I attended the RPI-Vermont "Big Red Freakout" game at Champions Bar in
Georgetown (Washington, DC) on Saturday.  This game was broadcast by
satellite to places where there are concentrations of RPI and Vermont
alumni.  The box score has already been posted which is good because I
was unable to compile one accurately because the broadcast quality was
quite poor for the first period (until someone adjusted the antenna)
and the announcers rarely mentioned the times of goals or penalties.
(Jayson, home come they didn't let you do the telecast?)
 
The attendence in Washington seemed predominantly RPI fans, although
there were also quite a few from Vermont.  It is had to estimate how many
people were there, because other people seemed to wander in from time
to time wondering why any (including what appeared to be the Marymount
College lacrosse team), but I would say that it was about 100.  I
should have asked.  Was anyone on Hockey-L at any of the other
locations where the game was shown?
 
I thought the camera work was excellent, much superior to that for the
RPI-Clarkson game that was shown in a similar fashion last year.
 
Between periods interviews with a number of RPI players now in the pros
were shown (Adam Oates, Joe Juneau, John Carter, Ken Hammond).  They
also showed clips of RPI's 1985 NC$$ championship team, mainly from the
semifinal vs Duluth.  I had an interesting time talking to people who
were at RPI during their earlier championship in 1954.
 
My personal opinion is that RPI had much the superior team offensively,
but their defense, after Brad Layzell and Adam Bartell, was quite poor.
One could see Vermont's tieing goal coming after one of RPI's
defensemen participated in a rush (Cam Cuthbert?) and none of RPI's
undersized forwards was able to come back to help Neil Little.  The
offense did have some trouble finishing off plays.  I guess these
opinions echo those of many Hockey-L'ers this year.  Interestingly, I had
much the same opinions about the US Olympic team vs France, but that is
off topic.
 
Anyway, this makes me 0-2-1 watching RPI games on TV over the last two
years.
 
It was mentioned that Neil Little was about 20 saves from tieing Don
Cutts' (RPI '74) RPI record for career saves, and as has been posted,
he now needs only three saves to tie the record.  This made me think of
the fact that Cutts only played three seasons at RPI because freshmen
were not eligible in '70-71.  I am wondering if the NC$$ keeps separate
records for three- vs four-year players.  Clearly, an individual school
can do what it pleases, and it is impossible to compare players from
different eras anyway.  Cutts also has the distinction of being the
first RPI player to play in the NHL, having played in 2 or 3 games for
Edmonton in their first year in the NHL.
 
Ralph Baer  RPI '68, '70, '74