Steve Rockey writes:
>In the ECAC (my real interest) this year I could see enough talent in
>the league but perhaps to well distributed.  For example if Harvard
>or Cornell (good defense and goaltending) had the fire power of Yale
>or Colgate you might have had a really strong team.
 
Good point.  Several ECAC teams were hit hard by graduation and/or the
Olympics after the 1990-91 season and were more or less rebuilding this year
(this includes Harvard and Cornell).  Half the teams in the league had to go
with new goaltenders this season, an unusually high number (I think next
year, only two or three teams will be trying out somebody new between the
pipes).
 
Overall, as has been discussed on this list a number of times, the ECAC has
been in a bit of a decline in the past few years, with the dropoff being
even more pronounced this season.  In general, the top teams in the league
have been able to compete with anyone in Division I (witness their perfor-
mance in the NCAAs -- the ECAC had a team in five of the six championship
games from 1985 through 1990), but once you get beyond them, forget it.
Consider a pair of middle-of-the-pack teams from this season, Brown (6th)
and Colgate (7th).  Brown is continuing to improve and is well on their way
to being a force to be reckoned with in the ECAC, but it's a bit of a
different story on the national scene.  The Bears went 0-7 against non-ECAC
competition, including a pair of losses at Alabama-Huntsville.  Colgate's
only non-league Division I win was against Army.  Middle-of-the-pack teams
in the other three conferences, even sixth- and seventh-place teams, gener-
ally do somewhat better than that.
 
>                                                     The Clarkson
>and SLU were perhaps just short one or two impact players from
>being really strong teams.  They were close but to my eye they really
>did not look like final four teams.
 
This is certainly true for St. Lawrence, which was a pretty darn good
team -- but not a *great* one.  They had some good individual talent (Mike
Lappin, Dan LaPerriere), but they weren't quite strong enough to stand up to
the powerhouses from the other leagues, as shown by their loss to Wisconsin
in the NCAAs.
 
I'm not so sure about Clarkson.  The Golden Knights have to be as big a dis-
appointment this season as a talented Cornell team was in 1990-91, because
Clarkson had the makings of a great team.  This was virtually the same bunch
that in 1991 swept then-defending-NCAA-champ Wisconsin in the first round of
the NCAAs and followed that up with a two-games-to-one upset victory over a
powerful Lake Superior team at the Soo.  Clarkson was expected to have
little difficulty stomping on the rest of the ECAC and making a return trip
to the NCAA Phinal Phour, yet they wound up third in the league, losing in
the ECAC semis, and blowing a two-goal lead against NMU in the NCAAs.  I
apologize for being so critical, but the Knights should have been a little
more successful.
 
The ECAC's last truly great team was the 1989-90 Colgate squad, which made
it to the NCAA championship game that year and then promptly lost seven for-
wards and their best defenseman to graduation, as well as their All-
Everything goalie to the pros.  Will we be seeing any more great teams from
the ECAC?  I believe we will, but I also think it's going to take a couple
more years to build them -- although there is certainly plenty of individual
talent in the league (including a pair of All-American goaltenders).
 
And speaking of All-Americans:  Cornell has had five All-American goal-
tenders, but it has been rare that they have returned to the team the
following season.  Parris Duffus will be the first one to do so since Ken
Dryden came back for his senior season in 1968-69.  Brian Hayward (1982) and
Darren Eliot (1983) were both seniors when they made first-team All-
American, and Doug Dadswell (1986) left for the pros a few months after the
season ended.  Like Dadswell, Duffus was named an All-American despite being
passed over for first-team All-ECAC status (interestingly enough, they both
lost out to Vermont goalies -- Duffus to Christian Soucy, Dadswell to Tom
Draper).  Hmm, and I distinctly remember saying at the beginning of the
season that Duffus was not the second coming of Dadswell.  I admit to not
having a particularly good record with goalies -- five years ago, I wondered
what the fuss was over this D'Alessio kid...
--
Bill Fenwick
Cornell '86 and probably '94
LET'S GO RED!!
"So, are they rooting for Wisconsin or making fun of them?"
-- my wife Lisa, upon seeing a group of Cheeseheads for the first time during
   the telecast of the NCAA championship game