To touch or not to touch?
That was the question in the penalty box as the clock struck 0:00 on the No. 2 Penn State ACHA Division I Icers 4-1 win over No. 3 Delaware in the ESCHL Tournament final Sunday.
As the rest of the team mobbed goalie Nick Signet in celebration of the team's second-consecutive league title, both halves of the team's top defensive pairing were just starting to exit the penalty box.
Sent off in the closing seconds of the game with simultaneous roughing penalties, John Conte and Kyle Mills discussed how to handle the post-game trophy ceremony.
"It was actually a blessing in disguise that we both got a penalty at the end," Conte said. "We were sitting there with five seconds left and I go, 'Do we touch [the trophy]? Do we not touch it?' He said, 'I don't know.' So we talked about it and decided maybe we'd be better off not to touch it this year.
"It's kind of a hockey-type superstition not to touch the trophy, and last year our captain touched it and we exited a little bit earlier than we wanted to. So we figured this year, maybe we'll take a little superstition on our side and stay way from it."
During the ceremony, Conte and Mills stood on either side of the trophy, careful not to touch it. Afterward, assistant coach Bill Downey declined to take the trophy away as well -- a photographer carried the trophy to the end of the rink for a team photo. During the photograph, calls for the team not to touch the trophy could be heard near by.
As far as anybody knew, the team succeeded in not touching it.
"We're happy with winning, but it's not our main goal," defenseman Brent Tranter said. "Our main goal is the national championship and kind of the luck there is, 'Touch one trophy and not get the other.' But hey, whatever we have to do to get the national championship."
In a game which the post-game celebrations were controlled by upperclassmen, it was the team's youngest member who sparked the team's offense.
Freshman Nick Seravalli, playing in his 11th game this season, started the scoring midway through the first period when he shot a loose rebound past Delaware goalie Kurt Pflumm. He also assisted on the team's second goal.
The team's top forward line of Tim O'Brien, Matt Kirstein and Marek Polidor accounted for the team's other two goals.
"This was probably one of our better team performances in a while," Tranter said Sunday. "Maybe Saturday's game wasn't as good, but today we came out from the get go -- firing on all cylinders -- and I thought we kept that up the whole game."
NOTES:
The national tournament seedings were announced. The second-seeded Icers face 15th-seeded Duquesne in the opening round.
Senior forward Brandon Rubeo missed the championship game with an ankle sprain he suffered on a hit from behind in the semifinal round. He expects to feature in the national tournament.
The ESCHL season and tournament awards were handed out after the championship game. Icers winners were: Sportsmanship, Mills; Tournament MVP, O'Brien; ESCHL first team, Luke DeLorenzo and Steve Thurston; ESCHL second team, O'Brien.
