Harvard clinched the ECAC regular-season title, as well as the top spot in
the upcoming playoffs, with a win over Vermont Saturday night, but the
Crimson's surprising loss to Dartmouth the night before ought to make the
Harvard faithful shake their heads a bit. After all, this was a Dartmouth
squad that, as Bob mentioned, hadn't beat the Crimson in about twelve years.
Harvard hasn't really been playing lately with the same kind of fire they
showed in beating Boston University for the Beanpot title, and if they don't
get their act together, the Crimson are going to have real problems in the
playoffs. I don't expect a repeat of last year's quarterfinal upset (though
Harvard could meet Dartmouth again in the quarterfinal round), but it's not
inconceivable that the Crimson, playing the way they are playing right now,
could fall in the semis. In addition, this loss throws a real monkey wrench
into whatever chances the Crimson had for gaining the #2 seed in the NC$$
tournament, politics or no.
On the flip side, what more can you say about the terrific job Dartmouth
coach Roger Demment has done with his charges, taking a 3-21-2 disaster from
last year and molding them into a Big Green team that has clinched its first
playoff spot since 1980. This man deserves some ECAC Coach of the Year
votes.
And before I get yelled at for ignoring Brown again, let me mention that the
Bears are in a pretty good position to gain home ice for the first time, I
believe, since the late '70s. A tough home stand looms in their final week-
end, against St. Lawrence and Clarkson -- but then, the Bears have already
made the chalk-up-two-losses trip to the North Country, coming away with
ties against both teams. A home sweep could conceivably give the Bears
second place and would guarantee third. Head coach Bob Gaudet should also
be considered a Coach of the Year candidate. He's done a great job with
this Brown team over the past few years, guiding them from the infamous 1-25
season in 1988-89 to their current position in the ECAC elite.
(At the risk of starting another argument, here are two other Coach of the
Year candidates: Harvard's Ronn Tomassoni and, my personal choice, Buddy
Powers of RPI)
Results from Friday and Saturday night:
Friday, February 26:
Brown 3, VERMONT 1
CLARKSON 7, Yale 4
Colgate 5, UNION 2
DARTMOUTH 4, Harvard 3
RPI 8, Cornell 2
ST. LAWRENCE 6, Princeton 4
Saturday, February 27:
Brown 6, DARTMOUTH 2
CLARKSON 5, Princeton 2
Harvard 3, VERMONT 1
RPI 7, Colgate 1
UNION 5, Cornell 3
Yale 8, ST. LAWRENCE 8 (OT)
ECAC standings as of 3/1/93:
League Overall
Team W L T Pts GF GA W L T Pts GF GA
------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Harvard 16 2 2 34 90 54 19 3 2 40 109 67
# RPI 14 5 1 29 89 54 17 7 4 38 120 80
@ Brown 12 6 2 26 91 68 13 9 2 28 108 96
$ Clarkson 11 6 3 25 91 54 15 9 4 34 128 75
$ Yale 11 6 3 25 90 80 14 10 3 31 119 108
$ St. Lawrence 11 7 2 24 84 71 16 9 3 35 124 102
$ Vermont 10 9 1 21 67 58 12 13 3 27 90 89
$ Dartmouth 8 12 0 16 71 86 10 14 0 20 84 107
$ Colgate 7 13 0 14 69 93 9 16 3 21 109 123
Princeton 4 13 3 11 62 93 6 15 3 15 77 104
Cornell 4 15 1 9 53 87 5 18 1 11 67 107
Union 3 17 0 6 40 99 3 20 0 6 49 112
$ - Clinched playoff berth
@ - Clinched preliminary round bye
# - Clinched home ice for quarterfinals
* - Clinched regular-season title
Despite Harvard's clinching the top spot, there are plenty of convolutions
remaining in the ECAC playoff picture -- which I'm in the process of sum-
marizing in a separate posting, due out later today. Wait'll you see THIS
mess...
I think someone asked about the ECAC playoff system, which has undergone
another change for this season. The whole thing will start on Tuesday,
March 9, with the preliminary round, in which the #7 seed will host the #10
seed while #8 hosts #9. The two winners will gain the seventh and eighth
seeds for the quarterfinal round, which begins Friday, March 12 at the
arenas of the top four seeds.
This year's quarterfinal will be a best-of-three affair... sort of.
Actually, this year's playoff structure is a variation of the old two-game-
plus-minigame quarterfinal the ECAC used up until 1992. There is no
overtime for the Friday and Saturday night games, so a tie at the end of
regulation stays that way. (Thus, a team can advance by winning one game
and tying the other) If the two teams split the games or tie twice, a third
game will be played Sunday night, and this one will be "played to
completion", meaning that sudden-death over-time periods will be played to
determine the winner in the event of a tie. This replaces the old ten-
minute minigame, which no one was particularly fond of.
The four winners advance to the ECAC's Phinal Phour, being held in Lake
Placid this year, with the semifinal games scheduled for Friday, March 19
and the consolation and championship games on Saturday, March 20.
Here is the schedule for the final weekend of the ECAC regular season:
Friday, March 5:
Clarkson at Harvard
Dartmouth at Cornell
RPI at Yale
St. Lawrence at Brown
Union at Princeton
Vermont at Colgate
Saturday, March 6:
Clarkson at Brown
Dartmouth at Colgate
RPI at Princeton
St. Lawrence at Harvard
Union at Yale
Vermont at Cornell
Good luck to your team in the playoff hunt, unless your team is Union (which
is out of the playoff race, no thanks to Cornell, argh!) or Princeton :-)
--
Bill Fenwick | Send your HOCKEY-L poll responses to:
Cornell '86 and probably '94 | [log in to unmask]
LET'S GO RED!!
"Come on, you don't think the Beatles did drugs? They were so high, they let
*Ringo* sing a few songs."
-- Jimmy Tingle
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