The eagerly anticipated notes on last weekend's Cornell action:
Cornell 5, Brown 3
After being shut out, sliced up, and stomped on by the Friars the week
before, Cornell needed to put together a good effort against the other
team from Providence, and they did that against a very banged-up Brown
team. The Bruins were down to four defensemen (and one converted
forward), having lost four others to injury -- Tim Chase, Charlie Hum-
ber, Mike Traggio, and Brendan Whittet were all out. As if that wasn't
enough, one of the replacements, Ron Smitko, was injured twice in this
game, although he was able to return both times.
During the first period, the Cornell radio announcers remarked that
Meehan Auditorium was remarkably warm, making the ice a little slow and
forcing both teams to make their line shifts somewhat shorter than nor-
mal. As Cloo mentioned, Brown head coach Bob Gaudet made a surprising
move, giving freshman Mike Parsons his first career start in goal
instead of veterans Geoff Finch (who had seen the bulk of the action
this season) or Brett Haywood. Maybe the Big Red felt insulted,
because they outplayed Brown for almost the entire first period and had
a number of chances to put the puck behind him. Five minutes in, Jiri
Kloboucek found himself with the puck deep in the Brown zone and an
open net right in front of him (Parsons was way out of position), but
his shot missed to the right side. Then Ryan Hughes had a golden
opportunity at the 9:22 mark, when Brown's Joey Beck gave the puck away
right in front of his own net. His pass hit Hughes and bounced off
Parsons, and then Parsons was forced to block Hughes' rebound attempt.
The Big Red finally converted a scoring chance at 11:10 of the first
period, after Shaun Hannah won a faceoff. He got the puck over to
Geoff Bumstead, who kicked it through a defenseman's legs, retrieved
it, and as he skated to his right, snapped a low one to his left from
between the circles that beat Parsons to the stick side. (I hope the
Big Red can get a full season out of Bummer this year -- he's missed
significant parts of his first two seasons with injuries, but when
healthy, he's capable of some amazing plays, of which this is just one
example) Cornell kept the pressure on for most of the rest of the
period, and Brown really had only one good scoring opportunity, with
about four minutes to go. Jason Vogel dove and tried to knock the puck
out of the path of a Brown forward near center ice, but he missed,
enabling the Bruins to skate in on a 3-on-1. It took a beautiful
blocker-pad save by goaltender Andy Bandurski to preserve the Big Red's
1-0 lead. The period ended with a flurry in front of the Brown net,
during which Bumstead and P.C. Drouin both got off some good shots that
Parsons somehow kept out of the net.
One might wonder if there was "something funny" going on at Meehan
Friday night, since in addition to the heat, the first intermission
inexplicably was 15 minutes long, rather than the regulation 12.
Anyway, 1:56 into the middle period, Brown forward Sascha Pogor was
called for interference and then, in a truly brilliant move, he
hollered at the referee, earning himself a ten-minute misconduct as
well. Pogor is a senior, and you'd think by now he would know better.
Cornell started to have trouble with their passes out of their own
zone, and it wasn't long before the score was tied. Chris Kaban picked
up one of those errant passes, circled at center ice, eluded both Tyler
McManus and a flat-footed Vogel, and broke in on Bandurski. As the
goalie started to go down, Kaban flipped the puck just under the cross-
bar at 6:45 of the second. This seemed to pick the Bruins up, and the
action became quite a bit more intense. Brown was teeing off on Ban-
durski in the middle of the period, but they couldn't pull ahead until
Ryan Mulhern's power-play marker at 12:49 -- and that came on a fluke.
James O'Brien slapped one from the point that bounced off Mulhern's leg
as he was being knocked down. The redirected puck then floated between
Bandurski's pads.
Cornell had two more opportunities late in the second to tie the game,
as Mike Sancimino had the puck given to him by a Brown defenseman and
shot it over the net, and Russ Hammond got off a blast that Parsons
made a brilliant save on. Thus, the Big Red went into the third period
trailing yet again -- this season, they have yet to enter the third
period any other way. This time, however, Cornell's offense came to
life. A Brown pass hit Geoff Lopatka's stick, and he quickly fed San-
cimino, who found two Bruin defensemen blocking his path. He dumped
the puck to the open ice, where McManus grabbed it and backhanded it
past a sprawling Parsons with 3:27 gone in the third.
