Gophers' rout ends with Slap Shot-like scenes: fighting, coaches shouting

Jake Hansen's power-play goal for the Gophers with one minute, 46 seconds left was pretty inconsequentional on Saturday.

It just expanded the Gophers' three-goal over Michigan Tech to four. And it was the last goal in the Gophers' 6-2 victory over the Huskies, but it got tempers heated.

Tech's Steven Seigo went after Hansen and Nick Bjugstad of the Gophers also got involved. All three were given minor penalties for roughing.

Then 15 seconds later, after a faceoff, the heavyweight match began in front of the Gophers' bench. Gophers defenseman Seth Helgeson, who is 6-4, 213, and Tech defenseman Carl Nielsen, a 6-4, 225-pound Tech assistant captain like Seigo, started battling. Both their helmets came off as on-ice officials separated them and sent them to their respective locker rooms.

Helgeson and Nielsen both received six-minutes for roughing and 10-minute misconducts.

But while the penalties were being sorted out, the coaches on the two benches started screaming at each other. It was mostly a two-on-one.

Tech assistant Bill Muckalt, a former NHL player with the Vancouver Canucks, stood on a bench and hollered over the plexiglass at the Gophers' bench.

To calm things down, two officials, wearing their trademark black and white shirts, jumped on top of railings in between the screaming coaches. Quite a picture. Could have been a scene from the movie "Slap Shot."

"It's disappointing," coach Don Lucia said of the final minutes. "It is not the way we wanted the game to finish. But sometimes that happens."

When the game ended, the officials wanted the teams to go directly to their locker rooms. But Tech coach Mel Pearson, for one, motioned for his players to go to center ice for the traditonal postgame handshake. They did and so did the Gophers. There were no incidents. All the coaches were out there to shake, too, maybe with the exception of Lucia.

Didn't see him. But could have missed him.

The rough stuff actually started at 16:49 of the third period. Blake Pietila of the Huskies got called for boarding.

For the first 50 minutes of the game, Tech had only four minors for eight minutes but finished with 12 penalties for 43 minutes.

The Gophers also had four minors -- and a game misconduct -- until the last two minutes. They finised with 10 penalties for 39 minutes.