The biggest news of the weekend in the ECAC -- hey, maybe in all of college
hockey -- has to be the Union College Skating Dutchmen's big win over
Cornell on the road. If there was any doubt that Union could handle Div-
ision I competition, this should settle it (although the Big Red didn't
exactly play like a decent Division I team Saturday afternoon). Congratu-
lations are in order for the Union players, coaching staff, and fans.
In other ECAC news, the Harvard team doesn't have the scoring machines that
it has in the past (Lane MacDonald, Allen Bourbeau, C.J. Young, Peter Cia-
vaglia, Mike Vukonich, etc.), but thanks in part to St. Lawrence hitting the
skids at exactly the wrong time, the Crimson are very close to clinching
their first ECAC regular-season title since 1989. Harvard has benefitted
from some solid goaltending by Allain Roy (and, yes, Chuckie Hughes), and
the Crimson have quietly been sitting back and watching the other contenders
(Clarkson, St. Lawrence, Yale) take turns knocking each other off.
Scores from the ECAC's penultimate weekend:
Friday, February 21:
BROWN 5, Vermont 2
Clarkson 6, YALE 2
COLGATE 7, Union 2
CORNELL 3, Rpi 1
HARVARD 4, Dartmouth 2
PRINCETON 5, St. Lawrence 1
Saturday, February 22:
BROWN 5, Dartmouth 2
Clarkson 4, PRINCETON 0
COLGATE 5, Rpi 4
HARVARD 4, Vermont 1
Union 6, CORNELL 4
YALE 6, St. Lawrence 5
ECAC standings as of 2/24/92:
League Overall
Team W L T Pts GF GA W L T Pts GF GA
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
# Harvard 13 1 6 32 88 51 14 4 6 34 98 66
# Clarkson 14 5 1 29 94 57 20 7 1 41 143 79
@ St. Lawrence 13 6 1 27 97 64 17 9 2 36 135 94
@ Yale 10 4 6 26 91 79 12 6 6 30 108 95
$ Cornell 10 7 3 23 66 54 12 9 3 27 78 65
$ Brown 9 7 4 22 87 80 9 14 4 22 111 129
$ Colgate 10 10 0 20 94 98 13 14 1 27 137 136
$ Vermont 9 9 2 20 69 66 15 11 2 32 106 82
$ Princeton 7 12 1 15 75 87 9 13 1 19 90 101
$ RPI 6 11 3 15 60 77 12 13 3 27 100 106
Dartmouth 2 16 2 6 54 109 2 20 2 6 64 135
Union 2 17 1 5 56 109 3 19 1 7 77 129
$ - Clinched playoff spot
@ - Clinched preliminary round bye
# - Clinched home ice
Notes on a few games:
Colgate 5, RPI 4
Colgate didn't have the lead in this game until Craig deBlois scored
with 1:07 to go, but that was enough to give the Red Raiders the
victory, which was their fifth in a row over the Engineers at Starr
Rink. RPI (sorry, higher-ups, but if the uniforms say "RPI" it's gonna
be tough to call the team "Rensselaer") opened the scoring 7:31 into
the first period on a goal by Craig Hamelin, but Clayton Fahey's power-
play tally tied things up for Colgate seven minutes later. Hamelin's
second goal of the game, with 2:20 left in the first period, gave RPI a
2-1 lead. At 8:32 of the middle period, deBlois tied the score again,
but the Engineers regained the lead just 42 seconds later, courtesy of
Jeff Brick's power-play goal.
Marcel Richard and Dan Vaillant swapped goals before Colgate's Chris
MacKenzie knotted the score yet again at 16:23 of the third period --
his first point in seven games. deBlois' game-winner came two and a
half minutes later. Neil Little had 26 saves for RPI, while Colgate's
Shawn Murray stopped 18 shots.
Cornell 3, RPI 1
It isn't surprising who the star of this game was -- as has been the
case for most of Cornell's wins this season, goaltender Parris Duffus
stole the show. He stopped 34 of 35 shots and frustrated the Engineers
all night long in turning in perhaps his best performance of the
season. The game was a pretty good one, despite a few attempts by
referee Rob Hearn to turn it into a farce.
In the past, RPI has had a reputation as a team that would play a bit
dirty and take some cheap shots, but Friday night, they hit clean and
HARD. Cornell took a while to get started, thanks in part to the
Engineers' physical style, and it was RPI's Craig Hamelin getting the
first goal of the game at 3:35 of the opening period. Hamelin swiped a
Cornell cross-ice pass right in front of Duffus and blasted a low one
that deflected off the goaltender's left pad and into the net. RPI had
another golden opportunity about a minute and a half later, off a Cor-
nell giveaway at center ice, but fortunately (or unfortunately if
you're an RPI fan), the Engineers didn't realize that they had a 3-on-1
developing, and a quick shot flew over the crossbar. Missed chances
like that would haunt RPI.
