The ECAC's biggest winners this weekend were the RPI Engineers, who ventured
down to the Southern Tier and came away with a pair of wins -- their first
road victories of the season, which propelled them past St. Lawrence and
Brown into third place in the standings, a point behind Yale. Clarkson also
had a big weekend, stomping the arch-rival Saints and finally putting to-
gether the kind of game that all the prognosticators had expected when the
Knights were voted the ECAC pre-season favorite.
The ECAC is now exactly halfway through its league schedule, with 66 of 132
games played. Results from the weekend:
Friday, January 22:
CORNELL 5, Union 2
Rpi 5, COLGATE 2
YALE 8, Air Force 2
Saturday, January 23:
Clarkson 6, ST. LAWRENCE 0
COLGATE 2, Union 1
Rpi 3, CORNELL 2
Vermont 4, BROWN 2 (I've seen this score reported both ways -- this one
is correct)
YALE 5, Air Force 4
ECAC standings as of 1/25/93:
League Overall
Team W L T Pts GF GA W L T Pts GF GA
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harvard 12 0 1 25 64 33 13 1 1 27 72 39
Yale 7 1 2 16 48 30 10 5 2 22 77 58
RPI 7 3 1 15 42 30 10 5 4 24 73 56
Brown 5 5 2 12 50 47 6 8 2 14 67 75
St. Lawrence 5 5 1 11 37 37 10 7 2 22 77 68
Vermont 5 5 0 10 32 31 7 9 2 16 55 62
Clarkson 3 5 3 9 45 35 7 8 4 18 82 56
Cornell 4 6 1 9 32 39 5 9 1 11 46 59
Dartmouth 4 6 0 8 29 39 6 8 0 12 42 60
Princeton 3 6 1 7 33 46 5 8 1 11 48 57
Colgate 3 8 0 6 36 56 5 11 3 13 76 86
Union 2 10 0 4 23 48 2 13 0 4 32 61
Some notes from Lynah Rink:
Cornell 5, Union 2
This was a historic victory for the Big Red, since it was the first
time Cornell beat Union at Lynah Rink (we all know what happened there
last year, and the previous meetings between these two teams in Ithaca
happened well before Lynah's opening in 1957). But more importantly, a
young Cornell team finally put together a solid effort for three
periods, something that hadn't happened yet this season. The Big Red
had almost double the number of shots on goal as Union did -- the final
margin was 31-16, marking the first time Cornell broke the 30-shot
barrier since an overtime loss to Bowling Green. The "Mighty Mite"
line of Shaun Hannah, Brad Chartrand, and Mark Scollan were the stars
of the game, scoring three of the Big Red's five goals. (Scollan
joined Hannah's line this week, after Geoff Bumstead injured his shoul-
der in practice)
A sizeable contingent of Union fans made the trip for this game, and
they were treated to thoughts of another upset early on. The Skating
Dutchmen had a 2-on-0 break seconds after the opening faceoff, and they
had a 1-0 lead one minute into the first period. Reid Simonton's shot
from the right point got past a partially screened Andy Bandurski and
wound up just inside the left post. Cornell tied the game at the 4:06
mark, as on the power play, Blair Ettles slapped one from the point
that Hannah deflected through Union goalie Luigi Villa's pads.
The teams traded scoring opportunities after that, starting with a
Union breakaway eleven minutes into the period that Bandurski stopped
with a combination save/body block at the edge of the crease. Seconds
after that, P.C. Drouin and Jake Karam raced into the Union zone on a
2-on-1, but Villa kicked aside Karam's shot. Then at the other end,
Bandurski flopped to the ice to stop a shot by Ryan Alaspa, but the
rebound floated back to the Union forward, who had an open net to shoot
at. However, his second shot was wide left. The five-forward power-
play unit that Bill Sangrey mentioned made its debut with about two and
a half minutes to go in the first, but it appears this configuration
needs a little work -- a bobbled pass gave the Dutchmen's Steve
Battiston a short-handed breakaway, which he would have converted had
it not been for a tough pad save by Bandurski.
