The Lake Superior State Lakers won the 1990 Syracuse Invitational
Tournament, defeating the Lowell Chiefs in the finals. Scores of SIT
games:
Friday, 12/28:
Lowell 4, Colgate 3 (4 OT)
Lake Superior 3, Cornell 2
Saturday, 12/29:
Consolation:
Colgate 4, Cornell 3
Championship:
Lake Superior 8, Lowell 3
Friday's action featured one terrific, well-played game and one pretty
rotten and sloppy contest. As you can see above, one went four overtimes
and the other was settled in regulation. Guess which of the two was
emotional, thrill-packed, and exciting? Guess again.
Lowell 4, Colgate 3 (4 OT)
Let's just say that this was not a hockey clinic, except maybe for the
performance of the two goalies. Lowell was for the most part unable to
get the puck out of their own zone in the first period, but thanks to a
great performance by goalie Mark Richards and Colgate's inability to
convert on some wide-open scoring opportunities, the Red Raiders were
only able to tally once in the first 20 minutes. Craig Woodcroft
tipped in a blast by Marc Dupere at 7:17 while Colgate was on the power
play.
The second period looked to be a replay of the first, as Lowell again
could not get anything going on offense. The Chiefs also were still
having trouble clearing loose pucks away from Richards, and this would
cost them another power-play goal at the 6:16 mark. Having already
faced a barrage of Colgate shots, Richards went down to make a save on
a backhander by Woodcroft, but the rebound floated over to Dale Band,
who sent the puck right by the fallen goalie and into the net. The
Lowell forwards were able to pick up the pace after this, however, and
Normand Bazin put the Chiefs on the board less than two minutes later
when he tallied off a scramble in front of the Colgate goal. A couple
minutes after this, the Red Raiders had a golden opportunity to regain
their two-goal lead, as they came up the ice on a 3-on-1, but they
botched it so badly that they were unable to even get a shot off. The
Chiefs tied the score at 12:05 of the second on what would turn out to
be their only decent power play of the night, as Dave Pensa fired a
shot over goalie Greg Menges' leg.
In the third period, it was Colgate's turn to have trouble clearing
rebounds, and Lowell went up 3-2 at 2:31 when Dan O'Connell picked up a
loose puck and scored on a wrap-around. The game got pretty rough,
probably due to the players' realization that referee Dan Murphy was
not going to call much of anything. The Chiefs' Tim Smallwood also had
a particularly bad third period, twice losing the puck at the Colgate
blue line during Lowell power plays and later coming close to scoring
the game-tying goal for Colgate, when he flipped a Red Raider shot into
the air in front of his own net. (Richards was able to react quickly
enough to deflect the puck) At any rate, the Red Raiders pulled Menges
with 40 seconds left in regulation. The Chiefs were able to clear the
puck out of their own zone, but they made a critical error in not
following the puck down the ice, instead collapsing into a defensive
shell. Thus, Dale Band was able to pick up the puck at center ice and
pass it to Jamie Cooke, who tied the score on a 27-foot blast with 23
seconds left.
Once the overtimes began, it appeared that no one was particularly
interested in trying to win the game. Lowell was playing very
defensively and was allowing the Colgate players to pass and shoot
pretty much as they pleased, but the Red Raiders were not able to take
advantage of this generosity. The Lowell power-play unit continued its
dreadful performance, enabling Colgate to kill off two consecutive
penalties in OT relatively easily. Even the Zamboni got into the act,
as the ice was not resurfaced between the second and third overtimes.
Oh, they brought the machine out, and it went around the rink as usual,
but it had about as much effect on the ice as a broom would have had.
(Actually, there were problems with the Zamboni throughout this
tournament -- the guy would get an ovation when he left a halfway
decent surface, which happened pretty rarely)
Finally, and mercifully, the game ended with 19 seconds remaining in
the fourth overtime period. As you might expect, the winning goal was
set up by a crucial mistake on Colgate's part. Lowell's Scott Meehan
got control of the puck in the left corner, and since no Colgate player
went after him, he had plenty of time to send a long cross-ice pass
through the crease (and past a few Red Raiders) to Dave Stevens at the
right side of the Colgate goal. Stevens tipped the puck in, and that
was it. Richards ended up with 46 saves for Lowell, while Menges had
45 for the Red Raiders.
Lake Superior 3, Cornell 2
This was by far the best game of the tournament and probably one of the
best of the season. Cornell was without top defenseman Dan Ratushny
(Spengler Cup) and second-leading scorer Kent Manderville (World Junior
Championship), and Lake Superior was missing their second-leading
scorer as well, Doug Weight (World Junior Championship), but neither
team seemed too affected by those losses. A surprisingly large
contingent of Laker fans made the trek from the Soo to Syracuse for the
tournament.