From there, it took only 60 seconds for the Big Red to take the lead
for good. Mark Scollan got ahold of a loose puck, stick-handled it
behind his back for a while, then fired a pass over to a circling
Hannah near the left circle. Hannah then slapped the puck past Parsons
to the short side. Brad Chartrand almost made it 4-2 seconds later
with a blast from about the same place, but Parsons robbed him with a
great pad save. Brown didn't give up, though, as they were constantly
throwing the puck in front of the Cornell net and forcing Bandurski to
do a lot of work. Midway through the period, he made a terrific
sliding save of a backhand attempt by Tony Martino. The Big Red
finally got a little breathing room with 1:54 left in the third period,
when a Brown clearing pass hit Geoff Lopatka's leg and rolled over to
Vogel. His shot hit the post, but Russ Hammond was right there to
stuff it in for his team-leading fourth goal of the season.
Parsons was pulled for the extra attacker with 1:30 left, and a bit of
a defensive breakdown in the Cornell zone enabled Brown to keep things
interesting. Scott Hanley skated out of the corner and was able to get
the puck to the front of the net, where Kelly Jones took a couple of
hacks at it. Joey Beck then fired the second rebound under Bandurski
and the Bruins closed to within one with 41 seconds remaining. That
was as close as they would get, however, and Vogel iced the game with
two seconds to go, catching up to a rolling puck and flipping it into
the Bruins' empty net two seconds before the final buzzer.
At least one other interesting thing happened in the third period for
Cornell: Vogel, a converted forward who had spent the entire season on
defense for the Big Red, was shifted to forward again for the whole
third period. In fact, he, Hammond, and Ryan Hughes made up an all-
senior line, which accounted for the last two Cornell goals. I'm
wondering whether we'll see more of this line in the future -- the
question of who would take Vogel's place on defense remains unanswered.
(there was already a shuffling of the defensive pairings this week, as
Blair Ettles and Christian Felli were reunited, which allowed for the
creation of the all-freshman pairing, Bill Holowatiuk and Dan Dufresne)
Bandurski stopped 39 of 42 shots in recording his second victory, while
Parsons had 29 saves.
Harvard 6, Cornell 1
During the off-season, I did an interview with former Big Red winger
Kent Manderville, and he talked briefly about 1992 US Olympian Ted
Drury's decision to return to Harvard this season. Manderville thought
that it was perhaps a step backward and that Drury should have given
the pros a try, and I'm sure that by now, all of Cornell wishes that he
had done just that. This game was a Drury highlight show, as he had a
hand in all but one of Harvard's goals Saturday night.
Early on, it didn't look like that would be the case, as the Big Red
got off to a flying start with a goal 12 seconds into the game. The
Crimson won the opening faceoff, but Jason Vogel got to the puck and
fired toward the net. His shot was about three feet too far to the
right, and the puck bounced off the back boards and came out to the
left side. Harvard goalie Aaron Israel chose to let it go, and Ryan
Hughes pounced on it and took a shot of his own. His try was sticked
aside by Israel, but McManus was there to stuff the rebound between the
pads. Israel looked a little shaky after that, but even so, Cornell's
highlight film ended right there. Drury later got the puck near the
side boards and fed defenseman Lou Body, who faked a shot and, when
goal-tender Andy Bandurski dropped to the ice, wristed the puck into
the center of the net at the 10:21 mark.
The first of many officiating "controversies" erupted just 18 seconds
later. Harvard's Chris Baird caught Vogel somewhere in the neck with
his stick (from the description of the admittedly partisan radio
announcers, it sounded like Baird butt-ended him), and Vogel dropped to
the ice. He was able to get up with the assistance of the trainer
after a minute or two, and Baird was slapped with a five-minute major
for slashing. The Harvard fans, usually a quiet bunch, disagreed
vehemently with the call -- my suspicion, given what referees Tim
MacConaghy (ol' Tim has now done four straight Cornell games; somebody
is sure holding a grudge against the Big Red) and Bill Stewart let go
later in the game, is that the call was justified, though not for
"slashing". It turned out not to matter much anyway, since the refs
proceeded to hit Blair Ettles with a creative elbowing minor about a
minute later (this was apparently more like a good check by Ettles, as
he rolled Drury into the boards). With Cornell's man advantage gone,
Drury proceeded to score the game-winning goal at the 12:48 mark, off a
nice give-and-go with Tom Holmes.
