On January 10, Yale forward Joe Zappala scored the game-winning goal against St. Lawrence, delivering the Elis’ third straight victory in a win streak that stands at six games entering tonight’s contest with Harvard.

The goal came with 24.8 seconds left in overtime—and at 9:36 p.m. local time. Two hours, 24 minutes later, the clock struck midnight in New Haven, marking another event in Zappala’s life that was far, far removed from hockey.

It was the third anniversary of the day he underwent brain surgery.

“That was a really tough time in my life,” remembered Zappala, thinking back to his senior year at Buckingham Browne & Nichols School (BB&N), a short Zamboni drive away from the Harvard campus.

Zappala, now a 20-year-old sophomore, was 17 when doctors told him the unbearable words: “You might not play hockey again.”

There was cause for such grave concern. For two full months that school year, every time Zappala stood up, he blacked out for 15 seconds. He had to clutch onto whatever he could find to keep from falling down.

But he is, after all, a hockey player, and hockey players have a certain hubris when it comes to matters of bodily disrepair. So you could’ve guessed Zappala’s response: He thought it was a “really bad headache” and tried to play through it.

“I thought I was just stressed out over school, worrying about hockey,” he recalled. “It was definitely something entirely different.”

The diagnosis: hydrocephalus. Doctors cut into his skull on Jan. 11, 2001. The operation was a success, draining the fluid that had collected on his brain. Subsequent MRIs have given Zappala a spotless bill of health.

Still, it could’ve ended his career. It could’ve made him worry so much about the dangers of a blow to the head that he turned in his skates. It could’ve enabled fear to put a lock-tight grip on his life.

Instead, Zappala responded the only way he knows how—with focused, unwavering resolve.

You want guts? Through the headaches, blackouts, and brain surgery that year, Zappala missed a total of three weeks. Yes. Three weeks for brain surgery. He had a hat trick in his final game, catching the eye of one Tim Taylor ‘63.

You want resiliency? Undeterred in his dream of playing Division I hockey and not satisfied with the Division III looks he was getting at BB&N, Zappala enrolled at Deerfield Academy for a postgraduate year. He thrived there, excelling in the classroom and performing well enough on the ice that big-name suitors came calling. “Academically and athletically, he did a great job up there,” said Taylor, Yale’s longtime head coach. “He was a very easy kid for Yale to admit.”

And you want an all-around, feel-good success story? After a 15-point freshman season, Zappala worked tirelessly on his speed over the summer—tell me you’re not surprised—and has lit up the ECAC like a Christmas tree this year. He is second in the league in point-scoring (19) and goal-scoring (11) and leads his team with 26 points overall.

Those numbers get a little better when you consider this: Eight of his 11 goals have been game-winners. Yale has 11 wins. You do the math.