Cornell had trouble keeping pace with a fast Lake Superior team in the
early going, and the Lakers drew first blood with a power-play goal at
5:48 of the opening period. Mark Astley wristed a shot that deflected
off someone's arm and beat goalie Corrie D'Alessio high on the glove
side. Later, on Cornell's first power play, the Laker penalty-killers
did not allow the Big Red to get anything started, stealing the puck
several times and clearing it almost at will. However, Cornell picked
up the pace as the first period went on, and the Big Red was able to
gain more control of the game with some aggressive forechecking.
Cornell got the tying goal at 14:35 of the first on the power play,
when Bruce Frauley hit Doug Derraugh near the Laker goal with a great
cross-ice pass. Derraugh then deked Lake Superior goalie Darrin
Madeley and slid the puck by him.
The second period featured a great deal of end-to-end action and some
phenomenal play by D'Alessio, who came up with several outstanding
saves -- including a stop of a point-blank slap shot while he was
sprawled on his stomach. Lake Superior limited Cornell to only four
shots on goal in the period, but the Big Red took the lead at 15:47
when Trent Andison stuffed in a rebound of a shot by Ryan Hughes.
In the third period, it was Madeley's turn to be magnificent, as he
denied Cornell on several scoring opportunities. The Lakers got the
equalizer at 3:12 of the third, after intercepting a bad clearing pass.
Michael Smith blasted one from the left circle that found its way
through a screen and into the net. The Big Red had some chances to
retake the lead; on two occasions the puck trickled through Madeley's
pads and rolled *just* wide of the net. Lake Superior picked up the
gamewinner with four and a half minutes left. Jim Dowd and Tim Harris
skated up the left side and got by the Cornell defense to set up a two-
on-none, and Dowd fired a high shot over D'Alessio's shoulder. Madeley
then withstood a late Cornell flurry to seal the Laker win. He
finished with 18 saves, while D'Alessio stopped 24 shots in a losing
cause.
All in all, it was the kind of game that is supposed to result whenever
two nationally-ranked teams meet. By beating a game Cornell squad,
Lake Superior showed pretty clearly why they have to be considered the
top team in the country, and the Big Red's performance earned them a
fair amount of respect as well.
Okay, after that Lake Superior-Cornell contest, the games on Saturday
couldn't help but be anticlimactic, but did they have to be THIS bad? The
consolation featured shabby play that was highlighted by a few unbelievable
mistakes, while the championship game was, well, simply ludicrous...
Consolation:
Colgate 4, Cornell 3
Colgate played about as poorly in this game as they did against Lowell,
but they were opportunistic enough to take advantage of a couple of
mental miscues on the part of Cornell. As for the Big Red, to say that
they did not look like the same team which played so well against Lake
Superior the night before would be a tremendous understatement. Jim
Crozier started in goal for the Big Red for the first time in a month,
and he did not look particularly sharp. For the Red Raiders, freshman
Shawn Murray made his debut between the pipes, and he actually played
pretty well.
Colgate got on the board just 1:27 into the game, as Jamie Cooke scored
the first of his three goals on a hard shot from near the faceoff
circle. The Big Red evened the score later in the period, when Doug
Derraugh backhanded the puck through Murray's legs. However, with less
than three minutes to go in the first period, the Red Raiders took a 2-
1 lead thanks to a Cornell play that was confused at best and
monumentally stupid at worst. First, Crozier skated out almost to the
blue line to try to corral a loose puck and prevent a Colgate
breakaway. Although his penchant for wandering far away from the net
helped keep Crozier on the bench for his first two seasons, that isn't
the stupid part. He collided with a Colgate player and lost his stick,
then had to race back to defend the goal, leaving the stick on the ice
near the left circle. Now, folks, if you are going to have someone on
your team playing without a stick, it damn well better not be the
goalie. Somebody should have gotten Crozier's stick to him or handed
him theirs so he would have at least had SOMETHING. But the other
Cornell players avoided both Crozier and the stick as if they were
radioactive. Cornell did try to ice the puck to get a stoppage in
play, and although icing was waved off, there was still plenty of time
to get Crozier a stick, *any* stick. Instead, what did the Big Red do
while Colgate was playing with the puck in their own end? They CHANGED
LINES! Did any of the five new guys attempt to provide their goalie
with a piece of lumber? Well, by now you should be able to guess the
answer to that one. Crozier wound up playing without a stick for over
a minute, while the Red Raiders worked the puck up the ice. Finally,
Dan Gibson blasted a shot from the right point that beat Crosier on
what would have been the stick side. After the goal, someone retrieved
Crozier's stick, which was still comfortably resting near the circle.
