Good teams find a way.

Everything that could go against the Black Bears did.

Dirty cheapshots. Questionable refereeing decisions. A normally reliable goaltender having an off night. The opposition netminder having an elite game. Pucks not bouncing Maine's way.

But good teams find a way.

The Maine Black Bears found just enough to protect their undefeated record on home ice, battling to a courageous 4-4 tie against the Colgate Raiders on Saturday night.

A sold-out Alfond Arena was packed to the rafters once again. Over 5,000 blue and white-clad supporters witnessed an emotional barnburner of a contest that kept all in attendance on the edge of their seats for sixty-plus minutes of thrilling hockey.

While the Black Bears defeated the Raiders the night before, Head Coach Ben Barr and his team knew their performance would have to significantly improve if they were to have a chance at the sweep. Unhappy with how open his team looked as Friday's game went along, Barr noted on the pre-game Keys to the Game that for his team to perform better defensively, he was looking for a more detailed and improved backchecking effort. With Colgate on the rush into Maine's zone, Barr needed his side to pick up their backchecking duties quicker and tighter, limiting the time and space for the Raiders' puck handler and supporting teammates to utilize.

Colgate, a well-structured, well-coached side who exemplified their stringent defensive might Friday night, tweaked their offensive system coming into Saturday night's contest.

With a defensive structure to quiet Maine's offensive juggernauts and an offensive system to break through the Black Bears' defense, Colgate came into the game with a superior game plan that had Maine scrambling to find answers.

The Raiders outfoxed the Black Bears.

Colgate created their attack in the neutral zone through a breakout system that saw the Raiders stack the strong side with an overload of maroon and white sweaters. This uneven set-up forced Maine to overcompensate bodies to the puck handlers' side. From this, Colgate would quickly move the puck the width of the ice where the Raiders' weak side outlet allowed Colgate to utilize the open space and cut into Maine's defensive zone with frightening regularity.

This lateral neutral zone movement by the Raiders caused the Black Bears to struggle with Colgate's attack for much of the game, unable to find an answer and to release the offensive pressure they were under.

The game's first shift actually had the Black Bears looking like the team with the better impetus. Freshman forward Anthony Calafiore, in his first collegiate start, replacing Nicholas Niemo, joined Cole Hanson and Ben Poisson at the center-ice faceoff circle for the opening puck drop. Calafiore and his line created a flurry of scoring opportunities seconds into the game. The freshman Staten Island native did not appear daunted or overmatched, pressuring the puck, finishing hits, and looking defensively sound and offensively energetic in his first game as a Black Bear.

But as soon as Colgate dealt with Maine's early pressure, the Raiders gained the upper hand, which they would not relinquish for much of the game.

Just fifty-nine seconds into the contest, a Black Bear defensive breakdown on the backcheck allowed the big and dangerous Colgate forward Brett Chorske to pick up a pass all alone in front of the net. The 6 '7" Raider found the back of the goal over Victor Ostman's blocker-side shoulder, quickly quieting the previously boisterous Alfond Faithful.

Maine, on the backfoot early, struggled to get up to the same blistering speed they've usually played with all season. While I'm sure the sluggish performance wasn't due to a lack of effort or complacency, the Black Bears simply looked disjointed as most everything they tried just didn’t come off. There just wasn't the usual gumption from Maine Saturday night.

Maine's pestering forecheck, which is so essential to the team's identity and success, kept sputtering out. This season, it seems Maine has mostly utilized some type of variation on the 2-1-2 forecheck, where two forwards pressure aggressively. The in-your-face style can be risky, especially when the opposition's defensemen are as skilled as Colgate's at absorbing the pressure and moving the puck up ice accurately. The all-out forecheck also relies heavily on the Maine defensemen's success at pinching in from the point to negate the opposition wingers' time and space to break out of the zone.

Saturday night, however, Maine struggled to knock Colgate's big, strong blueliners off the puck on the first initiation of the forecheck, and lost too many blue line battles on pinches with Colgate's equally sturdy forwards. This enabled Colgate to routinely break up ice and not allow Maine to force turnovers in dangerous areas and maintain the necessary onslaught of pressure required to could overwhelm Colgate's defense.

The Raiders doubled their lead ten minutes into the first period. Victor Ostman steered a rebound wide but right to Colgate forward Ryan McGuire. From the goalline, the skilled Raider squeaked an inch-perfect shot into the roof of Ostman's net from a seemingly impossible angle.

Things would go from bad to worse for the fan-favorite Maine netminder. Only a few minutes after Colate doubled their lead, they would tack on another goal. On the power play, a Raiders' centering pass into the slot was one-timed through Ostman with a low-hard shot at the near post, completely stunning the Alfond Saturday night crowd into an unusual silence.

