180 minutes. Nine periods. Three games. One weekend.
In its last year playing in the WCHA before the inaugural season of Big Ten hockey, Wisconsin rolled through the Final Five conference tournament en route to claiming its first Broadmoor Trophy since 1998.
The team’s slogan—keep rolling—tells the story of a team playing day by day, game by game, shift by shift.
In November the team was 1-7-2, missing two of its top scorers and struggling to finish out games.
Saturday, the Badgers were on top of the world.
A 21-5-5 run over the last 31 games came to fruition in the form of a 3-2 win over Colorado College, claiming the Badgers’ first WCHA title under the helm of head coach Mike Eaves.
With the win, the Badgers claim an automatic berth in the NCAA tournament next week.
“We get to play another weekend,” Eaves said. “It didn’t look like that at the beginning of the season.”
Junior forward Tyler Barnes scored his fourth goal of the tournament Saturday, while freshman forward Nic Kerdiles added his third goal and third assist over the three-day span.
A goal and assist per game were enough to propel Kerdiles, in his first season at UW, to selection as the tournament’s MVP.
Finishing off what was a back-and-forth first period, Barnes was able to pound home a rebound in front of the net with 17 seconds left, leaving the Badgers with momentum heading into the first intermission.
Junior forward Sean Little put a stick on sophomore defenseman Jake McCabe’s shot 3:30 into the second period, redirecting the puck past Tiger goalie Joe Howe and putting the Badgers up 2-0.
Colorado College scored two minutes later when senior forward Rylan Schwartz gave a feed to sophomore forward Charlie Taft on a two-on-one situation, cutting the Badgers’ lead to one.
The Badgers had what seemed to be their third goal when a rebound bounced off Sean Little and into Colorado’s goal, but it was waved off after official review because it went off his chest and not a stick.
Kerdiles added his tenth of the season with four minutes left in the period, finding the net on a rebound shot from Ramage, giving Wisconsin a 3-1 lead.
The Tigers were able to bring the momentum into the final intermission however, as a breakaway from Barnes turned into a breakaway for Schwartz, who buried his shot to cut Wisconsin’s lead to one once again.
"It was an unfortunate sequence of events for us," Barnes said. "We just came together, everyone take a deep breath, calm down and get back to our game."
Rumpel and the Wisconsin defense were able to survive a penalty, numerous shots off the post and a frantic final 1:17 in which the Tigers pulled their goalie to close out the victory.
“Nothing seems to phase [Rumpel] too much,” Eaves said. “He has the perfect demeanor for being a goaltender.”
When people are flying around him and the pressure is high, that’s when Rumpel plays best, according to Eaves. They even call him “Sunshine,” after the character in “Remember the Titans.”
“He makes things look easier than they are because of his demeanor,” Eaves said.
The Badgers also owned the shots on goal category of the statistics, with 33 to Colorado’s 22.
After a roller coaster of a season and arguably the biggest game of his coaching career to date, Eaves was quick to leave the ice and let his players celebrate.
“This is their moment,” he said. “On the ice… that’s where they shed sweat, blood and tears together.”
Every season has a story, according to Eaves.
This season, this story, however, still has pages left to be written.