Both teams came out pretty slowly in the second, and Cornell's passing
was particularly sloppy, especially on their four power plays of the
period. Colgate went up by two at the 13:09 mark on another error by
the Big Red. Cooke was credited with the goal after Cornell's Jim
McPhee, in trying to clear the puck, accidentally knocked it into his
own net. McPhee will unfairly wear the goat horns on that play, since
it might have been nice if any of the other four Big Red skaters had
tried to stop Cooke on his journey up the ice. He picked up the puck
at his own blue line, skated across the rink, along the left side, and
behind the Cornell net, without being bothered by anyone until McPhee
(a forward, by the way) met up with him.
The Big Red made it 3-2 just over a minute later. Murray blocked a
wrap-around try by Joe Dragon but gave up the rebound to Trent Andison,
who tapped it into the open right side of the net. The goal was the
50th of Andison's collegiate career.
In an attempt to spark the Big Red, McCutcheon inserted Corrie
D'Alessio in goal at the start of the third period. The move did fire
up the Cornell team for a while, as D'Alessio played well and the Big
Red tied the score at 8:45 of the third. Murray kicked aside a Dragon
shot, but Jason Vogel corralled the rebound and fired a low shot which
deflected into the net off Murray's pad. Four minutes later, however,
Colgate regained the lead on a mildly controversial goal. With the Red
Raiders on the power play, a slap shot by Cooke went into the net off
the skate of Colgate's Craig Woodcroft, who may or may not have kicked
it and who may or may not have been in the crease at the time anyway.
The goal stood, and nobody from Cornell protested it. The Big Red had
one more foolish play left in them, as Vogel was called for roughing
with 2:06 left in the game, effectively slamming the door on Cornell's
chances to rally.
Murray had a great game, stopping 39 shots, while Crozier and D'Alessio
had 11 saves each. This was the first time in four years that Syracuse
Invitational host Colgate did not play in the tournament finals, while
Cornell duplicated their fourth-place finish of 1988, the last time
they played in the SIT.
Championship:
Lake Superior 8, Lowell 3
The Colgate and Cornell squads must have been pretty upset about their
Friday night losses, but they could console themselves with the fact
that they didn't have to deal with the officiating in the championship
game, for whom the referee was (drum roll, please) Pierre Belanger!
I'm sure the Lake Superior and Lowell fans were wondering what all the
groaning was about when this fellow came out on the ice -- well, they
found out soon enough. I noticed that he didn't pull his usual stunt
of hollering at the players on their way to the penalty box, but he
left his mark nonetheless.
Lowell surprised the Lakers by taking a quick 1-0 lead on a delayed
Lake Superior holding call. Laker goalie Darrin Madeley went down to
block a shot by David Gatti and wound up facing the back of the net.
Before he could turn around, Lowell's Don Parsons picked up the puck
and flipped it over Madeley into the left side of the net with 3:11
gone in the game. Lake Superior took control after that, and Tim
Breslin and Sandy Moger combined to tie the score a minute later. As
Breslin brought the puck into the Chiefs' zone, Lowell goalie Dwayne
Roloson went to the left side to block a possible shot, but Breslin
passed to Moger on the right side, who tapped the puck in. Less than
two minutes later, the Lakers took a lead they would never relinquish.
Roloson went down too soon on a shot by Dean Hulett, and the puck
whistled by his face and into the net. Lowell started doing some
sneaky things later in the first period to try to slow the Lakers down,
and the play began to get a little chippy. Early in the second, the
Chiefs' Tim Smallwood got into it with Lake Superior's Jim Dowd, and
they both were sent off with roughing minors. This looked suspiciously
like a common situation in the pros, where one team's designated hit
man picks a fight with the other team's best player in order to get him
off the ice. I'm not trying to say that Smallwood is a goon, but the
whole incident seemed just a little bit shady.
Pierre actually had a very good first period, and I began to think that
this man might finally provide us with a well-officiated contest. The
second period, however, was a reality check. It all began very
innocuously, with a call at 2:53 on Gatti for playing with a broken
stick. Technically, it was a correct call -- the blade did break off,
and Gatti did hold onto the stick for a little while before dropping
it -- but for a guy who has the reputation of being a "player's ref"
and "letting 'em play" (which Pierre has, believe it or not), it was
pretty darn picky.
