Brown once again played a lackluster game against a team they needed to beat to
 remain in solo possession of 2nd place tonight.  Brown opened the scoring midw
ay through the 1st period on a goal by Ryan Mulhern.  The bears generally contr
olled play until about 8:00 of the 2nd period, when Union tallied to tie the sc
ore 1-1.  They scored later in the period on a 5-3 power play to make it 2-1 Un
ion.  Brown managed to tie the game midway through the final frame on a weak sh
ot by Marty Clapton.  The critical moment occurred with approx. 1:40 to go, whe
n the puck was not covered up by Geoff Finch and the puck was pushed into the g
oal during the ensuing pileup.  This questionable goal, along with the minor pe
nalty also called on the play left the Bears a man down for the remaining porti
on of the game.  The game ended 3-2 Union.
 
     Brown somehow managed a whopping 54 shots on Mike Gallant, the Union goali
e, while Union had approx. 32 on Geoff Finch.  The total for Brown seems extrem
ely high, as Brown did not have that many good scoring chances.  The real star
of the game was Geoff Finch, as the Brown defense once again failed to show and
 Geoff was left to stop about 4 breakaways.  Union, despite allowing the shots,
 played a excellent defensive game, always putting a player on the attacking Br
own forwards.  Gallant was consistent in goal behing his defense.
 
    Cerbo and Belanger called a fairly good game, except for the final penalty
on the goal by Union which killed any hope for the Bears.  The crowd at Meehan
was also very uninspired by the play by Brown, who will probably need to win th
e ECAC tournament to make it to the NCAA tournament again this year, which is u
nlikely due to the inconsistent  play down the stretch (losses to Yale, Dartmou
th and Union in consecutive weeks).
                                          Philip Johnson
                                          Brown '96