“I can see why they’d be upset,” Moore said. “But it’s not our fault and I’m not going to wait around for them to call a penalty. I saw the opening and took it.”

But the Catamounts’ players and their coach also saw the opening and were incensed.

With the referee on the other side of the ice near the Harvard bench and the scorers’ box, Gilligan tried in vain to get the referee’s attention. Unable to do so, Gilligan grabbed a stick and proceeded to hit it against the boards in a seemingly futile effort to be noticed by Dunn.

Although Gilligan had the attention of most of the arena, Dunn made no move to indicate he noticed him or planned to talk.

It was not until most of the Vermont bench was screaming and Gilligan had made six or seven solid hits with the stick that Dunn skated over.

Dunn at least owed Gilligan an explanation, and the Catamounts’ coach nearly had to break a stick even to get his attention.

With a justifiably-angry Vermont team that had very little left to play for, the ensuing action on the ice was predictable.

The Catamounts started running at everything in a Crimson sweater, picking up six minutes worth of minor penalties in a span of just 2:57.

With Harvard on a 5-on-3 power play as a result, the cheap shots and dirty play did not stop.

“I was going for a puck in the corner and he looked like he was going for it, too,” Moore said. “All of a sudden he takes his elbow and the butt end of his stick to my face and I’m down. We weren’t even near the puck and he certainly didn’t make any attempt to play it.”

It wasn’t the only incident like that on the ice, and it certainly wasn’t the only one the referee saw and chose to ignore.

Dunn called a very tight game through the first two periods on Saturday night, handing out 26 minutes in penalties.

But as the game degenerated in the third and most referees would have called the game tighter, Dunn did the exact opposite.

That’s when the coaches stepped in.

Both Gilligan and Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni tried to call a timeout at 9:01 of the third. Although Vermont was charged with the timeout, both Mazzoleni and Moore indicated that it was the Crimson who originally took it.