Nov. 20—BEMIDJI — Oliver Peer was dumbfounded while sitting on the bench late in the third period last Saturday against Michigan Tech.
The Bemidji State men’s hockey junior had just gotten off the ice from a shift and looked up at the big screen at John MacInnes Student Ice Arena in Houghton, Michigan. The Beavers were on the cusp of going to their sixth overtime period in their last eight games.
“I’m sitting on the bench drinking water, looking up at the scoreboard and thinking to myself, ‘Here we go again,'” Peer said with a laugh. “Doing it on back-to-back nights, it almost feels normal, playing four-period games all the time. I don’t know if it’s necessarily a bad thing, but maybe we need to pick up more wins in regulation.”
No team in the country has played more overtime than Bemidji State this season.
BSU entered CCHA play with a 2-4-0 record, with all six games ending in regulation. Only the series opener against St. Cloud State on Oct. 10 at the Sanford Center was a one-goal game — a 3-2 win for SCSU.
Since then, Bemidji State has played in eight league games. Seven of them have been decided by one goal or less, with six of them needing overtime and two needing a shootout.
At the Beavers’ mid-week media session on Tuesday, they chalked up the overtime trend to one word.
“It’s crazy. It’s just crazy,” Peer said. “Every game is so tight. Even the ones when we don’t go to overtime were one-goal games, two-goal games. It’s tight every night.”
“This is crazy,” head coach Tom Serratore said. “Six out of the last eight? That’s crazy.”
It might be crazy, but it’s not unique.
Bemidji State has played in 194 games that went to overtime since its first Division-I season in 1999. In 2002-03, the Beavers needed an extra session 15 times, going 4-3-8 in OT and 14-14-8 overall.
The 2002-03 season was the first time BSU went to OT in six of eight games. The Beavers needed OT in five consecutive contests against Sacred Heart, Union and Minnesota State, going 0-1-4 in that stretch.
They did it again in 2013-14. BSU went to overtime against Alaska Anchorage, Lake Superior State, Miami, Michigan Tech and Alaska Fairbanks six combined times in an eight-game span.
Bemidji State also had a nine-game stretch that required six overtime periods in 2010-11.
This season is the first time BSU has gone to six 3-on-3 overtimes in eight games.
The NCAA officially adopted the new-age overtime rules in 2020, four years after Bemidji State made its first appearance in a 3-on-3 setting.
On Nov. 11, 2016, the Beavers tied Minnesota State 1-1 on the road. After playing a goalless 5-on-5 OT following regulation, the two teams played 3-on-3 to award the extra point. Charlie O’Connor scored the first 3-on-3 goal in program history.
Ahead of the 2020-21 season, the NCAA deemed all overtime periods would be played 3-on-3, with conference and in-season tournament games requiring a three-round shootout to award the third point up for grabs, or advancements in tournament play.
“I don’t know if I’m a great student of 3-on-3,” Serratore said. “Honestly, our players have played a heck of a lot more of 3-on-3 than I’ve coached, just because of junior hockey and the amount of games they play. I like it a lot. It’s fun, it’s entertaining and we’re in the entertainment business. There are coaches who hate it — literally hate it — because of the gimmicky part of it. But once the National Hockey League went to it years ago, it was only a matter of time before we adopted it.”
If Bemidji State doesn’t play another overtime game this season, it will already have played more games that went beyond regulation in seven of the program’s 26 D-I seasons. The Beavers have played in exactly six overtime periods in four other seasons.
“I say it in a good way and a fun way, but 3-on-3 is gimmicky hockey,” Serratore said. “There’s a few principles you have to live by. If you take a look at the 3-on-3 on Friday (against Michigan Tech), it was nuts. Both teams could’ve had too many men on the ice. It was breakaway city. Coaching goes out the window.”
Peer has two of the Beavers’ three OT goals this season. He also scored a shootout winner against MTU in Friday’s 2-2 tie.
“There’s a lot of extra space out there,” Peer said. “I was lucky enough to finish two of the games, but it’s more of a testament to every guy on our team. We play right to the end, and we’ve been successful in overtime and shootouts this year.”
Despite Bemidji State’s prowess in overtime, it’s coming with consequences.
While the Beavers haven’t lost a CCHA game in regulation this season, three other teams haven’t either. Bowling Green, Michigan Tech and Minnesota State all sit below BSU in the CCHA standings without surrendering three league points in a game this season.
“It’s a short season; you don’t play many games,” Peer said. “Every game is so important. We’re getting into these months now where it’s getting tighter and tighter and tighter. Some teams are going to pull ahead, and some teams are going to fall behind. Every game is so important.”
With the standings so congested at the top, series like the Beavers have this weekend come with some added pressure.
BSU will host Northern Michigan. Outside of their season opener on the road against Massachusetts, the Wildcats have lost every game in regulation this season.
NMU is still winless (0-12-0) and has been outscored 47-17. But Serratore is wary of a desperate team walking into Bemidji.
Last season, Northern Michigan came to the Sanford Center with a 2-20-1 record, comfortably in last place in the CCHA. The Wildcats nabbed a six-point sweep, cementing BSU’s fate as a bottom-half team in 2024-25.
This year, NMU opened the season with four ranked nonconference games against UMass, Ohio State, Colorado College and Michigan State before turning the page to league play against Augustana and Michigan Tech.
“They scare me,” Serratore said. “They came into our building last year and won two games. I remember that, and I’m not going to forget that. They did a good job. They’ve played in a lot of tight games so far. In college hockey, everything is so darn tight now. So they scare me, and I told our players that. They haven’t won a game yet, but they’ve had a lot of tight games.
“We have to play good hockey. We have to execute. We have to maintain that same type of emotion, that same type of intensity and the same type of play we had last weekend. You have to have that consistently. If you don’t, you’re in trouble.”
