SPORTS

Frozen Four squad in 1996 remains UVM hockey’s best

Ted Ryan
Correspondent
Vermont's Steve McKell, left, and teammates celebrate their NCAA Division I East Regional win over Lake Superior State in Albany, N.Y. in 1996.

Twenty years later, it is still the finest team in the history of the University of Vermont men’s hockey program.

For those who have coached, played or watched Vermont hockey in its Division I era, no team before or since has generated the same excitement or success. They had brilliant stars and supremely dedicated role players. They won 27 games, lost seven and tied four. They rewrote the school record book individually and as a team. They won the only significant championship of UVM’s D-I days.

And yet they were also the victims of the cruel hand of fate on one surreal March afternoon in Cincinnati.

They are the 1995-96 Catamounts.

When Martin St. Louis and Eric Perrin chose to play hockey for the University of Vermont, they did so because they believed it was a program they could lead to national prominence. They declined the opportunities to join established teams that were already loaded with history and standout players. They wanted to create a legacy, not add to one.

Along with goaltender Tim Thomas, St. Louis and Perrin led UVM to cumulative records of 34-26-8 overall and 21-15-8 in ECAC Division I in their first two years. However, Vermont bowed out of the ECAC tournament in first-round, on-the-road Game 3 defeats each season. Those outcomes rankled and the Catamounts approached the 1995-96 season with a single-minded sense of purpose.

Vermont’s Martin St. Louis, left, celebrates with teammates after scoring the winning goal against Lake Superior in their NCAA Division I East Regional game in Albany, N.Y. in 1996. Vermont won 2-1.

“Our first goal was to get home ice in the ECAC playoffs,” recalled Phil Eboli, then a senior forward. “Confidence was not a problem for our group. Our off-ice and on-ice leadership was very strong. We believed we were good enough to compete and win on a weekly basis.”

Junior forward J.C. Ruid said, “It didn’t matter what any other team thought, what UVM had done in the past. We came there to win and we believed that we could.”

That season, rival ECAC Division I coaches agreed. They voted the Catamounts No. 1 in their preseason poll. And why not? Vermont was talented, experienced and led by three of the best players not just in ECAC but in all of college hockey.

Coach Mike Gilligan had led the Catamounts to their first NCAA appearance in 1988. Eight years later, he knew something special was percolating by the shores of Lake Champlain.

“I had a great feeling in practice and a great feeling wherever we went. It felt really good to get off the bus anywhere,” he said. “We had confidence and worked hard. We had good team speed. We could skate with everybody. Our 2-3-4 lines were quick.”

The No. 1 line, of course, featured St. Louis on the right, Perrin in the middle and Ruid, who would enjoy the season of his life, on the left — fast, skilled, crafty and potent from anywhere at any time. By season’s end, each of the three had 29 goals. As a line, they accounted for an incredible 87 goals and 225 points.

Yet it was hardly a one-dimensional team, as adept at playing shutdown defense as it was at explosive offense.

“We didn’t give anything away. Our penalty killing was solid. We limited shots, blocked shots and when we made mistakes, Timmy was there,” Gilligan said.

Anyway, said Pavel Navrat, then a junior defenseman, opponents weren’t so intimidating, not after practice.

“Try to go one-on-one in practice with Marty. Try to score on Timmy. Our practices were wars and every drill was a battle,” Navrat said. “The compete level was incredible and games became easier … in the sense that if I could compete with Marty, Eric and the rest of my teammates and win some battles in practice, there weren’t too many opponents that I couldn’t defend in games.”

The season began with a 7-4 drubbing of New Hampshire — a rarity for the Catamounts until very recently — and a 5-4 loss to Boston University. A two-game sweep at Miami (Ohio) kicked the Catamounts into high gear. They went on a 9-1-1 run marred only by an overtime loss to Hockey East power Maine.

By the end of the first semester, Vermont was riding high in the national polls with a 9-3-2 record.

From Jan. 5 until a 5-1 home loss to Clarkson on Feb. 2, Vermont went 5-2-1 over a stretch of the season during which the Catamounts often — and still do — struggle. Something about the drubbing by the Golden Knights angered the Catamounts, who sprinted to the end of a torrid race for first place with an 8-0-1 record.

Even at that pace, Vermont couldn’t shake Clarkson. On the final night of the regular season, the Catamounts needed a home win over a sixth-place Harvard team to be assured of the regular season title and top ECAC tourney seed.

St. Louis as usual was the catalyst. He scored twice, once short-handed with two teammates serving penalties and once into an empty net. Junior Matt Stelljes supplied the game-winner.