However, just after that power-play expired, the Big Red took the lead
for good. Scollan dug the puck out from behind the Union net, circled,
and found Chartrand all alone by the crease; Chartrand's backhander
beat Villa with 1:14 to go in the period. The back-and-forth action
continued in the second period, and with the Dutchmen on the power
play, Chartrand came close to a short-handed goal when he got to a Cor-
nell clearing pass and found himself behind the Union defensemen. As
Chartrand broke toward the net, one of the defenders, Alex MacLellan,
caught up to him and hauled him down. It was MacLellan's only possible
play, but it wiped out Union's man-up opportunity and gave the Big Red
a chance a short time later -- which Cornell proceeded to convert.
After a couple of chances while the two teams were playing four on
four, Cornell caught Union completely disorganized and out of position
in their own end, as the Big Red had three guys at the Union blue line
waiting for Tim Shean to bring the puck up the ice. Shean found Jason
Vogel between the circles, and Vogel's wrister beat Villa to the stick
side with 5:40 to go in the second.
Cornell went up 4-1 1:56 into the third period, when Scollan picked up
the puck at the blue line and headmanned it for Chartrand, whose shot
from deep to the left side of the Union net got past Villa. Bandurski,
who had started the play by sticking aside a Union shot, also was
credited with an assist. It was at about this point that the game
started getting chippy. The first real sign of Union's frustration
came a couple of minutes later, after Simonton was shoved by Cornell's
Dan Dufresne, who knocked Simonton's helmet off in the process. Simon-
ton glared at Dufresne for a couple seconds, muttered an obscenity, and
the two went at it. Referees Jim Cerbo and John Murphy quickly moved
in to restore order, and the two combatants were assessed roughing
minors. With the Big Red's Christian Felli also being whistled for
high-sticking (which is really what started the whole thing), and with
Cornell already a man down, Union had themselves a 5-on-3 power play,
and they didn't take long to convert it. Chris Albert rifled a pass
over to Scott Boyd in the right circle, whose one-timer caught Ban-
durski by surprise at the 3:54 mark.
The Big Red restored its three-goal lead at 6:08 on defenseman Etienne
Belzile's first goal of the season. From the left side of the net,
Scollan sent a pass out to Belzile at the blue line, who blasted a shot
that went through the legs of a Union defenseman (probably deflecting
along the way) and got by Villa. Cornell had a 3-on-1 break shortly
after that, but Villa came up with a couple of great saves to keep the
Big Red from increasing their lead. Another fight broke out at the
11:59 mark, this one between Cornell's Russ Hammond and Union's Corey
Holbrough, but this was merely a prelude to the evening's main event,
which featured Simonton and Ryan Hughes and started with 2:16 remaining
in the game. Several punches were thrown near the penalty box, and
when the two were finally separated and assessed double minors, they
seemed more interested in continuing their little discussion in the
box. Probably due in part to that (and also because the minors were
coincidental and there were less than four minutes remaining anyway),
both players were sent to their locker rooms. However, Simonton still
apparently hadn't had enough, and he tried to go after Hughes while the
refs were escorting the two off the ice. Union followed this up with a
couple of dumb and needless penalties in the last minute of play
(according to the box score in the _Ithaca Journal_, the last one was
on MacLellan for roughing), which made me wonder if there was something
more going on out there than just Union's frustration. A few of the
Union players seemed genuinely angry at the Big Red. (I need to make a
comment on the officiating here. While I would say overall that Cerbo
and Murphy's efforts in this game were only about average, it was not
their fault that things got so out of control in the third -- in fact,
it looked like they did a good job keeping things from getting worse
than they were.)
Cornell was a happy team after this one was over, which you'd expect
after a win -- I mention it only because the guys seemed very pleased
(high-fives all around), as they should have been. After playing four,
well, subpar teams in a row (Dartmouth, Colgate, Air Force, and Union),
the Big Red was able to put together a good game and win one it was
supposed to win. Even coach McCutcheon was smiling broadly after this
one, which has been a rare event this season. Bandurski had 14 saves
in addition to his assist, while Villa stopped 26 shots.
