Try, Try, Try Again

"Losing that [game] would have been with us the rest of our lives, and yet in overtime you don't think about how you might blow it," said Werenka. "All you think about is winning." Winning was all that Parker, who has coached the Terriers for 18 years, pondered, too, as he went into overtime seeking his first NCAA championship since 1978, when such miracle workers as Jim Craig, Dave Silk and Jack O'Callahan led the way.

"I was watching Connie Chung interview Marlon Brando," Parker said after the game, "and it was an hour of Brando spewing nonsense till Chung asked him his philosophy of life. He said, 'You take your last breath and you say to yourself, What was that all about?' "

Parker found himself asking a similar question about the emotion-churning game his team had just lost. "That wasn't a hockey game out there tonight," he said. "That was something different."