The Clemson club ice hockey team defeated the Miami Hurricanes, 6-5, in a near-overtime thriller to open its College Hockey South Division II playoffs slate last Friday in Coral Springs, Florida. With the win, the Tigers advanced to the semifinal round of the tournament, where they ultimately fell short to the South Florida Bulls, 5-3.

Last season, Clemson entered the tournament as the sixth seed and defeated the No. 3 Florida Gators and the No. 1 Florida Atlantic Owls to advance to the title game for the first time in program history. The team eventually fell short to the Tennessee Volunteers. This season, the Tigers debuted in the tournament as the first seed in the North division, ready to claim the conference championship that so narrowly slipped through their claws last year.

The quarterfinal contest did not begin in Clemson’s favor; the Hurricanes netted the first two goals — one at 4:39 and another less than a minute later — to establish an early lead. Just 40 seconds after Miami’s second goal, Clemson’s Troy Gouveia got the Tigers on the board with help from Ethan Callahan and Alex Wallace.

Miami reclaimed its two-goal lead with 3:31 left in the first period, but it didn’t last. Wallace collected a goal of his own, also assisted by Callahan, with just over one minute left in the first to keep Clemson within striking distance.

The Hurricanes reinstated their two-goal lead once again within the first half of the middle frame. For most of the period, it was clear that Clemson needed an offensive spark if it wanted a chance to stay in the game.

With 4:40 on the clock, that spark manifested in the form of a goal from Kevin Arthur, assisted by Tommy Papa and Cam Iacobelli. Within a minute and a half of Arthur’s goal, Christian Romeo tied the game at 4-4, tucking in a pass from Wallace to further revive Clemson’s offense entering the third.

The light at the end of the tunnel shone brightly for the Tigers early in the third, as Will Ralsten netted the go-ahead goal less than four minutes in, with help from Will Van Sicklin.

However, five penalties — two of which were 10-minute misconducts — and various equipment issues shortened the Tigers’ bench significantly in the latter half of the final frame and allowed Miami to tie the game at 5-5 with just 8:27 left in regulation.

With two players set to spend the remainder of the game — and what would be the first minute and a half of overtime — in the penalty box, Clemson’s captain, Cade Heinold, knew he had to help his squad finish the job.

Heinold sat for part of the third period after one of his skates “completely fell apart” with about 12 minutes left in the contest, but when Clemson drew a penalty with just 43 seconds left in regulation, the captain would stop at nothing to get back on the ice for his team’s final push.

His first plan was to borrow rental skates from the rink. When that promptly fell through, Heinold sent his father to the penalty box to grab a pair of skates from a Clemson player serving a 10-minute misconduct penalty and brought them to the bench. Despite feeling like “a cat wearing socks,” Heinold laced up his teammates’ skates — a size seven compared to the captain’s usually nine and a half — and headed straight to the faceoff circle.

And just nine seconds into the power play, Heinold slung the puck straight past Miami’s netminder to evade overtime and send Clemson to the semifinals with a 6-5 win.

“It was a fun experience playing in the tournament, especially coming back from injury,” Heinold told The Tiger. “I was just happy to be there because I didn’t think I was going to play again this year. I was super proud of our team for all making the trip and putting together a win and then a good game in the semis.”

The following day, in Clemson’s semifinal contest against the South Florida Bulls, Heinold opened the scoring just under halfway through the first, followed by a shorthanded goal from Santiago Diaz to put the Tigers up 2-0. The Bulls cut the deficit in half with a power-play goal on the same advantage.

Clemson spent the majority of the contest shorthanded; it was assessed 10 minor penalties, one major penalty and three 10-minute misconducts in the contest, tallying a total of 55 penalty minutes, while the Bulls took just one penalty.

“We have all the skill… it’s really just the little things that really cause us to just fall short,” Heinold said. “Our team is at our best when we’re all just dialed in and not getting distracted by the refs or anything like that. I liked the game we played last weekend but it was the little things like the penalties and mental errors that kept us from winning it all.”

South Florida collected two more goals in the middle frame — one at even strength and another on the power play — to take a 3-2 lead heading into the final period. Diaz netted his second shorthanded goal of the night with help from Mike McKeon just under six minutes into the third, but the Bulls collected yet another power-play goal and a shorthanded one of their own to knock the Tigers out of the tournament.

“I think we did a really good job of just creating a positive atmosphere in our room,” Heinold said. “We didn’t let any adversity get us down, and we kept pushing the whole weekend. We were short players, and we had some calls that weren’t going our way… But we had guys filling different roles and doing whatever they could to help. Just really proud of everyone pushing through the adversity even though we came up short.”

Clemson will be back in action on Friday, Feb. 28, as the Tigers travel to Irmo, South Carolina, to take on the South Carolina Gamecocks in their final game of the 2024-25 season.

“If we play the way we did this past weekend and can limit the penalties and mental errors, then there is no reason we can’t win this game on Friday,” Heinold said. “The little things will be the deciding factor for this game. All the seniors in our room have put so much into this team for the past 4 years. This group deserves a big wi,n and we definitely deserve some hardware.”