1/17/91 Hockey East Overall Non-league
GP W-L-T Pts GF-GA || GP W-L-T GF-GA W-L-T
========================================================
1 Boston University 11 8-1-2 18 58-27 || 22 15-5-2 128-72 | 7-4-0
2 Boston College 11 8-3-0 16 56-45 || 22 16-6-0 105-72 | 8-3-0
3 Maine 10 6-3-1 13 48-38 || 26 19-5-2 141-81 | 13-2-1
4 Providence 10 5-4-1 11 51-43 || 20 15-4-1 117-71 | 10-0-0
5 Merrimack 10 5-5-0 10 39-50 || 21 11-9-1 101-102 | 6-4-1
6 New Hampshire 11 4-6-1 9 39-44 || 23 15-7-1 105-83 | 11-1-0
7 Lowell 11 2-8-1 5 37-59 || 21 5-15-1 76-112 | 3-7-0
8 Northeastern 12 1-9-2 4 48-70 || 22 4-16-2 91-125 | 3-7-0
at MERRIMACK 5, NORTHEASTERN 4
The Warriors roared back with four unanswered goals to turn a 4-1 deficit
into a 5-4 victory, their 9th win in the last 12 games vs. the Huskies.
Announcement of the US air strike against Iraq came as the teams were
leaving the ice after warmup, and the game became rather anticlimactic in
a hurry - except from the players' point of view, as they weren't told
until after the game. WCCM color man John Moran was forced to rush to
Boston to cover the story, leaving only Dan Roche who wasn't sure whether
his station would be picking up continuous coverage of the story or
breaking into the game with reports. (This indecision forced me to get
ready to take John's place as color man - at the same time as I was doing
game stats.) As it turned out, the game never hit the airwaves, although
Northeastern's student station, WRBB, did cover the game from 7 pm until
President Bush spoke to the nation at 9 pm.
Dan packed up the radio equipment once it became clear we wouldn't be
going on, about halfway through the first period, and we spent the
remainder of the game listening to Dan's radio and watching the action.
It was amazing how many people around us virtually ignored the game and
were listening along with us. It was even more amazing how many people
came up to the press box in between periods and expressed surprise that
the game had been pre-empted for war coverage. As I said, "Hmmm...war...
hockey...which is more important!?"
But the game was played (I didn't feel it should have been stopped;
more later on my opinion on that), and here's what happened.
Northeastern stormed out to a 3-0 lead in the first period. Brian
Sullivan grabbed up a deflection of a Will Averill shot with his hand,
dropped it to the ice and calmly flipped it past The Goose for a 1-0 lead
at 3:13. At 11:03, Sebastian LaPlante slid the puck from the left boards
over to Mike Roberts at the middle of the blue line, and his shot was
deflected by Joel Bishop past The Goose. The goal was officially given
to Roberts, but the tape shows Bishop's deflection. Sean Curtin made it
3-0 at 15:54 from Roberts and Chris Gilardi before Merrimack's Claude
Maillet blasted a shot from the point that got by Tom Cole with just 31
seconds left in the period. Assists were credited to Teal Fowler and
Howie Rosenblatt. There was a question as to whether Fowler tipped
Maillet's shot, but in the end we left it as it was - the tape was
inconclusive. MC held the edge in shots, 12-8, but NU led, 3-1.
In the second, NU's Tom O'Connor took a pass from Bishop and made it 4-1
at 8:57, but that was to be the last Huskie goal of the night. Four
minutes later, Agostino Casale's shot from the left circle was stopped
by Cole, but the rebound went into the air where Fowler whacked it into
the net. After NU All-America D Rob Cowie was called for hooking at
17:07, goalie Cole tripped Fowler at 18:33, putting NU down two men. It
was to prove costly for the Huskies as Merrimack scored on both penalties.
With 58 seconds left in the period and five seconds left on the two-man
advantage, Dan Gravelle, camped at Cole's left doorstep, backhanded a
cross-ice pass from Bryan Miller past a flopped Cole; the other assist
went to Alex Weinrich. The period ended with NU still up, 4-3; Merrimack
outshot the Huskies 12-6.
