Why is everybody missing the point?
 
We all admit Princeton's strategy was good.  Any penanlty, if you don't
get caught, is a good one.  The argument that Brown played the same way
just because they had a lot of penalties is ridiculous.  Brown's
penalties are almost always roughing, hitting from behind, hitting after
the whistle, charging, etc. *not* "clutch and grab" penalties like
interference and holding (except when they retalitory aginst Princeton's
holding).  Brown's penalties indicate rough, tough, hard-hitting hockey
*not* clutch and grab hockey.  Look up Brown's penalties all year, and
I'm sure it'll support me.  And in the game on Saturday, Princeton
played clutch and grab hockey.  And they got away with it, so God bless
them, it was a good strategy.  If they got called for it, you'd all be
ripping them for playing dumb hockey, put they didn't and so they won.
We all accept this.  We are not whining.  Martin Small knows what he's
talking about.  We've all seen Brown play all year, and they won by
playing tight, sometimes dirty, defense and capitalizing on their
scoring opportunities.  But their style of defense, as I'll say again
and again, was checking, hitting defense, not grabbing defense, as you'd
know if you'd watched them play all year.
 
And the idea that Princeton is as skilled a team as Brown is
prepostorous.  C'mon, guys, Brown played 4 lines of good, solid players
all year and still had to not dress some each game.  Let me see the four
top lines of princeton.  Sure, they have some really good players,
players equal to or better than Brown's top players like Trach and
Mulhern and Jardine, but they don't have the depth and overall skill
level of Brown.  But they won with a good game plan, hard skating,
taking advantage of their opportunities, and (as well as I could see)
the desire of a team that'd never been to Lake Placid (a desire Brown's
players had a few years ago, but they've been twice now and that first
time intensity is gone).  Not to say Brown didn't play their hearts out,
they did, but in a 82-minute game, they team that wins either gets a
lucky bounce, which didn't happen, or just plains wants it more.
 
That's it.  I'm out.  I hope I convinced *somebody* of what our argument
is and that we are not whining because we didn't win.  If you want to
respond, email me, but this is getting too ridiculous for hockey-l.
let's talk about games yet to be played.
 
David Blackburn
Brown University '98