Cornell had four power plays in the first period, and the first three
were pathetic at best. To be fair, one of them lasted only eleven
seconds, but the Big Red was playing sloppily, and RPI was stealing the
puck fairly regularly. The Engineers seem to go for the puck and
gamble a lot during the penalty kill, and although that's a dangerous
strategy, it was working pretty well against Cornell. The Big Red's
fourth power play didn't look that much better than the first three,
but as it was winding down, Marc Deschamps sent a high center-ice pass
over to Stephane Gauvin, who knocked the puck down and left it at the
blue line for Phil Nobel. Nobel's long shot eluded RPI goalie Neil
Little and the game was tied with 3:59 left in the first.
Duffus made 12 saves in the first period, and about ten of them must
have come during an incredible RPI flurry that lasted for most of the
final two minutes of the first period. Cornell's Joe Dragon went off
at 4:13 of the second for interfering with Little, which was a little
comical because another RPI player had a hold of Dragon's stick and
Little was stuck between them. The Big Red went ahead at the 9:19
mark, when an Alex Nikolic rebound lay loose near the crease until
Geoff Bumstead swooped in and fired it into the open net. RPI head
coach Buddy Powers protested this goal, and he had a good point, since
the reason the net was open was that Nikolic was "distracting" Little
-- in other words, he got tangled up with the goalie and probably
should have been called for interference.
Ryan Hughes got the game's final goal at 15:26 of the second period,
after Little had blocked a Todd Chambers drive with his chest. The
rebound went over to Hughes, who stuffed it through the goalie's pads.
The last bit of amusement in the second period came with ten seconds
left, when RPI's Kelly Askew and Cornell's Marc Deschamps got tangled
up during one of those interminable faceoffs that marred this game
(hey, do officials get paid by the hour? :-) Askew flipped Deschamps'
stick out of his hands and the two exchanged dirty looks, but nothing
came of it.
RPI had several chances to cut the deficit in the third, as they out-
shot the Big Red 13-4. Duffus withstood another big Engineer flurry
with about seven minutes gone in the third (making a great throat save,
ouch!), and when the puck finally did trickle through his pads,
Deschamps dove on it in the crease and stopped play. (No penalty was
called, even though Deschamps was fairly obvious about it) With 57
seconds to go, RPI called their timeout and pulled Little for the sixth
attacker, but Cornell would not allow the Engineers to get set up in
the offensive zone. Then with seven seconds left, and a faceoff to
Duffus' right, Cornell called timeout. Why? Well, McCutcheon later
said "Pride. We didn't want to let them score." It looked like there
was some sort of play on, as Dragon drew the puck right back to Duffus
on two straight faceoffs and time ran out. Little finished with 17
saves.
Union 6, Cornell 4
There's an old maxim that you often hear from coaches: "No opponent is
as dangerous as one with nothing to lose." The reason you hear them
say that is because many times it's true. It would have been easy and
understandable for Union to quit after such a rough first season in
Division I. They were dead last in the ECAC and way out of the playoff
picture, they had lost 19 of 22 games on the season, and they had just
been humiliated 7-2 by Colgate the night before. Instead, Union came
in and played an excellent game against a stumbling-in-the-dark Cornell
team, earning a big victory.
Believe me, I don't mean any disrespect to the Skating Dutchmen. But
this loss was embarrassing to the Cornell team -- probably their worst
one since a horrible Army squad defeated the Big Red in the first game
of the 1986-87 season. The way Union played, they would have given
Cornell a lot of trouble anyway, but the Big Red did a nice job of
shooting itself in the foot. Parris Duffus did have by far his worst
game of the year, but the blame for this one has to be spread among a
number of players. With the exception of Phil Nobel, who scored twice
and was generally all over the ice, the whole Cornell squad played
dismally, perhaps expecting Union to roll over the way they had in
Schenectady.
OK, enough grumbling. Union's first goal, at 2:49 of the first period,
was set up by a defensive giveaway to Dalton Menhall, who skated in on
a 2-on-1 with Jon Quint. Menhall drew Duffus to the side of the net,
then quick-passed over to Quint who had the whole left side of the goal
yawning in front of him. Craig Ferrero shocked the Big Red less than a
minute later, as he pounced on the puck after Duffus kicked it aside
and fired it home.
