February 5, 2000
Houston Field House, Troy, NY
attendance 5136
referees  - Noeth,Shea,Fulton
 
-1-
G  4:07 RPI (1-0) Gardiner(Reigstad,Murley)
P  5:22 Dart.  Sinclair (slash)
P 13:59 RPI    Dupee (boarding)
 
-2-
P  6:35 RPI    E.Cavosie (charge)
 
-3-
G  3:51 RPI (2-0) Caley(Murley,Gardiner)
P  5:15 Dart   Byrne (rough)
P 17:36 Dart   Murray (elbow)
P 18:20 RPI    M. Cavosie (interference)
 
saves        1    2    3    t
Laing(RPI)   5    11   10   26
Boucher(Dart)10   3    9    22
 
The RPI Field House was the scene of the 23rd annual Big Red Freakout on Saturday night as RPI took on Dartmouth in an important ECAC game for both teams.  For those unfamiliar
with the Big Red Freakout, it is one game every year in February when everyone comes dressed in red (including some
people's hair, faces and other various body parts).
Back in the early years (I haven't missed any of the 23 games), Field House personnel handed out noisemakers such as cowbells and those long plastic trumpets. During those years,
everyone left the building after the game with a splitting headache. Legend has it that Bob Gaudet, then a coach at Brown
and a member of the NCAA Rules Committee, saw his teams so intimidated by the noise in the Field House, that he convinced the Committee to pass the "RPI rule" which bans artificial noisemakers at NCAA games. In subsequent years, RPI made it a point to play Brown for the Freakout and later, when Gaudet moved to Dartmouth, RPI scheduled Dartmouth for the game.
It's just our way of thanking Coach Bob, I guess.
 
Tonight's game saw RPI come out flying, pumped up by the packed house. RPI got on the board early when Matt Murley
picked up the puck behind the net, backhanded a pass through the slot that reached defenseman Jared Reigstad back on the blue line. Reigstad fired one into a crowd out front and Pete Gardiner picked up the loose puck and pushed it past Nick Boucher for a 1-0 lead.  At that point, the checkers took over.  For the remainder of the period, it was end to end action, with RPI dominating the play, but not able to beat the Dartmouth defense. Boucher controlled the puck beautifully, giving up very few rebounds .
 
In the second, the momentum shifted although the end to end, close checking style didn't. RPI's offense couldn't seem to get their act together but Dartmouth started clicking on their passes and their transitions were smooth and fast. But Dartmouth consistently broke out on odd man rushes but could never seem to finish the play. I'd like to think that it was the superb RPI defense that kept Dartmouth from scoring, but I just got the sense that the Big Green would grab the puck, break out up ice, break into the RPI zone and then, either
shoot wide, miss the shot or pass it right onto an RPI stick.  Dartmouth had their chance to take the game away in the second period, but declined the invitation.  Neither team scored.
 
In the third, RPI put the game away when Steve Caley scored to put the Engineers up 2-0 with assists going to Pete Gardiner
and Matt Murley.  Dartmouth's checkers concentrated on keeping Brad Tapper from scoring this game but the second line of Gardiner,Caley and Murley filled in scoring both goals. Caley, who was injured early in January seems to have regained
his form and given RPI a second line scoring punch.
The third period continued as the first two, with end to end action, shots from the outside and few rebounds. Both Dartmouth goaltender Nick Boucher and RPI's Joel Laing played excellent games and were named the games 2nd and 1st game stars respectively.
 
As I suggested several weeks ago, RPI coach Dan Fridgen seems to have switched from his goalie rotation of Scott Prekaski and Joel Laing and seems to be going with Laing as his #1 goalie. (No need to thank me Fridge! Glad I could help out.)
 
Although RPI picks up 2 points with their win, they fall further behind 2nd place Colgate (beats Brown Friday and ties Harvard Saturday) and first place St. Lawrence (beat Yale Friday and Princeton Saturday).  Next week the Engineers
take on Princeton and Yale at home, before travelling to Colgate and Cornell the following weekend. Then on the weekend of 2/25 and 2/26, RPI Plays Clarkson and first place St. Lawrence at home.
 
 
 
 
 
--
Mark Lewin
RPI  class of '69
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