“I’ll never forget probably my biggest goal ever. I remember it being tied 1-1 and I went in on the forecheck,” Stelljes recalled. “The ‘D’ tried to ring it around the glass for the breakout and I got my body up against the boards and blocked it and then stepped out front and put it off the far post.”

For the first and only time, UVM was No. 1 in ECAC D-I or Hockey East during the regular or tournament seasons.

While boyhood buddies St. Louis and Perrin believed they could help build a program, Thomas was just looking for a place where he could play immediately.

When UVM’s outstanding goaltender, sophomore Christian Soucy, signed with the Chicago Blackhawks in the summer of 1993, Gilligan frantically looked for a capable replacement. At the suggestion of Middlebury coach Bill Beaney, Gilligan honed in on Thomas, a Michigan native, who promptly headed for Burlington.

By the end of their sophomore seasons, St. Louis (38-84-122) and Perrin (52-60-112) had already surpassed the 100-point career levels. Thomas had a sub-3 goals-against average and a plus-.900 save percentage. All three were potential All-Americans and Hobey Baker finalists — St. Louis was both in 1995 and Thomas was second-team All-American that year.

Members of the University of Vermont men’s hockey team celebrate their NCAA Division I East Regional win over Lake Superior State in Albany, N.Y. in 1996.

The three monopolized the headlines and media attention, a potential breeding ground for jealousy, particularly by upperclassmen who could resent playing in the very large shadows of their ultra-talented underclassmen.

Yet team chemistry was never an issue primarily because the seniors — forwards Matt Johnson, Phil Eboli, Eric Lavoie and Dale Patterson and defenseman Steve McKell — were far more dedicated to team success than individual accomplishments.

“The whole senior class that year, their leadership was a huge part of our success,” said Ruid. “They didn’t care that other people were getting the credit. They just wanted to win. That mentality was a huge part of our success.”

“For this season, there were no egos, only the will to execute, succeed and move on,” said Justin Martin, then a sophomore forward who still recalls “how tight we were as a group.”

Johnson, Eboli and Lavoie formed UVM’s second line behind St. Louis, Perrin and Ruid.

“They had good stick skills and quickness,” Gilligan said. “Phil was a road runner, as quick in the first five steps as any player I’ve had, and he’d back off those defenders and Eric had good outside speed. We had six darn good forwards.”

While the contributions of the forwards, especially the senior line, were not fully appreciated until they were no longer wearing UVM uniforms, the 1995-96 corps of defensemen surrounding Thomas was often overlooked as well. McKell was the heart, soul and driving force for the blue line crew.

“Steve McKell was a rock on the blue line,” Stelljes said. “He was not flashy but so tough to play against and the type of player who always did the right things, the unselfish things … extremely underrated player.”

“Our entire defensive squad were beasts,” Martin said of McKell, Jan Klobucek, Eric Hallman, Jon Sorg, Pavel Navrat and Simon Tremblay, five of whom played 38 of UVM’s 39 games; Sorg played 37.

Catamount players of that era can relate tales of Gilligan’s in-game tirades, like the night he emphasized a point by kicking a trash can without realizing it was weighted down by a cement block — players smothered snickers and laughs until he exited — but by 1995-96, he had become more of a benevolent guiding force. He still let the team hear it at times but he also was adept at the timely and pithy quip.

UVM hockey coach Mike Gilligan chats amiably with Colorado College coach Don Lucia during the Catamounts practice prior to the 1996 Frozen Four in Cincinnati.

Instead, Gilligan let associate head coach Roger Grillo take on more responsibility for day-to-day operations. Grillo, the key man in recruiting St. Louis and Perrin, “worked so hard and had so much passion for the job,” Stelljes said.

“He was really the guy we could talk to and I think Gilly liked to keep his distance and not get too close to the players,” Stelljes said. “I really respect both coaches and how they went about their jobs; really good people.”

With the regular-season title secured, the Catamounts began pursuit of the ECAC tournament championship with a quick sweep of Rensselaer.

Then they stumbled.

In a semifinal at Lake Placid, that mediocre Harvard team stunned top-seeded Vermont, 4-3.

“Very disappointing,” Eboli said, “but it was a lot easier to turn the page with an eye towards the nationals. That was the silver lining.”

“That was definitely a reality check moment, a wake-up call for us to make sure we knew people were coming for us and we had to play our best game if we were going to win,” Ruid said.

Recalled Martin: “I remember a lot of clutching and grabbing.”