P.C. Drouin took a dumb penalty less than two minutes later, as he took
exception to being held by a Harvard player and punched him in the back
of the head. Drouin compounded his error by slamming the door on the
penalty box, earning himself a misconduct. More fun things happened
with about two minutes to go in the first period, when the Crimson's
Cory Gustafson, who had earlier cross-checked Christian Felli in the
face and had gotten away with it, decided to spear Ettles near the
Cornell bench (possible Kevan Melrose material here). There was no
call on that one, either.
Well, the second period finally arrived, and Steve Flomenhoft and Matt
Mallgrave combined to put Harvard up 3-1 at the 9:42 mark. The goal
was set up in part by sloppy defense on the part of Cornell, which was
unsuccessful several times in clearing the puck out of their own zone.
Body held it in twice before finding Flomenhoft along the boards, and
Flomenhoft left it near the slot for Mallgrave, who flipped it past
Bandurski. Stewart then decided to make a rotten charging call on
Cornell's Dan Dufresne on what appeared to be nothing more than a solid
check, and about a half minute later, Tim MacConaghy gave Cornell a
"make-up" call with a ludicrous interference penalty on Baird (several
Cornell players screamed "Interference!" and it appeared that MacCon-
aghy took their advice or something). With about a minute left in the
second period, Mike Sancimino appeared to have a breakaway in the
Harvard zone, but Michel Breistroff tackled him in front of the net.
This was worth a penalty shot option, or certainly a minor on Breis-
troff, but -- well, radio color man Pete Tufford, apparently forgetting
that he had a microphone on, hollered "NO CALL?!?" so loudly that I'm
sure speakers blew all over Ithaca.
In the third period, Harvard and Drury got tired of fooling around and
decided to bust this one wide open. Once again, the Cornell defense's
difficulty clearing the puck would cost them, as Drury left the puck
near the Cornell net, where Baird and Brian Farrell took turns whacking
at it until Farrell trickled one across the goal line at 8:23. Cornell
found themselves on a power play about half a minute later, but it was
Harvard pushing their lead to 5-1 on a short-hander by Baird. Once
again, Drury figured in the scoring, as he got the puck, streaked down
the ice (spinning Vogel around in the process), and fired toward the
Cornell net. Bandurski made the sliding save, but couldn't prevent
Baird from knocking home the rebound at the 10:17 mark. The Big Red
immediately took their timeout, but it didn't help matters much, as
Baird's second goal, with 2:30 to go, rounded out the scoring.
Israel stopped 27 of 28 shots, while Bandurski, who surely must be
shell-shocked by now, came up with 32 saves. At his current pace, and
assuming Cornell makes it to the ECAC quarterfinals (by winning a
first-round game), Bandurski will break the Cornell record for saves in
a season, currently held by Doug Dadswell with 967 in 1985-86. And if
the Big Red's defense gets any worse, Bandurski might have a realistic
shot at the ECAC record, set by Bruce Gillies of New Hampshire, who had
1065 in 1983-84.
Between the second and third periods of the Harvard game, Cornell announcer
Grady Whittenburg interviewed ECAC Director of Hockey (I think that's his
title?) Joe Bertagna, who offered a few comments on the two-ref system. He
said it's "still a little premature" to judge how well the new system is
working, which would make one assume he's heard nothing but bad comments
about it. Apparently, the majority of the ECAC coaches wanted to stay with
the one-ref system, but since the NC$$ was moving to two referees for its
tournament, as were other leagues, the ECAC went along with it. Bertagna
mentioned that one problem the league has been having with the two-ref
system is that they don't always pair off the same two guys. (I wonder why
not? Perhaps something to do with the travel partner system) He feels, and
I would agree, that keeping the same two refs together for as many games as
possible would allow them to get used to each others' styles, and thus make
for better-officiated games overall.
Bertagna also mentioned that he felt Clarkson was going to be the league's
strongest contender this season, and that he was disappointed they got off
to such a slow start. He says he prefers it when the ECAC has one "big"
team, like RPI and Harvard in the mid to late '80s, or Colgate three years
ago. This hasn't happened in the past couple of years.
--
Bill Fenwick | Send your HOCKEY-L poll responses to:
Cornell '86 and probably '94 | [log in to unmask]
LET'S GO RED!!
"What do you say if you're talking with someone on their car phone and they
crash? 'Well, I guess I'll let you go now...'"
-- Ron Miller
|
