“Well, I would like to play, but I don’t think I could,” said the 12-year-old, whose team played through seven periods of 15-minute overtimes on Saturday in the provincial championship game against the TASA Ducks, after three 15-minute regulation periods.
“It started at 11 a.m. and it ended just before four o’clock – almost five hours,” said Bryan Smith, Megan’s dad and the Selects’ coach who spent a good part of Easter Sunday on the telephone, taking calls from media around the province.
“I’ve been doing a lot of interviews.”
As the minutes crept into hours, parents were handing out energy-boosting Gatorade, water, bits of energy bars and fresh fruit, and a couple of the moms – nurses by profession, according to Bryan – helped treat one of the players who may have been suffering from dehydration.
“They were fine going out (for a shift),” the coach said.
“But we noticed that when the girls were coming back to the bench, they were pretty wobbly. I think it was the same way with both benches.”
Goal posts were hit, miraculous saves were made and the girls played through it, pushing themselves.
“It was end-to-end,” Bryan said. “Most parents would agree that the game got better as it went on.”
After 150 minutes of hockey, by the time the seventh overtime had ended, after players had staggered to the bench, shift after shift after shift, the teams decided to end the marathon, the official result a 1-1 tie.
Don Cherry would love the girls on both teams for their willingness to pay the price for hockey glory – good, tough Canadian kids laying it all on the line.
“I’d sit down and get some water and squeeze it all over my face,” Megan said, describing the first thing she’d do after a shift. “It was amazing. We really wanted to win.”
There will be no rematch: after the coaches from both sides approached Hockey Nova Scotia, the sport’s governing body in the province agreed to declare both teams gold medalists – a fitting end to an instant classic.
“It would be impossible to recreate the emotion and atmosphere,” Bryan said.
“Well, I would like to play, but I don’t think I could,” said the 12-year-old, whose team played through seven periods of 15-minute overtimes on Saturday in the provincial championship game against the TASA Ducks, after three 15-minute regulation periods.
“It started at 11 a.m. and it ended just before four o’clock – almost five hours,” said Bryan Smith, Megan’s dad and the Selects’ coach who spent a good part of Easter Sunday on the telephone, taking calls from media around the province.
“I’ve been doing a lot of interviews.”
As the minutes crept into hours, parents were handing out energy-boosting Gatorade, water, bits of energy bars and fresh fruit, and a couple of the moms – nurses by profession, according to Bryan – helped treat one of the players who may have been suffering from dehydration.
“They were fine going out (for a shift),” the coach said.
“But we noticed that when the girls were coming back to the bench, they were pretty wobbly. I think it was the same way with both benches.”
Goal posts were hit, miraculous saves were made and the girls played through it, pushing themselves.
“It was end-to-end,” Bryan said. “Most parents would agree that the game got better as it went on.”
After 150 minutes of hockey, by the time the seventh overtime had ended, after players had staggered to the bench, shift after shift after shift, the teams decided to end the marathon, the official result a 1-1 tie.
Don Cherry would love the girls on both teams for their willingness to pay the price for hockey glory – good, tough Canadian kids laying it all on the line.
“I’d sit down and get some water and squeeze it all over my face,” Megan said, describing the first thing she’d do after a shift. “It was amazing. We really wanted to win.”
There will be no rematch: after the coaches from both sides approached Hockey Nova Scotia, the sport’s governing body in the province agreed to declare both teams gold medalists – a fitting end to an instant classic.
“It would be impossible to recreate the emotion and atmosphere,” Bryan said.