By the time the second period rolled around, the Union players were
feeling so good about their two-goal lead that they indulged in a
little one-upmanship with the Lynah Faithful. Quint was called for a
penalty early in the second, and he faked the crowd into hollering "See
ya!" too early by touching the door to the box, then quickly skating
backward. Actually, this was funny to see -- he and Whitney, who was
serving a misconduct, were gesturing back and forth, and it looked like
Whitney was saying, "Yeah, do it!" However, Cornell cut the deficit to
one on the ensuing power play. Union goalie Luigi Villa made a pad
save on Todd Chambers' shot from deep to the right side of the goal,
but Joe Dragon got the rebound and flipped it over Villa's leg.
A few minutes later, Union's Chris Albert hooked Dave Burke into the
goal post, and Burke collapsed to the ice, where he stayed for several
scary minutes. I'm not sure, but I think Rick Clifford may have hooked
Cornell trainer Ray Barile as Barile went out to look at Burke. What I
saw was Clifford's stick in the air and Barile hollering at him. Any-
way, nothing came of it. The situation looked so bad that Cornell
coach Brian McCutcheon left the bench and went to investigate, but
Burke got up and was able to continue. With 4:15 left in the second,
Alex Nikolic appeared to tie the game, but referee Tim MacConaghy ruled
that the puck had been kicked in.
Duffus showed flashes of his former self late in the second period,
particularly when Albert raced in on a short-handed breakaway. Albert
skated wide to the left side of the goal, but Duffus denied him with a
beautiful pad save. The crowd was still reacting to that seconds later
when Phil Nobel had a breakaway of his own at the other end, beating
Villa between the pads at the 17:09 mark. An assist was given to
Duffus on the play -- the third of his career, which I believe ties the
Cornell record for scoring by a goalie.
It took Union only 57 seconds to shut the Lynah Faithful up, as Corey
Holbrough swatted home a loose puck to put Union back on top 3-2.
Although it was not the game-winner, this goal could be considered a
critical one. This was the ninth time this season that Cornell had
trailed going into the third period, and they had not won in the
previous eight (0-7-1). The Big Red was down by only one goal in six
of those nine games. It looked like this one would end differently
after Cornell got a couple of power plays early in the third and after
Jim McPhee broke up a Union 3-on-1 attempt perfectly about six minutes
in. Tyler McManus redirected a Jake Karam cross-ice pass into the net
at the 10:43 mark to tie the game, and that fired up Cornell for a
while, but Union scored a pair of goals a few minutes later to all but
put the game out of reach. Bill Railton's high, soft backhander
bounced off Duffus' arm and in at 13:55, and then Duffus went the wrong
way on a weak shot by Menhall and the puck rolled right past his feet.
That was it for the Cornell netminder, who was benched for the first
time in his career. Yes, I expected to see Andy Bandurski in this
game, but not under these circumstances.
Nobel scored off a scramble in front of Villa with 4:18 to go, when his
tough angle shot ricocheted into the net off the goalie's stick, but
that would be Cornell's last real threat. Bandurski made only two
saves, but one was a nice stuff of a breakaway attempt by Jayson
Flowers a minute after Nobel's goal. Bandurski was pulled with a
minute left, but the puck was trickling toward the open net as he left.
It drifted wide, but Menhall's empty-netter came later -- a high shot
that a Cornell defender got a glove on but could not redirect.
A couple of other notes: I was not happy with the fact that Union's
big victory celebration took place on Cornell's ice, but let's face it,
those guys have had a tough season, and they deserved the win and the
party that followed. You couldn't help but feel good for them.
Several local newspapers also made reference to a "teary-eyed" Union
coach Bruce Delventhal, and he certainly had reason for being
emotional. And I have to commend the Union fans who made the trip down
for being very courteous, at least the ones I sat near. Naturally,
they cheered for the Dutchmen, but they also graciously applauded
whenever Cornell did something good -- not that that happened very
often, but it was nice.
Playoff possibilities (and there are a number of them) to follow in a
separate posting. The schedule for the final weekend of the ECAC's regular
season:
Feb. 28
Brown at St. Lawrence
Colgate at Vermont
Cornell at Dartmouth
Harvard at Clarkson
Princeton at Union
Yale at RPI
Feb. 29
Brown at Clarkson
Colgate at Dartmouth
Cornell at Vermont
Harvard at St. Lawrence
Princeton at RPI
Yale at Union
--
Bill Fenwick | Send your HOCKEY-L poll responses to:
Cornell '86 and probably '94 | [log in to unmask]
LET'S GO RED!!
"I'm not allowed to say anything about the officiating, even if it's bad. I'm
not allowed to talk about the officiating, even if it's pathetic."
-- BU head coach Jack Parker after the Feb. 14th game between BU and Lowell,
in which the officiating did leave a little to be desired
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