This was a pretty active weekend in the ECAC as far as movement in the
standings was concerned. First place changed hands once again, as Harvard's
three-point weekend against the North Country teams boosted the Crimson into
the league's top spot and helped to create a three-way second-place logjam.
All three teams (St. Lawrence, Clarkson, and Yale) are just two points
behind Harvard, and they all have a game in hand. A little farther down,
Colgate and Princeton have been having forgettable seasons so far, but they
both showed some signs of rebounding, as each posted a weekend sweep.
Cornell also recorded a pair of victories (including the who's-gonna-blink-
first game Friday night between Parris Duffus and Christian Soucy), and the
Big Red stretched their current winning streak to four. This is perhaps
significant because last year's Cornell team, which had plenty of talent and
high expectations, never won more than three straight. And let me add my
congratulations to the Union College Skating Dutchmen for recording their
first point against Division I competition since their move from Division
III -- and on the road against nationally-ranked Yale, at that!
Results from Friday and Saturday:
Friday, January 10:
CORNELL 1, Vermont 0
BROWN 5, Clarkson 4
PRINCETON 5, Rpi 3
Union 5, YALE 5 (OT)
HARVARD 3, St. Lawrence 2
COLGATE 6, Dartmouth 2
Saturday, January 11:
CORNELL 4, Dartmouth 1
COLGATE 9, Vermont 5
Clarkson 4, HARVARD 4 (OT)
St. Lawrence 5, BROWN 4
PRINCETON 4, Union 3
YALE 4, Rpi 2
ECAC standings as of 1/12/91:
League Overall
Team W L T Pts GF GA W L T Pts GF GA
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Harvard 8 1 3 19 55 32 8 3 3 19 57 38
St. Lawrence 8 2 1 17 59 37 12 4 2 26 96 61
Clarkson 8 2 1 17 55 33 13 4 1 27 98 53
Yale 7 1 3 17 55 40 8 2 3 19 65 48
Cornell 6 2 2 14 35 22 6 4 2 14 39 30
Brown 5 4 2 12 45 43 5 7 2 12 59 65
Colgate 4 5 0 8 45 44 6 9 1 13 79 77
Princeton 4 8 0 8 46 55 6 9 0 12 61 69
RPI 3 8 0 6 33 47 8 10 0 16 65 76
Vermont 2 7 1 5 29 42 6 9 1 13 58 56
Dartmouth 1 7 0 2 17 50 1 11 0 2 27 76
Union 0 9 1 1 28 57 1 11 1 3 49 77
Notes on the Cornell games:
Cornell 1, Vermont 0
I'm sure you're all wondering how The Long-Winded One is going to come
up with his usual hundred-line summary for a game that had only one
goal in it -- well, I'll give it a shot. For starters, the referee was
our old friend Pierre Belanger. He's usually good for a few headlines,
but not this time. Probably no one will believe this, but Belanger had
the kind of game that makes me understand why he is considered by some
to be the ECAC's best ref. He kept things under control but did not
interfere with the flow of the game (in other words, he didn't become a
factor by calling a bunch of marginal stuff), and there was almost none
of his usual grandstanding. All in all, a fine night for Belanger.
His linesmen had a few problems, though, especially Gerard Toner, who
will hopefully learn to get out of the way of the puck sometime soon.
Predictably, the stars of the game were the goalies, particularly Ver-
mont's Christian Soucy, who played brilliantly (33 saves) and showed
why the Catamounts were so high on him and have given him the bulk of
the netminding duties. He was also playing very aggressively, coming
way out of the crease on several occasions. As for Cornell's Parris
Duffus, he looked a little tentative at times (he later admitted to
having a little trouble handling the puck), but he played quite well,
with 28 saves, in posting his first collegiate shutout.
There was plenty of back-and-forth play during the first two periods,
and each team had some opportunities, but for the most part, the
offenses were not playing very well. By the time the third period
rolled around, it was pretty obvious that someone was going to have to
make a mistake for any goals to be scored, and 2:13 into the third,
Soucy made his only bad move of the night. He came out of the net to
stop a shot by Cornell's Jim McPhee, but the rebound bounced over to
Stephane Gauvin, who slapped it into the net. The Catamounts had a
number of opportunities to tie the score after that, but they just
couldn't buy a break. At the 5:50 mark, with Vermont on the power
play, a shot bounced off the crossbar. A minute or two later, Duffus
gave up a long rebound to a Vermont player between the circles, who had
the goalie dead to rights but completely whiffed on the shot. Vermont
would mount a lot of pressure again later in the period, as they had a
scramble in front of the Cornell goal with Duffus down on the ice, but
they could not get control of the puck. The Catamounts' last golden
opportunity came with 3:45 left in the game, when Duffus came out near
the left boards to stop the puck during a Cornell power play, and he
misplayed it. Vermont almost had the empty-net shorthander, but again
they couldn't control the puck. Soucy was pulled with 51 seconds left,
but the Cats couldn't mount a threat. Gauvin's goal was his third in
three games, which is pretty good for a guy who had scored just eight
times in his previous 99 games.
