When Western Michigan decided to play a wide-open game Friday night in the opening round of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association playoffs, Illinois-Chicago coach Val Belmonte suspected the Broncos might be playing with fire.
Belmonte`s suspicions were confirmed when the Flames burned the Broncos 8-4 at the Pavilion as UIC star Sheldon Gorski scored his fifth hat trick of the season.
Gorski, second-leading goal scorer in Division I hockey, added a pair of assists to lead the Flames to their first-ever opening-round playoff victory.
”It surprised me how wide open they wanted to play,” said Belmonte.
”It was okay with me; that`s right up my alley. We`ll play wide open with anybody with our speed and quickness.”
Western Michigan had a 3-2 lead after the first period despite a pair of goals by Flames freshman Rick Judson. Both goals were set up by Gorski, who is better known as a goal scorer than a playmaker.
But the Broncos notched a pair of power-play goals against goalie Dave DePinto and also caught the Flames in a line change and DePinto napping on a third goal.
”They changed their power play a little and we had to adjust to it,”
Belmonte said. ”I thought we did a good job adjusting.”
He also thought his team did well not to panic after trailing a team it had already beaten four times this year.
”I just told them to calm down and remember a game is not won in 20 minutes,” Belmonte said. ”Teams that are successful under pressure have got to remain calm. This team is already looking to (Saturday) night; they`re not celebrating. They remember what happened two years ago.”
Two years ago, the Flames dropped a tough three-game playoff to the Broncos. ”We`ve got 12 guys who were on that team,” Belmonte mused. ”The difference is we won a lot on emotion that year. You can only go so far with emotion and you run out of gas.”
It was Western Michigan that finally ran out of gas after Gorski scored the second of his two third period goals to give UIC a 6-4 lead.
Gorski`s first goal broke a 3-3 tie in the second period. At 4:26 of the third period he broke free at the blue line, took a pass from Darin Banister and skated in alone on goalie Bill Horn.
”They were on a line change,” remembered Gorski, ”and I just cut across the middle.”
The Broncos pulled to within 5-4 on Shane Redshaw`s goal at 7:36. But Gorski`s third goal, from point-blank range, finally seemed to take the starch out of Western Michigan. Dominic Dunlap got the last two Flames goals, the final one in an empty net.
