"If you came to this game and you didn't say this was one of the best hockey games you've ever seen, there's something severely wrong with you and your perception," said Eagle coach Blaise MacDonald. "That was two teams playing with pure passion, skill and energy, and we don't play as many games as they do in the NHL, so the effort and energy we possess every night is at a much higher level, and that adds excitement."

For the crowd of 1,129, both teams gave the audience a show. For the first period and a half, both teams showed remarkable puckhandling, footwork and teamwork.

Both goalies were also on the right track. Engineer goalie Joel Laing took plenty of shots from Niagara -- 34 for the game -- and only let two get past him. All the others he caught with fast hands, and occasionally off the chest pads.

Greg Gardner was also making save after save, including one from the back door which he caught out of the corner of his eye and was able to get off his arm pad in time.

The first goal of the game came in the second period. Niagara freshman Randy Harris fed the puck to sophomore John Heffernan, who then charged the goal, deking out Laing and nailing the shot.

The next came in the third period as the shorthanded Engineers let Matt Murley onto the ice, and he put a shot past Gardner.

"That's Matt Murley," said Gardner. "He's a tremendous, tremendous hockey player. Last year when I played him, I got lucky and I stopped him a couple of times. Unfortunately, Nate and Peter had a bad bounce off the boards and Murley came in and, he's not a like an NHL-type player for nothing; he came in and he just roofed it on me.

"You have to tip your hat to a player like that, because he's a pretty good hockey player."

But the Eagles weren't prepared to give up their lead too easily, and in less than 30 seconds Kyle Martin scored the third and final goal of the game during the power play.

"I told the guys, 'Let's jump right back into this. Don't give them any momentum,'" said Martin. "And I told our line, 'Let's get it deep and get a couple of chances here to shut them down.' Sure enough, Rows saw me right in the middle, and shot it right at me. Fortunately it hit my stick and went top-shelf so [I] couldn't ask for anything better than that."

As the final minutes ticked down in the third period, the Engineers got the chance to get the game knotted on back-to-back power plays. But the Eagle special teams kept them back, clearing the puck away from their goal up until the last second.

And the fans were there too. "It means an awful lot to our team to have a big crowd come out here and be vocal," said MacDonald. "It was nice to see the crowd enjoy it. They were the extra player for us when it counted killing those penalties in the stretch."

"The support they give us is unbelievable," added Gardner. "The noise they make sends shivers down my spine."

Engineer head coach Dan Fridgen was not too disappointed with his loss. "We had our opportunities on a two-on-one, in fact a couple of two-on-ones; we either bobbled the puck, mishandled the puck or the goaltender made the save or the defense made a good play. But I thought it was a really well-played game."

Said McDonald, "It's the biggest home victory we've ever had. We're playing against the fifth-rated team in the country in RPI, who has the leading scorer in the country on that team, and a lot of very good, experienced players. And I honestly thought we played from start to finish, for 60 minutes, as good as a coach could ever want his team to play. And the kids really invited the challenge of playing a great team. That makes us a better team and our guys really love that challenge."

This weekend, the Engineers will be playing at Army on the 27th, and Niagara will be heading to the Syracuse Invitational to defend last year's title.

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