RPI 3, Cornell 2
The Big Red put together a pretty good effort against RPI, but a couple
of early defensive miscues set the Engineers up for a pair of short-
handed goals which proved to be the difference in the game. And, since
it was an RPI game, you know there has to be a comment on the officia-
ting, so here it is: Blecch! I admit I'm not a Marty McDonough fan,
but he and linemate Mike Noeth put together a textbook example of why
inconsistent officiating is far worse than just plain bad officiating.
Except for the short-handers, neither team was able to get much momen-
tum going, which is what often happens when no one is sure what is
going to be called and what isn't.
It didn't look good for the Engineers when Jeff Matthews was sent off
at 1:46 for hooking, but RPI put together an aggressive penalty kill
and wound up taking advantage of some sloppy passing on the Big Red's
part. A bad drop-pass in the left circle of the Cornell zone wound up
on the stick of RPI's Xavier Majic, and he lost little time in firing
the puck toward the Cornell net. Goaltender Andy Bandurski came out to
the slot and turned the shot aside, but Eric Perardi beat a Big Red
defender to the loose puck, skated around the goalie, and pushed the
puck into the empty net at the 2:38 mark.
RPI went up by two goals seven minutes later, as Jeff Matthews was left
alone in the slot, and he took a pass from Kelly Askew and beat Ban-
durski to the stick side. Another turnover in the Cornell zone led
directly to RPI's third goal, at 12:35 of the first. With the Engi-
neers a man down but aggressively checking in the Big Red's end, Cor-
nell had control of the puck and attempted to bring it across the blue
line -- but all of a sudden, they lost it, and Askew and Ron Pasco
found themselves on a 2-on-0 break. It was almost a mirror image of
the first goal: Bandurski came out to block Pasco's shot, but no one
was there to prevent Askew from getting to the rebound, and he whacked
the puck into the open net. RPI nearly came up with another short-
hander on the same penalty, when Blair Ettles (who had a rough time of
it early on, though he played much better in the third period) lost the
puck between the circles, but the Engineers shot it wide.
Part of the problem for Cornell was that the Engineers were feasting on
the Big Red's five-forward power-play unit, which was on the ice for
both short-handers. (Coach McCutcheon later said of the five-forward
unit, "I was a little apprehensive [because of RPI's aggressive
penalty-kill]... We did it, and we paid for it.") Given Cornell's
power-play troubles, RPI might have been better advised to take penal-
ties all night, because their own power play unit did not look good at
all -- a bit surprising, since the Engineers usually have one of the
better man-up units in the ECAC. In this game, however, the Big Red
penalty-killers were for the most part able to keep RPI from getting
much of anything set up (both teams wound up 0 for 5). Cornell finally
got on the board at 14:04 of the first period, when Geoff Lopatka
stuffed a loose puck past Engineer goalie Neil Little for the first
goal of his career.
Presumably, McCutchon had one of his "little talks" with the team
during the first intermission, because the Big Red played considerably
better during the second period, at least in their own end. It was
about here, though, that the officiating began to get a little strange.
Etienne Belzile drew an interference call at the 9:11 mark when he
shoved an RPI player into the Cornell net -- which was all well and
good, except that exactly the same thing had happened to Shaun Hannah
at the other end, and it was let go. This call gave RPI a 5-on-3
lasting 1:24, but the Engineers proceeded to do nothing with it. In
fact, RPI looked sluggish for the whole period, and with six minutes to
go, they almost paid for it. With the Engineers pinching in, a long
pass out of the Cornell zone found Hannah at center ice, and he
streaked in on a breakaway, but Little robbed him with a terrific pad
save.
With three and a half minutes left in the period, RPI's Bryan Richard-
son ran into Bandurski and was called for slashing, but Bandurski was
also whistled for roughing, which again, considering the kinds of
things that were being let go, was a bit of a questionable call (my
view of all this was not the best, but I didn't see Bando do much of
anything besides fall backward). Shortly thereafter, Noeth took in a
dustup between RPI's Jeff O'Connor and a Cornell player, during which
at least three punches were thrown, and made no call, nor much of an
attempt to separate the combatants. I guess he was auditioning for the
NHL.
