season) to earn a 5-3 decision and advanced to 9-9-1-1 in CCHA play.

Tonight the team knows they can't rely on the "opportunistic goals." Head Coach John Markell described much of the Buckeyes' offense the previous night. Ferris State hasn't won 17 games by luck, and in fact beat the Buckeyes twice back in wherever Ferris* is. The first period sees FSU draw first blood. Ohio State gets a two-man advantage and for the first time, people in the crowd begin to perk up. A Buck shot appears to break the plane of the posts. The crowd goes wild but the puck bounces out off the goalpost and no one is signaling a score. All five Buckeyes move in for the rebound and remaining Bulldogs move in to defend. The sparse crowd is still cheering as both teams fight a desperate scrum to get the goal. The ref whistles the play dead. A second before the struggle is over, the puck slides away from the goal to the back of the rink. No score is called and the crowd sighs.

One Ferris State fan or (more likely) a very sarcastic Ohio State fan can be heard lauding the ref. He eventually starts heckling on someone on the ice by name, though who is unclear up in the press section. The Buckeyes make one more vain attempt to take advantage of the two-man advantage in the tailing seconds of the first period. They make 10 shots before the buzzer, but none go in.

During the first break the OSU Athletic Band performed Script Ohio on ice. TBDBITL purists might insist that technically it's not the same thing - the A-Band (which is ironically the B-Squad of Ohio State sporting bands) does not spell out "Ohio" but merely forms the letters. As long as the "i" gets dotted the fans seemed happy.

That enthusiasm quickly fades when the Bulldogs crack another one past Buckeye goalie Dustin Carlson. Doldrums set in inside the Value City Arena. Junior forward C.J. Severyn isn't deterred and sinks one past the goalie. Less than 40 seconds later, his teammate Zac Dalpe brought the fans into the game for the first time when he slapped the puck off the goalie's glove.

OSU would go on to miss several opportunities, including a huge chance at an open goal that caused even some of the stoic members of the press box to groan. Seconds later the Buckeyes redeem themselves with a shot by Kyle Reed on a power play. It's only the sophomore's second goal of the season and easily his most important. The Buckeyes are now tied 3-3.

By the third quarter, the crowd is living and dying with every movement of the puck. Gone is the idle noise of conversation droning on like white noise. Now the fans' noise is riding the flow of the game. The arena is silent in the tenser moments, but roars for the slaps and skates from the players. Groans of agony follow close shots on the Buckeye goal and premature cheers mark every attempt on the Bulldogs. Finally, the place erupts when it appears that the Buckeyes have finally won. However, the goal is nullified on a penalty. The crowd has been after the refs for most of the game. They shower them with boos for when Sergio Somma gets the box for the remainder of regulation. Regulation ends with Ferris taking an insane amount of shots on goal.

Overtime comes and goes with little from either side. One last heave for the goal, then nothing. The teams tie. All of the excitement and fear and boredom and all of the other emotions now even out to a strange ambivalence.

The denouement to the game is equally bizarre: the CCHA has a shootout, for which the rules are crazy. The game still counts as a tie in the national hockey picture. It also counts as a tie for league purposes. However the winner of the shootout gets one extra league point. That's why college hockey records are so confusing.

*Ferris is not a state but the last name of one Woodbridge Nathan Ferris, founder of the Big Rapids Industrial School, which would eventually become Ferris State. FSU is a small public school located in Big Rapids, Michigan.

Originally Published: February 3, 2010

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