Brian Morris wrote:
 
>
> The RPI Engineers, doing their best Lake State imitation, thoroughly dominate
> Princeton and win the ECAC Championship by a score of 5-1.  RPI took a 1-0
> lead into the second period, 2-0 lead into the third and break it open early in
> the final stanza with three early scores.
>
> In all fairness, this is the most unexpected victory in RPI history.  The last
> two weekends have seen the Engineers play a style of hockey that was not
> attempted the whole season.  Coupled with the stellar play of Mike Tamburro,
> who seems to be proving he deserved more than honorable mention in the ECAC
> awards, this team just may not be finished yet.
>
 
While I too am overjoyed by RPI's run in the ECAC tourney, I doubt
that it is "the most unexpected victory in RPI history".  Assuming
that we are talking about a string of victories, I would vote for the
'54 National Championship where they beat Michigan and Minnesota.
Considering that RPI had lost their 3 earlier games against western
teams (2 vs Denver and 1 vs CC), I would vote for this.  This year
as has repeatdely been stated, the ECAC has been well-balanced and
anyone was capable of a run -- it was good to see that it was RPI.
 
By the way, is there anyone on Hockey-L who is willing to admit that
they are old enough to have watched the '54 tournment?
 
If we are talking about single games then I would not call the victory
over Princeton unexpected.  I think that Princeton was handicapped by
losses of key players -- more so than Askew's absense hurt RPI.  I
think also that Princeton couldn't help being overconfident due to
their rout of RPI 9-1 back in December, the same as Clarkson probably
suffered partially due to overconfidence against the Tigers due to
their previous 11-1 victory.
 
Off the top of my head, I would list the following as candidates for
most improbable RPI victory.  I suspect that there are others that
either slip my mind or are before my time.
 
12/4/68  RPI 4 Cornell 3 (OT) against Dryden and company
1/14/69  RPI 7 BU 0 with center Barry Sherwood in goal
12/1/70  RPI 6 Cornell 3 breaking Cornell's victory streak from the
previous year
3/5/74   RPI 7 UNH 6 (#8 defeating #1 in ECAC playoffs)
3/7/92   RPI 4 Harvard 3 (#10 defeating #1 in ECAC playoffs)
 
The ordering above is chronological, and it is biased in favor of
games that I saw.
 
Now if I had to list "the most unexpected DEFEAT in RPI history," I
would start with an even longer list.
 
Ralph Baer
RPI '68, '70, '74