At 05:41 PM 1/22/2008 -0800, Eugene Tavares wrote:
>I'll agree with the staleness and cuteness, but I have
>seen the sieve chant
>affect a goalie about 8 years ago.  Princeton (I
>think) was playing Cornell
>(GO BIG RED!) in 98 or 99...long after the chant
>started.  The opposing
>goalie was up by 2 goals, but was having a bad game
>and the crowd did get a
>chance to do the sieve, and the "goalie (point at your
>goalie), "post",
>"sieve" chant as Cornell had hit the pipe a few times.
> They had a hard shot
>on the Cornell goal that hit the crossbar.  The goalie
>skated all the way to
>the blue line boards to taunt the Cornell
>crowd...unfortunately it wasn't a
>goal...it ricocheted off the crossbar to center ice
>and the Cornell center
>walked it into the goal.  Needless to say, the head
>coach wasn't too fond of
>his goalie.  He let it get to him.  I still remember
>Cornell lost the game,
>though.  Still, I had always assumed the players tuned
>out the chants.  I
>was wrong.

Heh-heh -- Gene, I think we're recalling the same game, and I remember this
one as if it happened yesterday (though I confess I had forgotten the name
of the opposing goalie -- it was Nick Boucher).  The opponent was
Dartmouth, and the game was in January 2000.  That was the year Vermont
cancelled most of their season after a hazing incident, and the ECAC messed
around with the scheduling so that travel partner Dartmouth wouldn't have
to face rested teams on consecutive nights the rest of the way.  The upshot
of all that was the game was played on a Monday night (?!)

Anyway, as a fan, I suspect you'd hope and pray your team is facing as big
an idiot between the pipes as this guy turned out to be, at least on that
night.  From my HOCKEY-L write-up of the game, here's an account of what to
this day ranks as The Dumbest Thing I've ever seen a goaltender do.

Pick up the action late in the third, with Dartmouth up 3-1:

-----
After the ensuing faceoff at center ice,
Underhill departed for the extra
attacker, but a Dartmouth player got control
of the puck near the Cornell
blue line and fired at the empty net with about
2:30 left.  Fortunately for
the Big Red, the shot hit the post and bounced
harmlessly
away.

Unfortunately for the Big Green, the one person who thought the puck
went in
the net was the one who had the worst view of the shot -- Boucher.
The
Dartmouth goalie proceeded to skate to the corner of the rink and did a
little
celebratory taunting of the fans in section A, who had been on his
case most of
the night. Of course, the problem with doing that while the
puck is still in
play is that somebody like, oh, say, Cornell's David Adler
could skate the puck
to center ice and, oh, maybe, let fly with a shot
toward the unoccupied
Dartmouth net.  Which is exactly what happened with
2:20 remaining in the
third.  It took Boucher a moment or two to discover
why the fans suddenly
started celebrating.  And boy, did the Lynah Faithful
have fun with the
traditional "it's all your fault" chant after that
one.
-----

Dartmouth did win the game, and of course Boucher let fly with some more
taunting afterwards as his team left the ice.  The cocky so-and-so would
get his come-uppance, however, as the Big Red did manage to beat him pretty
badly -- although it took three years to do so.

Bill Fenwick
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