Cornell 4, Dartmouth 1
The first period of this one was a monument to overconfidence, as the
Big Red scored early and spent the rest of the stanza back on their
heels, giving Dartmouth chance after chance until the Big Green finally
capitalized. After that, though, Cornell got serious and shut Dart-
mouth down.
Cornell received what should have been a wake-up call two minutes into
the game, when the Big Green's Mike Stacchi nearly got the game's first
goal. He fired a shot that bounced off the left post, then got control
of the puck in the slot during the ensuing scramble and stuffed it past
Duffus. However, the net had come off before the puck went across the
line, and referee Marty McDonough waved the goal off.
The Big Red's Joe Dragon opened the scoring with a power-play goal at
the 6:23 mark, as he skated in from the left circle, took a feed from
Ryan Hughes, and beat Dartmouth goalie Mike Bracco high to the right
corner. After that, Cornell laid back for a while and let Dartmouth
take control of the game. Goaltender Parris Duffus almost got burned
midway through the period, as he came out to the right circle to play
the puck and nearly had it stolen from him. Sloppy defensive play a
few minutes later enabled Dartmouth to set up a 2-on-0 break, but the
shot went off the side of the net. Scott Fraser had another golden
opportunity with just over three minutes left, as he came in unmolested
and fired a shot that rolled under Duffus and lay loose behind him.
Fraser tried to jump over the goaltender and poke the puck in, but
Duffus blocked him and swept the puck out of harm's way.
But finally, with 47 seconds left in the opening period, Dartmouth got
a 2-on-1 break, and this time they tied the score. While the Big Green
was gaining control of the puck in their own end, forwards Derek Geary
and Rob Kerr broke up the ice. Kerr took a long pass from Kevin Kiley,
brought the puck into the Cornell zone, then fired a pass through
defenseman Todd Chambers' legs to Geary, who flipped the puck into the
net over Duffus. Apparently, Dartmouth runs that play fairly often,
sending a couple forwards out of the defensive zone early.
After what head coach Brian McCutcheon called a "little conversation"
between periods, Cornell came out fired up and dominated the rest of
the game. At the 3:25 mark, Tyler McManus fired a shot that Bracco
caught, but as he was closing his glove, he dropped the puck, and it
landed behind him and rolled into the net. A few minutes later, Joe
Dragon came close to a short-handed goal, as his blast ricocheted off
the left post. With the Big Green beginning to get a little rattled,
coach Roger Demment used his time-out at 8:11 of the second, presum-
ably to calm the team down. They did play better after that, and
almost escaped without further damage, but Jason Vogel put Cornell up
3-1 with just 11 seconds left in the second. Ryan Hughes dug the puck
out along the left boards and passed back to Vogel, who skated to the
Dartmouth crease and wristed the puck over a prone Bracco.
Dragon closed out the scoring at 8:03 of the third, when he got control
of a loose puck in the Dartmouth slot, spun around, and shot low under
Bracco's arm. All sorts of fun things happened about five minutes
later, as a pair of wrestling matches started in front of the Cornell
net after Duffus had blocked a shot. Eventually, Cornell's Dave Burke
and Todd Chambers and Dartmouth's Scott Fraser and Tony DelCarmine were
all handed coincidental double minors. (The undercard of Fraser and
Chambers really wasn't much to get excited about) Anyway, Duffus
finished with 22 saves in another terrific performance, while Bracco
did pretty well himself, stopping 26 shots.
Several of the ECAC schools will be taking a break from league competition
(in fact, Harvard and Princeton each will not play another game until
January 31), so this week's schedule is an abbreviated one:
Jan. 13
St. Lawrence at New Hampshire (NC)
Jan. 14
Brown at Alaska-Fairbanks (NC)
Jan. 15
Colgate at Cornell
Jan. 17
Union at Dartmouth
Air Force at Vermont (NC)
Brown at Alaska-Anchorage (NC)
Jan. 18
Cornell at Colgate 3:00
Air Force at Vermont (NC)
Brown at Alaska-Anchorage (NC)
RIT at RPI (NC)
Jan. 19
Dartmouth at Yale 2:00
Probably the ones to watch this week are the two Cornell-Colgate tilts.
Colgate is still on the rebound after the death of Terry Slater, and they
are presumably still adjusting to interim head coach Brian Durocher's more
defense-oriented style. If Cornell pulls off a sweep here, they will move
to at least third in the standings, and depending on how Yale does against
Dartmouth, the Big Red could jump as high as second. That would in all
likelihood be a temporary honor (the schedule gets REAL tough in February),
but considering what this team looked like at the beginning of the season,
it would be quite an achievement. In the Walking Wounded report, Alex
Nikolic (sprained wrist) says he expects to be back in action for the
Colgate games, which is good news for Big Red fans.
--
Bill Fenwick | Send your HOCKEY-L poll responses to:
Cornell '86 and probably '94 | [log in to unmask]
LET'S GO RED!!
"They told me if I voted for Michael Dukakis, there would be a huge recession.
I voted for him anyway, and they turned out to be right."
-- Larry King
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