Chris Wardle slipped behind the defence on a restart, took a perfect lead pass from Scott Ranger and flicked the ball home for the sudden-death overtime winner as the Victoria Shamrocks tied the 2014 Mann Cup at 1-1 with a 6-5 win Saturday. “You take a quick look at the goalie and see where you have an open spot and you put it there. I saw Miller's short side and put a quick snap there and luckily it made it through,” Wardle said of his winning goal.

Chris Wardle scores the double overtime winner as the Shamrocks beat the Chiefs 6-5 to even the series. (Photo: Tim Prothero)

The sudden-death overtime was set up by a dramatic goal by Corey Small with 31 seconds left in the first, 10-minute full overtime period. That goal evened things up for Victoria when it was looking like Colin Doyle's goal at 3:36 of the first overtime might stand as the winner. Doyle came off the bench on a transition break, took a pass from Jesse Gamble and rumbled through the slot like a running back breaking tackles to tuck home a perfectly placed shot over the shoulder of Matt Flindell to make it 5-4.

The initial overtime was forced by a controversial Craig Point power play goal with just six seconds remaining in regulation time. Point put home a brilliant cross-floor pass from Doyle several seconds after the shot clock appeared to stop with three seconds remaining on it. “We also have a controversy where we have to look at the 30-second clock because the 30-second clock was incorrectly run when they scored that tying goal and that has to be addressed. Plain and simple,” said Victoria head coach Bob Heyes. “We're not here for a game like this to be decided on someone who's not impartial. I don't want to bring that up, but if we don't win that game, what do we do? Do we have a recourse on that? We don't. We're lucky we won that game.”

The game was a defensive and goaltenders battle throughout. Six Nations took a 3-1 lead after the first period. Wardle scored the only goal of the second period on a power play to pull the Shamrocks within one and Rhys Duch connected 3:33 into the third to tie it up.

Both defences and goalies held the fort for the next 11 minutes until Corey Small finally got the monkey off his back that had been riding him so far in the series, putting home a goal at 14:28 to give the Shamrocks their first lead of the series. That lead held up until Point's tying goal.

“Our season has been predicated on having the best defence in Canada,” Heyes said. “I think we showed it in our league and you saw it tonight. The defence that we played was outstanding. We've got great athletes that buy into the whole system. It is great. We've got guys who just want to win and play so intense. It was unbelievable what they did tonight.”

Six Nations coach Rich Kilgour was philosophical about the loss. “Sure it would have been great to get that win tonight. If, if, if. But it is what it is,” he said. “We lost and now it's a best of five. Hopefully we take Sunday to regroup and be ready to go Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.”

Game 3 in the series will start at 8 pm ET Monday. As with all the games in the series, it can be viewed as a pay per view webcast by JVI Video.