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Inside the NHL
Posted: Tuesday May 09, 2000 12:35 PM Sleeping BeautyAt least the Flyers and Penguins were awake to the end of a five-OT epic By Kostya Kennedy
The players went to the dressing rooms after each overtime and peeled off their sweat-soaked jerseys to don dry ones. Pittsburgh winger Matthew Barnaby says that during the overtimes he drank six bottles of Gatorade and ate nine slices of pizza. Some Flyers spent the period breaks hooked up to intravenous tubes. Some of the roughly 5,000 fans who remained till the end fell asleep in their seats. The next day Flyers assistant Wayne Cashman, who stood behind the bench for seven hours, limped into work and said, "I feel like I played football last night." Referees Dan Marouelli and Rob Shick and linesmen Wayne Bonney and Jay Sharrers had to skate every minute, never getting a shift off. "I figured if I kept moving I'd be O.K.," Marouelli said last Saturday. "Between periods we drank water and ate fruit, and then we went out and concentrated. It's mentally exhausting, too." At least Marouelli had help. He was the lone referee during the April 24, 1996, game that ended when Pittsburgh center Petr Nedved scored with 45 seconds remaining in the fourth OT against Washington. "I skated a lot more miles that night," Marouelli said, "but in the two-ref system, there's more backskating and cutting and turning. It's harder on your back and knees. Anytime you get into overtime, you hope that the game will end quickly and cleanly. This one definitely wasn't quick, but it was clean." The game-winner, by center Keith Primeau, came with 7:59 left in the fifth overtime. Primeau, who says he stayed fresh "by playing only 25-second shifts," carried the puck into the Pittsburgh zone and deked defenseman Darius Kasparaitis. Kasparaitis slipped to one knee, and Primeau wristed the puck over goalie Ron Tugnutt's left shoulder and into the cage. When the puck went in, Tugnutt and the Penguins wearily left the ice, too beat to lament the outcome, just as the Flyers were too spent to celebrate for long. "I remember as a kid watching that Capitals-Islanders game in 1987," says Primeau. "This is nice. You go down as a little piece of hockey history." Issue date: May 15, 2000
For more Inside the NHL see this week's issue of Sports Illustrated, on newsstands Wednesday, May 10. Click here to subscribe to SI.
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