From Stockholm With Love

Freshman Calle Ridderwall had scored just three goals all season for a Notre Dame team that had found offense hard to come by in the last two months of the season. He picked a good time to have the best game of his career.

Ridderwall rifled home his second goal of the game on a rebound to give the Irish a 5-4 victory in overtime over the top-seeded, top-ranked Michigan Wolverines tonight in Denver. Having dispatched conference foes and familiar football opponents in back-to-back games (the Icers topped Michigan State in the regional finals), the Irish now face perennial thorn-in-the-football-team's side - I'm not going anywhere near a discussion of the proper use of the "r" word - Boston College for the national championship on Saturday night.

ESPN's highlights, constrained to the Michigan goal that knotted the game with just over 5 minutes to play in the third period and Ridderwall's game clincher, can be found here. Full-scale coverage is over at UND.com's Frozen Four page. The championship game begins at 7PM ET Saturday night on ESPN.


More from ESPN on both semifinals and a peek ahead to Saturday night: