Patrick Reusse: A fitting reward for efforts is a single point for each side

ST. CLOUD -- Who needs a shootout?

The Minnesota Gophers and the St. Cloud State Huskies played to a 4-4 tie on Saturday night and it was more fun than the Stearns County Fair.

There were forceful Gophers and high-flying Huskies. There was slapstick goaltending from both teams. There was a crazed sellout crowd of 5,763, and there was enormous tension in the final 15 minutes because there were no phony points available.

You can't lose a game in the WCHA and still get the reward of a point, as is now the case with the fraudulent NHL standings.

The Gophers pushed their way into the slot and to the crease and built a 4-1 lead halfway through the second period. The last two goals came from the muscular efforts of Mike Hoeffel, a rangy freshman.

More than two hours earlier, the first St. Cloud State students had entered the National Hockey Center, taken over a corner of the arena and unleashed their opening chant.

"R-I-T, R-I-T" was the bellow.

Any embarrassment suffered by the Gophers hockey team is much appreciated in places such as St. Cloud, Mankato, Duluth and Grand Forks, N.D. Last month's 4-3 loss to the Rochester Institute of Technology rates as first-degree humiliation, even if the circumstance was less significant than the loss to Holy Cross in the 2006 NCAA tournament.

The State students who came in the hope of watching another Gophers embarrassment were watching one for the Huskies for the first 30 minutes.

When Hoeffel made it 4-1 with 9:49 gone in the second period, it was pretty quiet in this alleged madhouse. And then came the rally, and the red-clad thousands were a roaring mob through most of it.

The gifted Garrett Roe, a freshman who is great with the puck and abrasive with his on-ice personality, made it 4-2 in the last minute of the second.

Nate Dey, a senior center with the privilege of playing on a line with clever sophomore Ryan Lasch, made it 4-3 at 3:49, and then Roe, again, gained the tie at 9:37.

Freshman Alex Kangas had the duty by then, since junior Jeff Frazee was pulled after the first period, with the Gophers leading 2-1.

St. Cloud's goal came on a 90-footer from Brent Borgen that scooted along the ice and hopped over Frazee's stick. Coach Don Lucia turned and started walking the other direction behind the bench.

There was no such attempt to couch his feelings at the end of the period. As the clock was about to hit 0:00, St. Cloud's Matt Stephenson flipped the puck from midice, it went over two Huskies, Frazee whiffed on the puck and in it went.

Fortunately for the Gophers, both of the Huskies over whom the puck sailed were offside.

No goal, and no surprise that Lucia decided to hook Frazee anyway -- not to anyone who witnessed The Don's angry glare toward the goalie as he walked across the ice.

Hopefully, the late, great goalie coach Warren Strelow was not looking down from on high, or he might give up watching hockey for eternity.

Dunn wasn't scored on, but he was also a lonely figure at his end of the ice for the final 10 minutes and then early in overtime. The Gophers might not have gotten out with the tie, if referee Marco Hunt hadn't decided it was OK for the visitors to execute a severe hook, a blatant hold and an impressive tackle in a 30-second stretch of extra time.

For two-thirds of regulation, the Gophers were getting powerful work from Blake Wheeler, Mike Carman, Hoeffel and others, and two points looked inevitable. By night's end, they should have been grateful for one.