The real fun started on Lake Superior's third goal, at 5:37 of the
second period. Roloson went to the right side of the net to retrieve
the puck, and a Laker player fell on top of him and stayed there for
several seconds. Meanwhile, the net was wide open, and Mark Astley
shot the puck into it -- while Roloson was being held down. There was
initially a Lowell guy on top of the Lake Superior player who was on
top of Roloson, but the Lowell player got off the pile long before the
goal was scored, and the Laker player did not get up until afterward.
As you might expect, the Chiefs exploded in protest. Roloson raced
after Belanger and yelled at him for quite some time, as did most of
the other Lowell players. After Pierre had managed to extricate
himself from the crowd of angry Chiefs, Lowell head coach Bill Riley
began hollering bloody murder, banged on the boards in front of the
bench with a stick until it broke, then tossed the handle onto the ice.
Belanger called a bench minor on him -- I'm very surprised that Riley
wasn't ejected. Anyway, the goal stood, and Roloson fumed, cursing a
blue streak and staying angry for so long that it affected his play.
By now, the "championship game" had degenerated into a farce, and it
only got worse. The Lakers made it 4-1 at the 9:02 mark, on a Jeff
Napierala shot from between the circles. They appeared to score 35
seconds later, but Belanger ruled that the puck was kicked in. Well,
now the Lake Superior squad was unhappy. At 11:32 of the second came
the moment you're all waiting for -- a fight broke out. During a
stoppage of play, a Laker player speared Lowell's Dave Stevens, who
collapsed on the ice. No call was made, but several Chief players went
after the Lake Superior guy, and a skirmish broke out in front of the
Laker bench. All of a sudden, a real donnybrook developed between Lake
Superior's David DiVita and Lowell's Don Parsons -- rolling around on
the ice, trading punches, gloves and helmets off, the whole bit. They
even knocked over a linesman who was trying without much success to
break it up. Another little skirmish broke out between Smallwood and a
Laker player, but that one was stopped quickly and they both received
roughing minors; DiVita and Parsons were hit with game disqual-
ifications. After what seemed an eternity, Lowell wound up with a 4-
on-3 situation, which they promptly lost due to another roughing
penalty. Ah, college hockey, don't you just love it?
Lake Superior scored again (remember the game?) at 12:38, when Karl
Johnston shot the puck over Roloson and just under the crossbar. A
frustrated and peeved Lowell team began holding a lot, and several
times it looked like there was going to be another fight, but the teams
got through the rest of the second period without incident. At 1:36 of
the third, Riley and his players, who were obviously still not thinking
pleasant thoughts about Mr. Belanger, loudly argued about a clear too
many men on the ice. I think that's a penalty you really can't
dispute, especially in this case -- the extra man was a good three feet
away from the bench. On the ensuing power play, the Lakers' Jeff
Napierala made it 6-1 with a low slap shot from the left circle that
eluded Roloson.
Two goals within 25 seconds gave Lake Superior an 8-1 lead. At 8:32,
Kurt Miller lifted the puck over Roloson's shoulder from the slot (the
Lakers shot high pretty frequently on Roloson -- it seems to be his
weakness), and then Sandy Moger beat Roloson on the glove side for his
second goal of the night. At this point, I was wondering why Riley
didn't change goalies -- perhaps because the only other Lowell
netminder who was dressed was Mark Richards, who had played 80 minutes
the night before.
The ultimate irony in this contest occurred at the midway point of the
third period, when Belanger got cut on his forehead and was
administered to by the Lowell trainer. I could almost hear Riley
muttering something about having the guy give Belanger a shot of
curare.
Lowell's power-play unit, which had been abominable all night, scored
the last two goals of the game. At 16:31, Scott Wenham fed Dave
Stevens from the left corner, and Stevens' shot deflected into the net
off Darrin Madeley. Two minutes later, Shane Henry beat Madeley with a
shot from the slot to make it 8-3. And then, this ridiculous game
ended, and believe me, Belanger couldn't get off the ice fast enough.
Lake Superior outshot Lowell by a 51-22 margin, as Roloson wound up
with 43 saves (and a very negative attitude) while Madeley stopped 19
shots.
The SIT All-Tournament team:
Forward: Jamie Cooke, Colgate
Jim Dowd, Lake Superior
Jeff Napierala, Lake Superior
Defense: Mark Astley, Lake Superior
Karl Johnston, Lake Superior
Goalie: Mark Richards, Lowell
The MVP of the Syracuse Invitational was Lake Superior goaltender Darrin
Madeley.
Bill Fenwick
Cornell '86
LET'S GO RED!!
"This is our son 'Primo', so named because he was the first of two carefully
planned children.
This is 'Finalio', the second of our carefully planned two."
"Uh, then who is THIS?"
"Oh... this is 'Oops!'"
-- "Broom Hilda"
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