By defeating Yale on Saturday night, Clarkson moved into sole possession of
the top spot in the ECAC for the first time since November 26. In other
action, the Big Red picked up their first weekend sweep of the season, at
Union and RPI. Cornell was seeing its first action in 26 days, the longest
layoff any ECAC team will experience this season, and the Big Red's longest
in-season break since hockey returned to Ithaca in 1957.
Friday, January 3:
Brown 5, DARTMOUTH 1
CLARKSON 3, Princeton 0
Cornell 8, UNION 1
Harvard 3, VERMONT 1
RPI 5, Colgate 2
Yale 2, ST. LAWRENCE 2 (OT)
Saturday, January 4:
Brown 2, VERMONT 2 (OT)
CLARKSON 6, Yale 5
Colgate 8, UNION 3
Cornell 4, RPI 3
Harvard 6, DARTMOUTH 3
ST. LAWRENCE 9, Princeton 4
ECAC standings as of 1/5/91:
League Overall
Team W L T Pts GF GA W L T Pts GF GA
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Clarkson 8 1 0 16 47 24 13 3 0 26 90 44
St.Lawrence 7 1 1 15 52 30 11 3 2 24 89 54
Harvard 6 1 2 14 43 22 6 3 2 14 45 28
Yale 6 1 2 14 46 33 7 2 2 16 56 41
Cornell 4 2 2 10 30 21 4 4 2 10 34 29
Brown 4 3 2 10 36 34 4 6 2 10 50 56
RPI 3 6 0 6 28 38 7 8 0 14 55 64
Vermont 2 5 1 5 24 32 6 7 1 13 53 46
Colgate 2 4 0 4 26 32 4 8 1 9 60 65
Princeton 2 8 0 4 37 49 4 9 0 8 52 63
Dartmouth 1 5 0 2 14 40 1 9 0 2 24 66
Union 0 8 0 0 20 48 1 10 0 2 41 68
Notes on a few of the games:
RPI 5, Colgate 2
Colgate jumped on RPI goaltender Neil Little early, but he made some
great saves in keeping the Red Raiders off the board in the opening
period. Meanwhile, the Engineers were busy taking a 2-0 lead, as they
were helped out by a pair of hooking calls four minutes apart on
Colgate's Andrew Dickson. Winger Ron Pasco got the game's first goal
at 10:30 of the first period, and then after each team had a goal waved
off, Jeff Gabriel corralled a rebound and beat Colgate goalie Shawn
Murray at the 14-minute mark. These would be the only two power-play
opportunities of the game for RPI, while the Red Raiders had seven.
The Engineers have had some problems this season in the middle period
(they had been outscored 14-3 in the second in their previous seven
ECAC games), and they once again went into a bit of a slump. Colgate
cut the deficit to one at 6:56 on a 5-on-3 power play, when Dickson
partially made up for his first-period performance by firing a blast
from the slot that was deflected over Little's shoulder. RPI was able
to regroup, however, and they came out and dominated the third period.
A long pass from Craig Hamelin deep in the RPI zone to Wayne Clarke at
the Colgate blue line set up Clarke on a 1-on-0 break, and he wristed a
low shot past Murray at 5:41 of the third. Four minutes later, Hamelin
picked up a feed from Clarke, cut in front of the Colgate net, and
backhanded the puck behind Murray to put the Engineers up 4-1. Colgate
came back with a goal at the 11:45 mark, but Jeff Brick iced the game
for RPI with 2:07 left, slapping one from the top of the left circle
that found the upper right corner of the net.
Cornell 8, Union 1
This was pretty much a case of a well-rested Cornell team catching
Union on their worst night of the year. Just to add some commentary to
Jim Teresco's summary from my perspective: Union's first power play,
two minutes into the game, came when Cornell's Russ Hammond was called
for slashing during a faceoff, which is something you don't often see
(and something I DIDN'T see, but anyway...) Cornell got a bit lucky on
their third goal, which was scored by Russ Hammond off a 2-on-1 break
with Blair Ettles. Before the goal, Cornell forward Rick Davis had his
helmet knocked off, but he continued to play for about 20 seconds with-
out it, which is normally grounds for a penalty (at least he didn't
touch the puck during that time).
Cornell's fifth goal, the first one that Union goalie Mike Gallant gave
up, was also a somewhat questionable one. Phil Nobel fired the puck
down the ice, beat a Union defender to it, circled behind the Union
net, and passed back in front to Stephane Gauvin, who took a low shot.
Now, here's where things got a little fuzzy. Gauvin was pushed into
the crease, and at about the same time, Union's Wally Bzdell slid
across the goal mouth, knocking the net off its moorings in the
process. The puck was definitely in the net AFTER the net was moved,
but I didn't see it cross the line BEFORE. Gallant later said he had
blocked Gauvin's shot and Bzdell had slid and trapped the puck in the
back of his pants, and that Bzdell's feet had hit the net (dislodging
it) while the puck was still stuck under him. To top it all off, the
goal light never came on, although referee Mike Noeth clearly signalled
for a goal. It turned out that the light was broken, but it was
quickly repaired.
The Big Red came close to scoring a sixth first-period goal, but
Gallant stoned Karl Williams with a minute left in the opening period.
Despite allowing four goals, Gallant did pretty well, coming up with
another brilliant save late in the third period, off a breakaway
attempt by Shaun Hannah. Andy Bandurski saw his first action of the
season between the pipes for Cornell in the third period, and again he
looked pretty good, although a rattled Union team never seriously
tested him.
A scary moment occurred in the second period, when one of the fans
caught a puck in the side of the head. Paramedics were crowded around
him for several minutes, but he was eventually able to walk (with some
help) out of the stands, probably for further medical attention. I
hope he's OK.
