For Minnesota Duluth, it was a script they’d never seen before, but believed could happen. For Princeton, it was a familiar script, but one they hoped they’d never see again.

For the fans in both maroon and orange, the script was mostly one repeated word: Wow.

How else to describe Minnesota Duluth’s “miracle at Mariucci,” which saw the left-for-dead Bulldogs come within .8 seconds of an end to their season, only to rally and win. How else to describe Princeton’s forceful evening, on offense and defense, that had the Tigers one tick of the clock from their first NCAA tournament win.

There were red cheeks and obvious pain on the faces of the Tigers afterward – after the Bulldogs’ Mike Connelly had poked home the overtime winner and the “home” team had survived to play at least one more. The pain came not just from this loss, but from a disturbing pattern established a week ago, in Princeton’s eerily similar come-from-ahead overtime loss to Cornell in the ECAC hockey tournament.

“Unfortunately, we did see something like this a week ago,” said Tigers wing Brett Wilson, who had half of his team’s goals on Friday. “It’s a pretty empty feeling right now.”

For the team in the white sweaters – the nation’s only higher seed to win on Friday – there was a feeling of relief and that they’d just been a part of something unprecedented.

“We knew we had it in us to come back, it just took a lot longer than we hoped,” said Mike Connolly.

Most, if not all, hope seemed lost for the Bulldogs with half the third period gone, when their fearsome power play (which struggled until the final minute of the third) allowed a Brandan Kushniruk short-handed goal, giving Princeton a 4-2 lead. But while some fans packed it in, the Bulldogs on-ice approach didn’t change.

“We knew we could do it,” said Bulldogs captain Andrew Carroll. “With 40 seconds left we knew time was ticking, but we kept believing.”

Bulldogs coach Scott Sandelin heard it on the bench as well – a determination that what seemed impossible was just one or two more pucks to the net away.

“On the bench, they just kept saying, ‘It’s not done, it’s not done,’” Sandelin said. “Obviously they got it done.”

The miracle began with goalie Alex Stalock on the bench and Princeton’s Matt Godlewski (who had two assists) in the penalty box for high sticking. Jack Connolly, taking a pass from MacGregor Sharp, finally got the Bulldogs power play to click, and made it 4-3 with less than 40 seconds left. That encouraging note aside, it seemed like it would be an orange sunrise when just 12.1 seconds remained, and referee Matt Shegos ordered the faceoff to the neutral zone. But Sharp this time found Oberg for the final shot, and both teams headed to the locker room with the Bulldogs dreaming and the Tigers in a recurring nightmare.

Sandelin admitted having to calm his team down before overtime, and get them away from thinking they’d already won it. When Mike Connolly finished what more than one Bulldog called the greatest game they’d ever been a part of, there was elation on one side. On the other, there was a resignation that there was hardly any more that could’ve been done on the part of the Tigers.

“It took two pretty special goals to tie it up,” Princeton coach Guy Gadowsky said. “We had great play for 59 minutes, but we couldn’t stop the ones we needed to stop at the end. We played a great game until they got a power play late in the game, and scored. I’m not sure what to say about the last goal.”

No need, coach. On this night the fans, on both the happy and sad sides, said it all: Wow.

REDHAWKS EMERGE VICTORIOUS FROM ‘FAMILY’ REUNION

Some coaches would consider it an unfair or unnecessary question. “Did you get out-coached?”

But when Denver’s George Gwozdecky heard that query, he greeted it with a thoughtful pause, then a grin.

“Geez, I hope so,” he said.

As much as Friday’s first game was a coaching match-up of a one-time player versus his one-time coach, and a one-time assistant versus his one-time boss, both Gwozdecky and Miami coach Enrico Blasi said it was about family.

“For me, he’s been like a second father, and obviously my mentor in coaching” said Blasi, who was recruited to play for Miami when Gwozdecky coached the then-Redskins for five years in the early 1990s. The pair had gotten together in Minneapolis on Thursday night. “We had a good time last night and spent some time together. At the end of the night we both said ‘Somebody’s got to be disappointed tomorrow night.’ But if you have to be disappointed, it might as well be somebody you love.”

Gwozdecky paused for a long time, and had a bit of a glint in his eye when he said, “It’s a little bit like coaching against your son.” The Denver coach later apologized for the emotion, and claimed it was more about the fact that the Pioneers’ season was over and he hated losing. Blasi said that working with Gwozdecky and knowing his methods may have helped the RedHawks on Friday.

“I think we coach very similar in style,” Blasi said. “He has his own style as far as motivating, but the systems are the same. When you practice that all week and all year you get used to it, so our guys were ready.”

Gwozdecky recalled the questions raised at Miami and in the CCHA when Blasi was hired, and some claimed he was too young and too inexperienced for the job.

“How do you question the success that he’s had?” Gwozdecky asked. “How do you question them coming into this building, a WCHA building, and beating us, beating the number one seed, and really doing it very methodically?”

