Playoff hockey is all about heart, and Brown certainly had plenty of that this weekend.
The eighth-seeded Bears advanced to the quarterfinal round of the ECAC’s postseason for the first time since 2012-13 after defeating Princeton in straight games, 3-0 and 6-5. However, the scores from Providence don’t, at all, tell the whole story.
Brown clinched its opening playoff series on senior Alex Brink’s backhand goal at the 3:30 mark of triple overtime late Saturday night, which ended the longest game in the 120-year program history and the 18th-longest in all of Division 1 men’s hockey history. The dramatic ending came after the visiting Tigers scored three extra-attacker goals in a span of 2:47 to erase a 5-2 deficit to force the extra periods.
“I give our guys a lot of credit because that was the craziest ending to regulation that I've seen in all my years of coaching and playing,” said Brown head coach Brendan Whittet, whose 13-13-5 team will play its next best-of-three set at top-seeded Quinnipiac beginning Friday. “It would have been very easy to fold and feel sorry for ourselves, but I thought we played some of our best hockey in the overtimes.”
