April 3, 1993: The University of Maine men’s hockey team, under the leadership of coach Shawn Walsh, wins the NCAA Division I men’s hockey championship in Milwaukee, playing against Lake Superior State University.
It is the team’s first national title. Maine is down 4-2 after two periods, but the team’s all-time leading scorer, Jim Montgomery, who later will have a 12-year playing career in the National Hockey League, scores a hat trick in the third period to put Maine ahead 5-4 – the final score.
The team’s members also include future NHL star and 2017 Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Paul Kariya, who notches an assist on each of Montgomery’s three goals; and Garth Snow, who also played 12 years in the NHL and then was general manager of the NHL’s New York Islanders for 12 years.
UMaine ended the season with a 22-1-1 record in conference play and 42-1-2 overall.
The team wins a second national championship under Walsh on the same date in 1999 in Anaheim, California, defeating the University of New Hampshire 3-2 in overtime in the Frozen Four final.
Joseph Owen is a retired copy desk chief of the Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal and board member of the Kennebec Historical Society. He can be contacted at: jowen@mainetoday.com.
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