As you can guess, the Lynah crowd was anything but pleased with the
officials at this point, and they, er, voiced their displeasure when
the men in the striped shirts came out for the third period. There was
even a prop, as the Cornell bear mascot got a pole with a ref hung in
effigy on it from the student section and chased McDonough with it.
Thankfully, McDonough apparently has a sense of humor (I guess you'd
have to to work that job) and he played along and laughed the whole
thing off, but in my opinion, that little episode was going way too
far. And besides, it didn't have any effect on the refereeing.
McDonough proceeded to call Cornell's Andre Doll for tripping, falling
for a nice dive on the part of the RPI "victim" (in fairness, however,
McDonough made his call from behind Doll and didn't have as clear a
view of the action as he might have). This gave the Engineers a power
play, and they spent almost all of it in the Cornell zone, but they
couldn't muster anything more than a couple of weak shots.
Cornell finally started to generate some pressure in the RPI end with
about fifteen minutes left, throwing the puck in front of the net,
which is something they have not done much of this season. It was the
Engineers' turn to get robbed by the officials, as Pasco was called for
boarding eight minutes in. First of all, the call should have been on
Brad Layzell, and secondly, Cornell's Bill Holowatiuk drew the whistle
by diving into the boards (I hope he doesn't make a habit of that).
Later in the period, Hannah high-sticked an RPI forward in the head --
it was accidental, and no damage was done, but it was worthy of a pen-
alty. But I guess all things even out -- the last call of the game, at
12:15 of the third, was on Holowatiuk for hooking, on an even worse
dive than the one that got Doll in trouble. McCutcheon really ripped
into Noeth at that point, hollering, "We've lost two calls down there -
- you owe us two!" Needless to say, he didn't get them, even when
Pasco later skated full speed into Bandurski and leveled him in the
crease.
As you may have guessed, there wasn't much to talk about for most of
the third period other than penalties and lack thereof, but things got
exciting after an RPI goal was waved off with four minutes left (the
net was off its moorings well before the puck crossed the line, and
there was a man in the crease anyway). Cornell was able to press the
attack, pulling Bandurski with 1:14 left and setting the stage for the
game's final frantic minute. Almost immediately, the puck was back in
the Cornell end, and RPI's Wayne Clarke came close to getting the Goat
of the Game award when he shot wide left of the open net. A goal would
have iced the win for the Engineers, but instead, Cornell picked up the
loose puck, came right back down, and scored with 28 seconds left on
Ryan Hughes' wrister from the right circle.
With Bandurski still on the bench and the Lynah Faithful screaming
their lungs out and hoping against hope for a miracle, RPI iced the
puck with ten seconds left. Cornell won the final faceoff and got the
puck over to Hannah, but he was pressured by the RPI defense and his
shot went into a crowd of Engineers, who flipped the puck down the ice
as time expired. And that was it... RPI 3, Cornell 2. Little showed
why he is one of the ECAC's top-ranked goaltenders, with his 23-save
performance; Bandurski had 31 saves.
Postscript: I talked briefly with Russ Hammond and Jason Vogel at the
Afterglow following Saturday night's game, and despite the loss, both seemed
to feel that the Big Red had turned the corner this weekend. Perhaps there
is something to that -- it looked like the team's morale was better, Cornell
had a good game against Union, and the effort, except for a few mistakes,
was there against RPI (they didn't slump in the third period, which the Big
Red had been prone to do recently). We'll see what happens on this upcoming
road trip. Cornell journeys to Colgate, Yale, and Princeton, and the Big
Red should win two of those games.
Next weekend's games:
Friday, January 29:
Princeton at Dartmouth
RPI at Union
Yale at Vermont
Saturday, January 30:
Cornell at Colgate
Princeton at Vermont
St. Lawrence at Clarkson
Yale at Dartmouth
--
Bill Fenwick | Send your HOCKEY-L poll responses to:
Cornell '86 and probably '94 | [log in to unmask]
LET'S GO RED!!
"They gave him a year's supply of Turtle Wax -- what the hell is that? Folks,
I bought a bottle of Turtle Wax ten years ago. I've still got it. And I'm
pretty sure it'll last me the rest of my life."
-- Frank Santorelli, on the consolation prizes on "Jeopardy"
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