UVM bounced back the next day with a 3-1 win over nemesis Clarkson in the consolation game, a victory that clinched a critical No. 2 seed and first-round bye in the NCAA East regional in Albany.

In 1996, 12 teams made the NCAAs, six Eastern teams in the East regional and six Western teams in the West Regional. The top two seeds in each region received opening round byes. In the East, Boston University was No. 1, Vermont No. 2.

To reach the Frozen Four, the Catamounts would have to defeat the winner of the Lake Superior-Cornell first-round game. The Lakers won.

The Lake State-Vermont game was a classic grind-it-out affair decided in the final two minutes of regulation. Thomas was brilliant in making 32 saves. UVM managed only 20 shots on goal.

After a scoreless first period, the Lakers took a 1-0 lead at 1:47 of the second. At the 8-minute mark, St. Louis missed the net on a 3-on-0 break but seconds later he jammed Perrin’s pass inside the right post to tie.

With 1:53 remaining in the third, a Ruid pass glanced off Perrin’s skate, ricocheting perfectly to St. Louis, who roofed the game-winning goal off the bottom of the crossbar.

Yet it took a defensive play by Perrin to seal the win and book the trip to Cincinnati.

Stelljes, a defensive replacement for Ruid on Perrin’s line in the final minute, said, “I was covering the point and had a horrifying look at what was going to be a sure goal and out of nowhere comes Perrin to block the shot.”

“Eric stopping that puck with his chest in front of our goal … Our best players were better than theirs that day,” Eboli recalled.

Perrin’s play typified why his teammates so respected him and St. Louis — they were about winning. Period.

 

Among those to offer congratulations post-game was the son of mid-1960s UVM star Lee Roy. That season, Travis Roy, a UVM recruit who instead chose Boston University, had sustained a paralyzing neck injury on the first shift of his first collegiate game.

Roy was in attendance because of the Terriers’ game but still shared an affection for UVM and said he hoped to see a Terrier-Catamount championship game in Cincinnati.

“He was in a wheelchair congratulating our team,” Eboli said. “It was very emotional for all of us. There was so much emotion involved in that moment, and all the courage it took to lead up to that moment in time for everyone in that room, especially Travis.

“I was so grateful for our fortunes and yet so sad for Travis. I’ll never forget that as long as I live and how I felt at that time.”

The Lake Superior game’s referees were Frank Cole and Drew Taylor, universally acknowledged as two of the best. Their names would soon become etched in UVM hockey history.

From Albany, the Catamounts traveled to Cincinnati, an unlikely site for the Frozen Four. The city no longer had a pro team and it never had a college team. And the inexperience of an arena worker would soon prove instrumental.

Boston University was to play Michigan, the No. 2 seed from the West, in the second semifinal. Vermont took on western No. 1 Colorado College on the afternoon of March 28. It was expected to be an interesting confrontation, though the Tigers were clearly favored.

The weirdness of the afternoon began when the arena worker trying to set the peg of a goal drilled through the rink floor into the refrigerating line, spilling coolant onto the ice. After a long delay, the game began, but the ice at that end was never of championship quality.

Workers clean up after a worker drilled into a line in the cooling system under the ice at Riverfront Coliseum on March 28, 1996, prior to the start of the Vermont-Colorado College Frozen Four semifinal game.

Three times, Colorado College took a one-goal lead and three times the Catamounts fought back, St. Louis, Perrin and Eboli providing the tying goals. Neither team scored in the first sudden-death overtime period, so the exhausted players forged on until … until the hand pass that wasn’t ended the game.

At 9:31 of the second OT, Thomas stopped Jay McNeill’s shot and McNeill swatted the rebound with his hand. The puck caromed off Thomas and next thing the Catamounts knew, the Tigers were wearily celebrating after 89 minutes, 31 seconds — at the time the second-longest semifinal and eighth longest game in NCAA tournament history.

“I felt (the puck) hit the back of my leg. I didn’t see a hand pass; I didn’t see anything else,” Thomas said after the game.

McNeill later admitted he had struck the puck with his hand.

“Yes, but it went off the goalie,” he said. “I think it went off his back to the side and then Chad (Remackel) hit it off him and in.”

Thomas said McNeill’s hand pass struck the post.

Neither referee, Frank Cole or Drew Taylor, saw the hand pass, something Cole later acknowledge in an interview. Vermont protested strongly but at the time the NCAA did not use video replay. The goal stood. Colorado College lost the championship game to Michigan.

Vermont’s Martin St. Louis yells at an official questioning the final goal in their 4-3 double overtime loss to Colorado in the 1996 Frozen Four in Cincinnati.

