Much thanks to Ralph Baer for stimulating my ancient brain cells.  During
my years at Rensselaer (!) 60-64, Harkness's psych ploys were bordering on
the god-like, and I can see why after his stories about the Mich and Minn
games.  Having a JV player for a friend just added to the stories.
 
Amongst his ploys were:  whenever a very fast team would come to the field
house, somehow the ice machine wouldn't work as well, turning the ice into
a pile of mush, effectively neutralizing team speeds!!  Or maybe the
building heater was a bit warmer than usual..... or whatever it took.
 
For breathers, the band might play multiple versions of the alma mater,
and maybe have a special award to a student for fastest slide rule or
something, somehow coinciding with the start of the 3rd period, with the
other team, loaded with 4 lines and 3 sets of defensemen waiting, the RPI
team, typically 2.5 lines and 3.9 defenseman gathering extra breaths in
the locker-room after leaving the ice with their tongues on the floor!  I
can recall a 1-0 SLU game in which this ploy was particularly useful.
 
Other things included calling a timeout to hunt for the goalie contacts in
the ice (every RPI player down on their knees frantically looking for them
and the manager rushing back to the lockerroom totry tofind the
spares!).... we all knew of course, that the goalie had 20/15 vision unaided!
 
Anyone else of that era who knows of the Harkness myths along this line?
Needless to say, when he got to Cornell, built his team and came back to
the field house, it didn't need any of that stuff to be the hell out of
the Engineers and everyone else, but I wasn't there to see that slaughter,
I assume Ralph was!!
 
Happy turkey!
 
Tony Buffa
RPI '64