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This Day In Sports…May 5, 2010, 15 years ago today:
The longest scoreless tie in ECHL history ends 36 seconds into the third overtime, as the Stockton Thunder defeat the Idaho Steelheads, 1-0. It almost amounted to a doubleheader, and it lasted more than four hours. The intense duel came in Game 3 of the National Conference Finals in Stockton after the Steelheads had taken a two games-to-none lead in Boise. Steelies goalie Richard Bachman was stellar in recording 35 saves—the Thunder’s Bryan Pitton had to reject 49 Idaho shots.
The Steelheads would win that series and would go on to the Kelly Cup Finals, where they fell to the Cincinnati Cyclones in five games. Bachman, meanwhile, would make his NHL debut the following season with the Dallas Stars. He played 48 games in the NHL, going 20-18-2 with a .903 goals-against average for the Stars, Edmonton Oilers and Vancouver Canucks.
Two years later, the Steelheads played in the longest game in ECHL history. It went nearly four full overtimes before they defeated the Colorado Eagles 3-2 in the first round of the 2014 Kelly Cup Playoffs. The tilt lasted five-hours and 42-minutes, and it ended in a flash when David de Kastrozza scored the game-winner well after midnight with 2:42 remaining in the fourth overtime at Boise’s CenturyLink Arena. Idaho and Colorado combined for an ECHL-record 151 shots on goal, and the Steelheads’ Josh Robinson tied the league mark with a staggering 85 saves.
Think about it. In either case, it was playoff hockey, and fans dared not turn away. Consider how postseason games like this end in other sports. In basketball, there’s no sudden death. Sure, you could have a jaw-dropping, buzzer-beating shot, but you know when it has to happen, if it’s going to happen. In baseball there is sudden death—in the bottom of every inning from the ninth inning on. There’s a hint as to when it might happen, though. And let’s say it’s a walk-off home run. It still takes four or five or six seconds to leave the park.
In hockey, they just keep adding on overtime periods in the playoffs. The teams are skating and skating and skating—on the verge of exhaustion—and in a split-second the puck finds the net, and it’s over. Then, when it happens in a Game 7, it’s the ultimate thrill of victory and agony of defeat. For one team, it means suddenly advancing in the playoffs (or, better yet, winning a championship). For the other team, it’s a terribly abrupt end to the season. Ahem, did you watch the St. Louis Blues-Winnipeg Jets game Sunday night?
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
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