On Sat, 9 Dec 1995 Brian Morris <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
 
> Last night at an office Xmas party I got into a discussion about some of
the old
> RPI Xmas Tournaments.  My friend, who watched RPI hockey from the time he
was
> six, living just three houses from the Fieldhouse, commenting about a
rather
> nasty Xmas Tournament dating back to around 1963 or thereabouts.  The
tourney
 
He's probably thinking of the 1961-62 Tournament
 
> included NOrth Dakota and Red Berenson-led Michigan.  According to my
friend,
 
No, not North Dakota -- it was RPI, Yale, McGill, and Michigan -- check the
excellent RPI hockey pages:
http://www.rpi.edu/dept/athletics/m_hockey/records/rpi_inv/results.html
for the Xmas tournament results. North Dakota was in the 59-60 Tournament,
but that was a year before I started at RPI.
 
> the game between RPI and North Dakota was filled with fisticuffs.  In fact
at
 
No, it was the RPI-Michigan game
 
> the end of the game, a real donnybrook broke out between the Engineers and
ND.
> The officials directed that the announcer play the Star Spangled Banner to
get
> the players to stop fighting.  I had to smile at the thought of all those
hockey
> players standing at attention at the end of the game as the sounds of the
Star
> Spangled Banner filled the Fieldhouse.
>
 
I definitely remember being at an RPI game in which that happened, and it
might well have been the RPI-Michigan 61-62 Xmas Tournament game, although I
couldn't swear to it (damn, this old age stuff is hard on the memory!).
Whichever game it was, I recall that it occurred with less than two minutes
left in the period -- either the second or third -- and the refs had the RPI
band strike up the national anthem. Either they ended the game right then (if
it happened in the third period) or else they truncated the second period and
added the remaining time to the start of the third period. (My memory is
trying to tell me that it happened in the second period, but it's too fuzzy
for me to be sure.)
 
In any event, the 61-62 RPI-Michigan game was a brutal one. RPI and Michigan
had both beaten Yale and McGill, so were playing the final game of the
tournament for the tournament championship. Michigan and Red Berenson totally
dominated the game, winning 8-3. Michigan played a very hard-checking game,
and a few of their players (not Berenson) were out to do a real hatchet job
on RPI. At some point in the game RPI's Bobby Brinkworth (then a sophomore,
on his way to becoming a three-time All American) was fighting for the puck
along the boards, right in front of RPI's bench. A Michigan player, directly
across the ice from Brinkworth, accelerates to full speed and *CREAMS*
Brinkworth into the boards with as hard, brutal, and deliberate a charge as
I've ever seen.
 
Now, the RPI team was particularly protective of Brinkworth. He was a real
finesse player who, in his entire college career, had almost no penalties
(somehow I think it was either 2 min or 8 min over the three year period).
Well, when this Michigan player tries to destroy Brinkworth right in front of
RPI's bench, about a kazillion arms reach out, grab the offending player, and
drag him off the ice, over the boards, and onto the RPI bench, where the
entire RPI team starts beating the bejesus out of him. When the other
Michigan players see their teammate disappear from the ice, they get up en
masse and skate across to the RPI bench to join in the fray. One RPI player,
who had earlier been ejected, even came running out from the RPI locker room
in his underwear to join in the melee. It was as big a brawl as I've seen in
any hockey game.
 
> Anyone out there (Tony?) who can fill in the details?  I'd also love to
hear any
> accounts of Red Berenson's play in the tournament.
 
Berenson was fantastic. He totally dominated the game and the tournament.
When he broke down ice with the puck, RPI's Brian Robbins was the only
defenseman who even had a prayer of keeping up with him, and even he could
only do it about half the time. I also recall that Berenson played hard, but
clean, and was one of the few players who was trying to break up the brouhaha
that erupted after the charge on Brinkworth.
 
Bob Stagat
RPI '64 & '68
 
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