As Glenn posted earlier, Clarkson and Harvard fought to a thrilling 2-2
tie. The crowd of over 3500 was one of the largest in Cheel Arena history
and the game was certainly one of the most exciting.
 
Clarkson got on the board late in the first period when Craig Conroy
put a centering pass past Harvard goalie Tripp Tracy.
 
Harvard tied it early in the 2nd on a series of crisp passes ended up
on the stick of Steve Martins who put one over Clarkson goalie Jason
Currie's shoulders. Martins tipped a point shot which went between
Currie's legs late in the 2nd to give Harvard a 2-1 lead.
 
Midway through the 3rd, a nice tic-tac-toe passing play on a Clarkson PP
went to a wide-open Steve Palmer who wristed it past a helpless Tracy.
 
The game was unfortunately marred by some very questionable officiating.
It was uniformly awful. The Harvard fan standing next to me and I agreed
that the referees (Murphy and Kelly) must have used a possession arrow
(ala basketball) to determine who gets the next penalty. There were a lot
of questionable calls, not so much because they were definitely not
penalties, but in that often times, only a few seconds earlier, they'd
let a very similar play go. The penalties alternated between the teams,
until the mid-late 3rd period when Clarkson received 3 straight penalties
(the possession arrow must have been stuck :). However, Harvard's power
play looked very poor and the point man seemed to pass up a good shot
all too often.
 
The reffing aside, it was a fantasic game. Very hard hitting, yet, for the
most part, very clean hitting. The stars of the game were both team's
various backcheckers. The backchecking by both teams' forwards was what
impressed me most about the game. Although they didn't have to make a LOT
of saves, the shots both goalies faced were very good. Both teams missed
TONS of opportunities and both goalies played very well. Most of the
opportunities faced by the goalies were excellent scoring chances. Both
goalies came up big in overtime. Currie, while lying on his back, got
his glove on a weak shot headed into the net and deflected it wide.
In the waning seconds of overtime, Tracy made a save on an initial shot
; with Tracy on the ice, Clarkson's Marko Tuomainen blasted one labeled
for the top of the net but somehow, Tracy, form his back, made a spectacular
save with his leg to deny a Clarkson victory.
 
Steve Martins was the most impressive player on the ice. Harvard's center
was nearly impossible to knock off the puck and had excellent speed. Craig
Conroy and Steve Palmer played well for Clarkson. In the second period,
both martins and Conroy got minors and a 10 minute misconduct; our best
guess is it was due to persistent yapping between the two that was going
on.
 
THREE STARS
1) Steve Martins, Harvard
2) Tripp Tracy, Harvard
3) Jason Currie, Clarkson
   Craig Conroy, Clarkson
 
UNOFFICIAL GOALIE STATS
Tracy, Harvard          25 shots-23 saves
Currie, Clarkson        31 shots-29 saves
 
I know Brown was being pounded by SLU adn RPI destroyed Cornell so Clarkson
moves 1 point ahead of Brown and 2 pts ahead of RPI. Brown visits Clarkson
tommorow and RPI hosts Colgate.
 
LET'S GO TECH
 
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Bri Farenell                                     Clarkson '95
[log in to unmask]                 Glens Falls High '91
AHL and NCAA contact for rec.sport.hockey        Go Erin Whitten (GFH '89)!
Adirondack Red Wings, AHL Calder Cup Champs: '81  '86  '89  '92  '94?
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