No team this season had put Maine in such a hole. Were the Raiders about to burst the Black Bear bubble?

Colgate's three goals on six shots while still only at the midway point of the first period would signal the end of Ostman's night between the pipes, being pulled for Friday night's shot-stopper, freshman Albin Boija. While obviously not his best night, the Black Bears in front of him let the usual brick wall teammate down, allowing far too much space, and leaving Ostman exposed.

The replacement of one Swedish netminder for the other by Barr had as much to do with desperately trying to light a spark under the team as it did Ostman's ability.

The movehoped to be the wake-up call Maine needed.

Donovan Houle, the guilty party in the penalty box during Colgate's third goal, immediately picked up his team.

The only line that could really get going in the first period was the ever-dynamic, hard-nosed trio of Harrison Scott, Thomas Freel, and Donovan Houle. Less than a minute after the latest Raider goal, Scott and Freel did what they do best.

Battling hard down-low in Maine's O-zone corner, Freel separated Raider body from puck, allowing Scott to scoop up the loose biscuit and find Houle in the slot. The big senior got the puck quickly into a shooting position and rifled a howitzer of a wrist shot into the top corner of the net, giving life to the eager Alfond Faithful.

If Donny Hockey didn't fire up his teammates and the home crowd with this laser of a shot, he certainly did so a few minutes later.

One of Colgate's most dynamic forwards, Ross Mitton, raced out of the Raiders' zone and through center ice. With his head down, Houle made him pay the price, leveling the Colgate captain with an enormous open-ice hit at the red line.

Rumor has it the sound from the massive, bone-crunching smash can still be heard echoing off the Alfond's rafters.

While they grew into the first period, the Black Bears hoped the second would go more their way. But again, Maine just couldn't seem to marshall a sustained phase of pressure as Colgate regained the momentum and began to dictate the play again.

Sloppy passes and pucks jumping over Maine sticks became a theme, keeping the Black Bears scrambling for much of the second frame. But Boija bailed his team out time and again, making challenging opportunities look easy with great positional play and a calming demeanor.

As the second period went along, the chippiness that fans expected from Colgate poured out. Clearly, with a target on their backs, first-round draft pick Bradly Nadeau, December's NCAA Player of the Month Josh Nadeau, and the always reliable Lynden Breen struggled with the Raiders' physical abuse. The New Brunswick line, tiny compared to Colgate's mammoths, were hacked, whacked, slashed, and elbowed at every opportunity.

Clearly frustrated with the assault that was being deemed legal by the referees, the line struggled to establish themselves in their usual elite way. By no means did they play poorly, but it looked like the cheapshots began to take their toll. Too often, the trio tried to force a perfect play or make an extra pass to set up a highlight reel goal. This strategy wasn't coming off against a team as defensively stalwart as Colgate.

The cross-crease passes from one Nadeau to the other, which have carved plenty of oppositions apart this season, were being chipped and tipped away by the forest of Raider sticks that so impressively clogged the middle of the ice. If one of these cross-ice, set-up passes did find its intended target, Colgate's netminder Carter Gylander showcased impressive post-to-post coverage to further frustrate the brothers.

This frustration boiled over to the Alfond crowd late in the second period.

Getting increasingly more in the game as time went on, the New Brunswick line created an opportunity on a rush. Josh and Bradly made a series of rapid tic-tac-toe passes before Josh stuffed the puck to the near post. Gylander sprawled out and somehow stopped the puck from crossing the goal line. Unsure if it went in, Josh pounced on the puck, sitting loose in the blue paint. But the whistle had blown, and Colgate took exception, mauling Josh, slamming him to the ice in a WWE-style move as a fracas broke out between Raiders and Black Bears. A Colgate defenseman, double his weight and probably four or more years his senior, decided this was the perfect time to cheapshot Bradly as well, sending both Nadeaus to the ice.

Inexplicably, Josh was given an unsportsmanlike penalty on the melee. While Maine would go on the power play following the mugging, the Alfond made sure to let their disapproval be known as a chorus of boos rained down on the referees.

"I'm blind, I'm deaf, I wanna be a ref." Sang the Alfonders.

But if Colgate thought beating up on Maine's two star freshmen would help the Raiders' cause, they were sorely mistaken.

Don't poke the Bear.

For the Alfond Faithful, the emotion that had been slowly building throughout the first thirty-seven minutes of the contest completely poured out in the minutes that succeeded the skirmish. While the Black Bears would go unsuccessful on the power play, just seconds after Colgate killed off the penalty, Thomas Freel threw a low-hard shot on net through traffic that found twine and sent an explosion of noise around the building.

A Maine penalty off the ensuing faceoff didn't take the wind out of Maine's sails.

