For the coaching staff and seniors on the University of New Hampshire hockey team, watching the 1999 NCAA championship game is just too much to bear. The Wildcats lost that game to Maine, 3-2, in a tough-to-swallow overtime session.

“It’s like the most empty feeling you can have,” UNH coach Dick Umile said of the loss. “Just to be there and have that opportunity, because getting there is awful hard.”

Umile and the No. 1 ranked Wildcats (30-6-3) will have another chance to get to Saturday’s NCAA title game at the Xcel Center in St. Paul, Minn. But standing in the way are those same Black Bears, UNH’s opponent Thursday at 1:30 p.m.

The 1999 championship was broadcast on ESPN and is readily available on tape. That doesn’t mean Umile has sat down with popcorn in hand to re-live that particular night.

“I don’t want to watch it,” Umile said. “Someday I will watch it.”

Wildcat senior David Busch agrees. A freshman during the 1999 campaign, Busch would rather his own mind pushed him rather than the actual game footage.

“I kind of have trouble watching it. My memories motivate me enough,” Busch said. “I just remember the puck going in the net and their whole bench jumping up.”

At the time, Busch had the rest of his hockey career ahead of him and an optimistic outlook. A stunning loss to Niagara in 2000 and an early exit from the Hockey East playoffs last year left him with one more shot.

“I remember thinking, ‘well, I’ll get another chance to do it,'” Busch said. “When it came down to this year I was like, ‘wow, I’ve only got one year to go. Are we going to have the team to do it?’ I think we’ve answered those questions. It’s nice to have a chance to get back there.”

Now a Hobey Baker Award finalist, senior Darren Haydar was also a freshman in the 1999 championship game. Unlike Umile and Busch, Haydar has watched the Maine game since.

“I look at that game and see how young I was and how much I matured,” Haydar said. “For Dave and I, it’s been a four-year process and we’re back where we were our freshman year.”

Haydar is hoping to use that pain toward paying back Maine while getting another chance to skate the biggest hardware of the year.

“Freshman year, it hurt a lot. It’s something I can never get back,” he said. “It drives me to get back to the finals.”