Minor league hockey teams play five overtimes, are probably tired

Overtime playoff hockey games are stressful enough if you’re emotionally invested in one of the teams. Double- and triple-overtime games go past mere stress and into the realm of abject terror.  But anything after that, and you’re just begging for somebody — anybody — to end it, ideally someone from your own team.

And so we have Wednesday night’s/Thursday morning’s Calder Cup playoff game between the Lehigh Valley Phantoms and the Charlotte Checkers, whose 1-1 draw lasted through four complete overtimes and into a fifth. Finally, 6:48 into the fifth extra period and at 1:09 a.m. local time, Alex Krushelnyski ended it for the Phantoms more than six hours after the puck first dropped at 7 p.m.:

As the tweet says, it was the longest game in American Hockey League history, surpassing another five-overtime game between the then-Philadelphia Phantoms and the Albany River Rats — the franchise that eventually became the Checkers — in 2008:

The longest game in NHL history was a six-overtime thriller between the Detroit Red Wings and Montreal Maroons in 1936. Two teams in the Norwegian pro league played an eight-overtime game in 2017, in what is believed to be the longest game in hockey history.

Alex Lyon made a mind-boggling 94 saves on 95 shots for the Phantoms, who took a 3-1 lead in the Atlantic Division finals. He stopped the last 79 shots he faced to shut out Charlotte over the final 119:56, only allowing Patrick Brown’s goal at 6:52 of the second period.

The Phantoms, in contrast, put up “only” 53 shots:

“That was pretty crazy, right?” Checkers Coach Mike Vellucci said, per the team’s website. “We outshot them 2-1 and out-chanced them 2-1, so what are you going to do? You give it all you’ve got, and their goalie played absolutely unbelievable and [goalie Alex Nedeljkovic] played really well for us. Guys were gassed, you saw it. It was pretty crazy. I don’t even know how many overtimes we went. They gave it all they had, so that’s all you could ask.”

As if the five-overtime game wasn’t hard enough for the crew at Bojangles’ Coliseum in Charlotte, the ice had to be immediately covered for Thursday night’s concert featuring Colombian reggaeton singer Maluma:

Following what I’m guessing will be extended nap time, the two teams will meet again on Saturday in Charlotte.

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