Before he was done, the tired smile had returned to his face, and he had a look similar to a proud papa, who’s just been bested by his boy.

“Obviously when your season ends you’re disappointed, but I couldn’t be more proud of Enrico Blasi and his team, the son of a gun,” Gwozdecky said.

SEEN AND HEARD AT MARIUCCI ARENA

• We heard an interesting suggestion for how to fire up Denver, with the Pioneers trailing 4-1 and just 20 minutes to play. A friend noted that Miami was clad in red from neck to ankle, and said Gwozdecky should tell his charges to pretend they were playing Wisconsin.

• Blasi was asked if they felt like an underdog in Friday’s well-attended press conference. He said the Thursday press conference provided an answer. “Obviously we were. We were a fourth seed going in. I’m not sure we talked about being an underdog, but our guys could feel we were not the favorite,” he said. “We had a press conference yesterday with no reporters, so it doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.”

• It was noted that when Minnesota Duluth scored the opening goal on Friday in the game with Princeton, it was the first time in any of the four opening day games of the NCAA tournament that the higher seed held a lead. On the flip side of that, Princeton’s second goal on Friday, giving the Tigers a 2-1 lead, marked the first time the Bulldogs trailed in the playoffs.

• The arena’s scoreboard went blank for more than a minute in the second period, leaving both teams and the fans in the dark about how much time was left. When it blinked back on with 13:55 remaining, the place where the team names are listed had apparently returned to its default setting, as it listed “TIGERS” on one side and “GOPHERS” on the other.

• Denver’s J.P. Testwuide, who has been dealing with a bad knee, would not make health-related excuses for the sudden end to his college career. “This time of year everyone’s banged up. We have a number of guys who are banged up and I happed to be one of them,” he said. “But it wasn’t a factor. I felt good on the ice but just couldn’t get it in the net.” His coach, however, told a different story. “I’ve coached a lot of tough hockey players over the years, at Denver and Miami and Michigan State and even at (Wisconsin) River Falls, and I don’t know if I ever coached a physically tougher guy than J.P. Testwuide,” Gwozdecky said. “He shouldn’t have played today. His knee is real bad. And that just took unbelievable guts and determination.”

• Anyone who thinks WCHA types are oblivious to the rest of college hockey got another bit of evidence for that theory on Friday, when the final stat sheet for the nightcap listed the first referee as “Matt Chigas.”

PLUSSES AND MINUSES

Sucking up to the hometown fans is a fine, upstanding tradition in NCAA Regional play. Nice work by the RedHawks band to get their first rendition of “Minnesota Rouser” out of the way early on Friday.

Nice to see some WCHA pride on display inside Mariucci, where we saw sweaters from North Dakota, St. Cloud State, Minnesota State, Michigan Tech, Wisconsin and Minnesota, as well as the multitudes from Denver and Minnesota Duluth. Although we can’t condone that group of Bulldog fans that joined with the Miami band to root against Denver in the opener.

We loved the section-wide “MAKE HOBEY PROUD” banner in front of the Princeton band. It was the perfect accompaniment to those sweet orange plaid blazers.

Denver had three shots on goal in the second period versus Miami. Three. When you’re trailing and your season is on the line, getting pucks to the net is never a bad play.

We know the souvenir business is a profit deal, but frankly, charging $7 for a puck with the official Frozen Four logo on it seems a little steep. Was there a world-wide run on black rubber that we were not aware of?

What was with the Bulldog fans chanting “Kalemba sucks” in the third period? Like him or not, the Hobey finalist from Saddle Brook, N.J., has got some serious game.

INCH’s THREE STARS OF THE NIGHT

3. Miami’s defensive front – The RedHawks aggressive style while defending, and their puck possession offense, never really gave Denver a chance to get anything going until the game was well in hand.

2. Brett Wilson, Princeton – A pair of goals for the senior from Calgary, including a heads-up play to tie the game on a first period power play, quashing the multitudes of Bulldog fans’ hopes of a early blowout.

1. Evan Oberg, Minnesota Duluth - He has no idea how the season-saver went in, he was just trying to get a shot on goal, over the orange jerseys sprawled out in front of the net. Whatever works, we guess.

WHAT’S NEXT

Miami gets another shot at a Frozen Four berth on Saturday, a year after falling to eventual champ Boston College (4-3 in overtime) in the Northeast Regional final in Worcester. The RedHawks are hoping that experience, and the bad memories from it, will help.

“Last year you could almost taste it out there, and we remember that feeling” said Miami senior left wing Justin Mercier. “We remember the way we felt on the ride home.”

For the Bulldogs, the challenge is to get some sleep, calm down, forget Friday’s miracle and focus on playing another game.

“The nice thing is we know we’re not going to have to play three games in a row this weekend,” said Sandelin, referencing last weekend’s three-wins-in-three nights performance at the WCHA Final Five. “We have two-game weekends in our league all the time, and after a Friday game we always talk about the job being half done. This is the same situation where we don’t worry about the end result, just focus on the now and enjoy it.”