Bishop Guertin hockey players mob Jordan O'Hearn against the glass after he scored the game-winning goal in overtime to win the Division I hockey title Saturday night at SNHU Arena in Manchester. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

MANCHESTER – The old adage must be true: Defense really does win championships.

That’s what the Bishop Guertin High School boys hockey team discovered once and for all on Saturday after Jordan O’Hearn’s goal at 6:31 of sudden death overtime gave the No. 3 Cards a dramatic 1-0 win over top seed Concord at SNHU Arena.

You see, the Tide had a prolific top line and goals were never really a big issue, but after 51 minutes and 11 seconds of hockey, Concord managed just 18 shots on BG goalie Nico Scaparotti.

“Defensively our kids played really, really well,” Guertin coach Gary Bishop said, the school winning its eighth state boys hockey title. “We played the four ‘D’ solidly, (Gavin) Santos, (Luca) Ferrari, (Jack) Menicci and (Cam) Auger. The four of them just, they shut them down. They did a great job.”

That seemed to do two things. It stopped Concord from scoring, but also limited 16-5 BG’s chances as O’Hearn and all the other forwards helped out.

“We were so tied up in the defensive zone that when we did get out, we didn’t get a lot of odd-man rushes. … I’ll give that up for defensive zone coverage.”

“It was just a really good hockey game between two really good teams,” Tide coach Duncan Walsh said. “I’m disappointed, you want to win, our kids played hard and played the right way…

“They (the Cards) can skate, they’re quick, Santos is really good, O’Hearn can skate – I didn’t expect our line to come out and score five goals … BG plays tight defense. They were kind of all over us, there were no odd-man rushes. We had a couple, but the puck just bounced, or we lost it. We knew it was going to be an even game.”

Thus the game was scoreless after three periods, and those who remembered last year’s three-plus overtime oddesey had to be wondering just how long this one was going to go.

But the Cards got the one big rush they needed when Cam Vaillancourt passed the puck up ice to an open O’Hearn, the Cards senior captain. He zipped up the ice on left wing and once in the zone fired a rocket that Tide goalie Carter Heise (25 saves) seemingly got a piece of but the puck still trickled into the net. The celebration was almost a delayed reaction after everyone could see the puck in the net.

“It just a great breakout pass,” O’Hearn said. Coach always tells me get the puck in deep and get it on net … go hard at the net, and luckily it just trickled right in, and that was game.”

Did he see if Heise had gotten a piece of it or not?

“Honestly, I couldn’t tell you,” O’Hearn said. “I just saw it go in the net and I was fired up, because losing last year was the worst feeling ever.”

“He spent most of the time in the defensive zone,” Bishop said. “He didn’t do the stuff with the puck he usually does with the puck today. If he thought he was going to be confronted, he just dumped it. He’s usually trying to dance around people. But he was ‘We want to keep it stimple, stupid, don’t want to make a mistake.'”

Bishop Guertin goalie Nico Scaparotti hits the ice while Cards defenseman Luca Ferrari (5) corrals Concord’s Chad LaRiviere behind the net after a rush during Saturday night’s Division I title game at Manchester’s SNHU Arena. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

It almost didn’t make OT. Despite their lack of offense, the Tide had a golden opportunity to win the game with about 22 seconds left when Nolan Walsh tried a wrap-around shot. But Scaparotti, a sophomore transfer from Central Catholic of Lawrence, Mass., used his stick to poke the puck away at the last second.

“I was just going through my head, thinking we’ve got 30 seconds left, not even, gotta come up big here. Walsh coming around, cutting across, I just threw my stick out,hopefully it got the puck – and I did.”

Soon after, the horn sounded and the teams would get a break before coming back out onto the ice for overtime, many in the building thinking back to last year’s dramatic maraathon with shots and saves galore.

This one, though, was all about defense.

“When we held them to zero (after three periods), I knew we were going to win that game,” Santos said. “I knew we were going to win that game when we went into overtime.”