Freel, now on the penalty kill unit, blocked a shoot-in from a Raider defenseman at the point before winning the foot race to the loose puck, setting himself up for a breakaway just seconds after his goal. With the defensemen's stick creeping up behind him on his forehand side, Freel waited for Gylander to bite before one-handing the puck into the net, almost causing the Alfond's roof to fly off in celebration.

Two goals in nineteen seconds for the Scottish-born, Canadian-raised sophomore sent the old barn into as wild a delirium as it has seen all season and left the Naked Five out of breath.

A boisterous ovation for the Black Bears sent Maine into the second intermission with the script completely flipped, all of a sudden with the momentum in their favor.

But the back-and-forth battle took another turn.

Early in the third period, The Raiders’ Brett Chorske repeated the bar-down snipe he opened the game with, once again going short-side to beat the Maine netminder with an unsavable shot.

But the Black Bears stayed calm, knowing they would get their chances with plenty of time left. It was the Black Bears' best period of the night on both sides of the puck. Gaining more traction with every one-on-one battle won, Maine looked the more threatening side as the minutes ticked down. Far from a perfect frame defensively, as Colgate continued to be the better team on transitions through neutral ice, Maine's d-zone defense held firm, only allowing six Raider shots to reach Boija in the final period.

Understanding that Gylander was going to save pretty much every shot he could clearly see, the Black Bears threw bodies in front of the Colgate netminder, trying to take away his eyes and crash the crease for rebounds.

Just as Black Bear Nation began to wonder when Barr would pull Boija for the extra attacker, the game's best offensive play on a night full of filthy, top-shelf cheese came courtesy of one Mr. Sully Scholle.

Having a breakout weekend last week against RIT and Dartmouth, the Black Bear freshman continued his red-hot play. Covering at the point, Scholle pounced on a loose puck before making a silky forehand to backhand move that allowed him space to explode into the slot. The Minnesota native then lit the lamp with a postage-stamp perfect wrister under the bar, sending earthquake-like reverberations around Central Maine.

The packed Alfond crowd erupted in euphoric jubilation. Scholle celebrated with a big leap into the glass in front of his adoring fans where he was quickly mobbed by his teammates.

But in Maine's mind, the comeback wasn't complete. Regulation soon after ended, and the three-on-three five-minute overtime session commenced with the Black Bears determined to finish the weekend in style.

The overtime set saw both Maine and Colgate on the doorstep of victory.

Not a single Alfonder dared to breathe during the excruciatingly tense, open-ice, danger-filled OT.

A Colgate turnover in their end had Bradly Nadeau in a dangerous spot. With his brother streaking towards the net, Brad saucered the puck to the charging Josh. But the puck was a millimeter too high, resulting in Colgate racing down-ice on a three-one-one of their own. The play was steered wide by Boija, putting Maine back on their own chance. But a big rebound from a Black Bear shot was kicked out kindly to Chorske, who, in turn, was in his own breakaway. Already with two goals to his name, the Colgate forward thought he had completed the hat-trick, muscling the puck over the goal line on his own rebound.

The Alfond let out a sigh of relief as the officials deemed that Chorske had interfered with Boija and the goal was disallowed.

Each team could not convert their plethora of shooting chances as the breathless, back-and-forth overtime contest ended still knotted up at four.

Being a non-conference game, the overtime period ended the contest as a well-deserved tie. However, they did play the shootout for the spectacle more than anything, as the result would not crown a winner either way.

Josh Nadeau scored Maine's first attempt, and Boija shut out the Raiders on their next two shootout chances, setting up Bradly Nadeau to send the Alfond Faithful home happy with a nifty cut-back move.

Maine winning the shootout didn't mean anything on the standings board. But it allowed the Black Bears to skate off the ice with their heads held high with a hard-fought moral victory.

While disjointed at times, the performance was deservingly overshadowed by the sheer heart and will the Black Bears displayed. Even after being down three so early into the game with the possibility of being humiliated on home ice, Maine's resilience stepped up.

The Black Bears stayed calm and didn't panic.

While seemingly everything went against them, their tenacity and perseverance showcase the winning culture and mental strength imminent in these Black Bears.

It reflected the mentality of Mainers. Gritty, humble, never-say-die, hardworking, and so incredibly supportive of each other.

And while their record may not show it, this is a fantastic Colgate side that was set up perfectly to trouble Maine. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Raiders in the National Tournament again this season as top-to-bottom, they proved to be one of Maine's most formidable foes.

Tweaks will be made, lessons will be learned, and Maine will only be stronger because of this test. But better to go through these trials now rather than in March.

Good teams find a way.

This is a one good hockey team.

Time to take Hockey East by storm.