I have to agree with Jim, though -- the Union team is not nearly as bad
as it looked Friday night. One thing I noticed was that even though
the Dutchmen were making a number of mental mistakes on the ice, they
still kept their composure. Often in a blowout, the losing team will
get frustrated and start taking cheap shots, but except for Jayson
Flowers wiping out a Union power play with a dumb cross-checking pen-
alty in the third, the Dutchmen stayed pretty much under control.
Small consolation, I guess, but I'm expecting a much different game
when Union journeys to Lynah in February.
Cornell 4, RPI 3
The Big Red's easy win over Union was also a costly one, as Blair
Ettles turned his ankle and Alex Nikolic sprained his wrist. Both were
sidelined for the RPI game, and the line-juggling that resulted partly
explains why Cornell looked so shaky for a good part of the game. In
particular, the Big Red had to make do with a five-defenseman rotation
instead of their usual six. The team wound up relying very heavily on
goaltender Parris Duffus, who came through once again.
RPI's offense seems to have improved after some poor performances early
in the season, and the two teams set the stage for this one by com-
bining for four goals in the game's first seven minutes. The Engineers
lit the lamp just two minutes in, as Jeff Gabriel beat Duffus with a
wrister, but Russ Hammond tied the game 29 seconds later, firing the
puck under RPI goalie Neil Little's leg. At 3:51 of the first,
Stephane Robitaille converted RPI's only power-play opportunity of the
night, skating in from the right circle on a mini-break and slapping
one past Duffus from in close. Speaking of power plays, or lack of
them: generally, I like referee Harry Ammian's style of officiating,
but I think he was letting a little too much holding, hooking, etc. go
in this game. There were a total of seven penalties issued all night,
and it looked to me like the game was somewhat rougher than that. Ah,
well, at least RPI can boast of a 100% power-play conversion rate over
the weekend...
Cornell tied the game again at the 6:20 mark. The puck was left loose
in the right circle of the RPI zone for a few seconds, until Jason
Vogel skated in and fired it high into the corner of the net. After
giving up the two quick goals to the Engineers, Duffus settled down and
played Frankly Brilliant for most of the rest of the game. He got a
number of chances to shine, as Cornell was having a problem hanging
onto the puck in its own zone.
OK, about the boarding major on RPI's Dan Vaillant... Ross Bracco
writes:
> And what's the story with Belzile or whoever, #6? Acting like he is
>near death and then coming back on the ice two minutes after a major penalty
>was issued on RPI? Well?
Well what? You don't have to have a player carted off the ice on a
stretcher in order to pick up a major. In most cases, it's a judgment
call by the referee, and apparently Ammian felt that Vaillant's actions
(he tripped Belzile and shoved him head-first into the boards) were
worthy of a major penalty rather than a minor. Belzile was down on the
ice for about two minutes before being helped up and skating back to
the bench -- fortunately, he was not seriously injured. Given the way
Ammian was calling the game, I was a little surprised that he gave
Vaillant a major penalty, and I've certainly seen worse things go
without majors being handed out, but all things considered, it was not
an unfair call. Would I say the same if it had been a Cornell player
who was hit with a major? Um, yeah, I hope so :-)
Anyway, Joe Dragon gave Cornell the lead just 32 seconds into the major
with a high shot from the left circle that deflected off Little's arm
into the corner of the net. With Vaillant still due to be off for more
than four minutes, it looked like the Big Red would be able to break
the game open, but the man advantage temporarily evaporated when Marc
Deschamps got called for high-sticking. Judging from the reaction, no
one in the Cornell section saw that one, and apparently head coach
Brian McCutcheon didn't either, because he lit into Ammian something
fierce. With the teams still skating four on four, Dave Burke got the
eventual game-winner for the Big Red 22 seconds into the middle period,
blasting the puck between Little's legs. RPI cut the lead to one at
the 4:01 mark, just as a Cornell power play expired. Todd Hilditch
passed ahead to Ron Pasco, who came in on a breakaway and rolled the
puck under Duffus' leg as the goalie went down. Pasco slammed into the
goalpost on the play and went down for a minute or two, but he got up
on his own and was OK.
Cornell spent most of the rest of the game sitting on their one-goal
lead, as the forwards came back to help out on defense. The people
sitting behind me went through the third period saying, "Oh, God, RPI's
going to score again. Remember what happened here two years ago?" In
that game, Cornell held a one-goal lead in the third, but RPI pulled
their goalie, tied the game with seconds left in regulation, and then
won in overtime. Well, it was deja vu all over again. RPI called
timeout with 1:02 left and replaced Little with a sixth skater, but
Duffus denied the Engineers the equalizer, making five of his 29 saves
in the game's final minute as Cornell survived three faceoffs in their
own zone.
This week's action starts with the rescheduled Harvard-Colgate game Monday
night. Harvard will also host Clarkson and St. Lawrence this weekend in
what figures to be a battle for first place in the ECAC. Other games on the
schedule:
Jan. 6
Harvard at Colgate
Jan. 7
New Hampshire at RPI (NC)
Jan. 10
Clarkson at Brown
Dartmouth at Colgate
RPI at Princeton
St. Lawrence at Harvard
Union at Yale
Vermont at Cornell
Jan. 11
Clarkson at Harvard
Dartmouth at Cornell
RPI at Yale
St. Lawrence at Brown
Union at Princeton
Vermont at Colgate
--
Bill Fenwick | Send your HOCKEY-L poll responses to:
Cornell '86 and probably '94 | [log in to unmask]
LET'S GO RED!!
"They told me if I voted for Michael Dukakis, there would be a huge recession.
I voted for him anyway, and they turned out to be right."
-- Larry King
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