Steve Kapetenakis commented that one of the key factors in the game was
that Merrimack scored in the last minute of play in both the first and
second periods, and I have to agree.
The third period began with the Warriors still up a man, and they quickly
made it pay off. At the 21-second mark, Howie Rosenblatt tied the game
when he took a beautiful feed from Casale and beat Cole on a breakaway,
wristing the puck under his glove. Tim Doyle picked up the other
assist. For the next ten minutes, although the game was tied, it really
seemed as if Merrimack was far ahead; you'd never guess the Huskies still
had a chance to win by the way they played. Then, the seemingly
inevitable happened when Rosenblatt picked up a rebound from Gravelle
and beat Cole for the game-winner and last goal of the game, Rosenblatt's
16th goal of the year (16-11--27). The senior has already equalled his
point output for his first three years in a Merrimack uniform. Apparently
being selected in the supplemental draft by Boston in 1990 has fired him
up to make his last year count. The Huskies mounted a strong attack for
the remainder of the game but weren't able to beat the Goose, even though
they outshot Merrimack 12-10 for the period (shots were MC 34-26 for the
game).
With four seconds left, after Fowler high sticked NU's Sullivan, the 6'4"
220-pounder punched Merrimack's 5'9", 178 pound center, and both went to
the box for minors - a gift for Sullivan who could very well have gotten
a DQ. But Fowler earned the first star, despite Rosenblatt's scoring the
tying and winning goals, by his nonstop hustling play throughout the
entire game. A perfect example came in the third period when the tiny
Fowler singlehandedly fought off two huge NU players to tie the puck up
along the boards deep in the NU end, allowing enough time for Merrimack
to change the other four players on the ice, after which Fowler kicked
the puck free and skated to the bench. I remember watching this guy
last year early in the season and saying that he was going to drive the
crowd wild by the time he was a senior. Well, he's doing that now and
he's only a sophomore. I can't begin to imagine what he'll be doing
in two years. This guy is the quintessential hard working hockey player.
The Goose stopped 22 shots and ran his record to 6-1. Tom Cole had 29
saves and is now 4-10-1. Merrimack is 10-3-1 when scoring four or more
goals, 10-1-1 when scoring five or more. What a difference a year makes;
last year the Warriors averaged three goals a game. With a little luck,
they could be 16-5; not that they should be, but the difference is that
they deserved to lose most of the 24 games they lost last year. If Ron
Anderson isn't one-half of the leaders for Hockey East Coach of the Year
(along with UNH's Dick Umile), I don't know who is.
Q: PLAY THE GAMES?
Some people questioned the playing of last night's game, believing that
it was somehow inappropriate to play given the fact that we had just
gone to war. But I had to disagree, for several reasons. First, while
obviously the game did not have quite the same aura that a Merrimack-
Northeastern game has come to have, it still gave most fans something
else to think about and it was an enjoyable game to watch (this may
have been different had the players been made aware of what was going
on). Also, President Bush has been trying to maintain an atmosphere
of "business as usual" throughout this whole thing, and I doubt the
White House would support wholesale cancelling of events all over
the country, at least not in the early stages. I can see the concern
that terrorism could occur at certain sports venues, like the Super
Bowl, but somehow I don't think the Volpe Complex is high on the list
of terrorists' targets. I don't mean to turn this into hockey.war-l,
but since the two became intertwined last night, I just thought people
would like to know what was going on and some of the issues that came
up.
All eight Hockey East teams will be involved in key league action
tomorrow night, with BU playing at BC in a sure sellout, Maine going
to UNH, PC at NU, and Merrimack at Lowell. BU-BC will be shown live
on NESN and will be replayed later Friday night and again Saturday
morning.
- mike
p.s. if anyone has the score of the Colgate-Mercyhurst game last night,
could you please forward it to me? Thanks.
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