This disputed goal became a key factor in implementing video replay in future NCAA games; one of the most significant replays involved Vermont in 2009 when Dan Lawson’s overtime goal against Air Force in the East Region final was awarded several minutes after his shot had blown through the backside of the goal. That goal sent Vermont to the Frozen Four for the second and, so far, last time.

That March of ’96 night, however, there was little consolation for UVM. Instead the Catamounts, led by their head coach, were pure class in the face of a bitter and galling defeat.

“Those officials are great officials and they called it the way they saw it, so I’ve got no gripe at all,” Gilligan said at the time.

“We had so many opportunities to change that outcome and we just didn’t get the job done,” Eboli said 20 years later. “Needless to say, when it ended we were devastated.

“After licking our wounds, I was so very proud of all that we accomplished as a team,” Eboli said. “I take pride in my belief we were good enough to be champions that year, but it just wasn’t meant to be.”

Recalling that afternoon, Gilligan said, “The whole thing was so crazy. We played well enough to win. I thought we played very, very well. Maybe with a bounce or so, we would have been in great shape and been in the final.”

Vermont’s Phil Eboli skates dejectedly off the ice after the Catamonts were defeated by Colorado College 4-3 in double overtime in the 1996 Frozen Four in Cincinnati.

Navrat recalled the Catamounts’ outstanding play and missed opportunities.

“It took a bad bounce and an illegal play to beat us, so we were unlucky in the end,” he said. “You realize that you would rather have that big win than to explain forever why you lost and how wrong it was.

“I was impressed how Coach Gilligan handled it. This was the biggest game of our lives and we lost it in (double overtime) on an illegal goal that shouldn’t have counted but Coach kept his composure and handled it with class,” Navrat said. “It set the tone for me and was a big learning experience, perhaps more important for the rest of my life than if we had won the game.”

Throughout the season, Vermont fans flocked to ECAC rinks and stuffed Gutterson Fieldhouse. They traveled, if briefly, to Lake Placid and they urged their boys to victory in Albany.

Then, on March 28, if they hadn’t made the trek to Cincinnati, they jammed watering holes throughout the Green Mountains to watch on television. Heck, even Gov. Howard Dean planned to spend that Thursday following every check, shot and save. State business could wait.

Once it was over, fear rippled through Catamount country: Would any or all of the three great juniors, St. Louis, Perrin and Thomas, fall prey to the lure of the pros?

In a raucous reception at Patrick Gymnasium, fans chanted “One more year! One more year!” when Thomas was introduced. It grew successively louder when St. Louis and Perrin stepped forward.

As he took in the mob scene, Eboli said at the time, “I can’t begin to describe the feeling I have right now. I’m so overwhelmed with these people and how they touch us and how we touch them. I’m going to miss the heck out of it.”

Perrin, St. Louis and Thomas returned, spurning tepid pro offers, and their presence led to Vermont being No. 1 in a national preseason poll.

And the Catamounts were good, very good. By then, though, a little of the magic was gone, perhaps having left with the dedicated, unselfish and unsung seniors. The Big Three wrapped up historic careers, UVM enjoyed a good but not great season that ended with a quick NCAA first-round loss to Denver.

Several players enjoyed minor or European professional careers. St. Louis, Perrin and Thomas took tortuous roads to Stanley Cups and highly successful careers, St. Louis in the NHL, Thomas in the NHL and Europe and Perrin primarily in Europe.

Former University of Vermont hockey stars Tim Thomas, left, and Martin St. Louis pose for a photo during the 2008 NHL All-Star weekend.

The closeness of the team remains special.

“We had an incredible group of teammates from different backgrounds, experiences and skill sets,” Navrat said. “We were not all best of friends off the ice, but we were all brothers.

“Twenty years later, I can pick up the phone and talk to any of them. That’s what going through really tough battles on the ice together, constantly challenging each other and winning does — it brings you closer together.”

Since 1995-96, the Catamounts have moved from ECAC to Hockey East. They have participated in three more NCAA tournaments, including the Frozen Four in 2009. Vermont had very good teams before 1995-96 — great ones in their own right in ECAC Division II — and since.

For talent, excitement and achievement, none has rivaled the 1995-96 family of Catamounts.

They stand alone.

Correspondent Ted Ryan covered every game of the 1995-96 season as the University of Vermont hockey team writer for the Burlington Free Press. He has followed the Catamounts in one capacity or another since the 1965-66 season. Contact him at TedRyanVT@aol.com and follow him on Twitter at @TedRyanVT.