Lots of good things to say about this weekend's road sweep of Harvard and
Brown.
 
The most dramatic improvement over last year is at forward, where we have
three, count em, 1-2-3 legitimate scoring lines, and some valuable freshman
scoring talent.
 
Larry Pierce is solid at the blueline, and he *dominated* the Brown game.
Generally speaking, the defense was stellar on the kill, where they turned
away 19 of a ridiculous 21 disadvantage situations without damage.
 
Like Elvis, Kyle Knopp is everywhere, and now that he has some help he is a
far more effective player.  His 1-5-6 weekend is probably not going to be
typical of his production, but he deserved every point.
 
Ian Burt is a smart goalie with good instincts.  Harvard didn't test him
very much, but Brown (and the hapless officiating) certainly did, and he
responded splendidly.
 
A few notes on the opposition:
 
Harvard looked awful, as Ronn Tomassoni continues to reprise his role as
Brian McCutcheon wanna be.  The goaltending was quite deficient; the
defense, as pointed out by Rich Hungerford, really should be brought up on
charges of non-support.  The forwards showed some flashes, but it looked
like individual efforts frustrated by Ronn's brain-numbingly boring and
ineffective system.  All in all, Harvard-haters should hope for RT's
continuance as coach well into the next century.
 
Brown, on the other hand, looks like a pretty good team.  Their strategy
throughout most of the second period consisted of diving and drawing calls,
but I can't fault them for it, as they caught on much more quickly than
Cornell that the referee (Doiron) was incompetent (no aspersions being cast
on the Bears, here -- when the Big Red finally got a clue that all you
needed in this game was "Acting! Brilliant!", they too began flopping all
over the ice like walruses at SeaWorld.)  By the end of the game, the
Cornell crowd was razzing Dorion for calls *against Brown*!  He truly was
that bad.
 
The problem is that what we saw Saturday was merely a ref overcompensating
for a lousy childhood or something, not hockey.  So we don't really have
much of a bead on Brown, beyond the obvious fact that Scott Stirling is one
of the most talented goaltenders in the nation.  I was *very* pleased to
get out of Providence (who isn't?) with a win.
 
Next stop is the home league opener against Dartmouth and Vermont.
Hopefully, the 6 x 16 powerplay and 19 x 21 penalty kill will continue to
click.  If those numbers hold, no opponent will want to screw around with
goonery against this team -- wonder if Bob Gaudet is listening?
 
-- Greg
 
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