Most of the ECAC teams are going on exam break starting this week, so last weekend's schedule was the last almost-full slate of games that we'll see until January. I know most, if not all, of the scores of games involving ECAC teams have already been posted, but I'll summarize 'em again because it helps me think :-) Friday, 12/7: Clarkson 8, PRINCETON 6 COLGATE 4, Brown 3 CORNELL 4, Yale 2 HARVARD 8, Vermont 2 St. Lawrence 2, ARMY 2 (OT) NEW HAMPSHIRE 4, Rpi 3 (NLG) Saturday, 12/8: Clarkson 3, ARMY 1 CORNELL 7, Brown 1 Rpi 8, HARVARD 7 (OT) St. Lawrence 6, PRINCETON 3 Yale 4, COLGATE 1 ECAC Standings as of 12/10/90: League Overall Team W L T Pts GF GA W L T Pts GF GA ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Harvard 7 2 0 14 66 31 7 4 0 14 67 37 St. Lawrence 6 2 1 13 41 35 8 4 1 17 60 48 Cornell 5 1 2 12 37 25 6 1 2 14 45 28 Clarkson 5 3 1 11 42 38 9 3 1 19 74 50 RPI 5 2 0 10 36 30 7 5 0 14 62 56 Yale 4 3 1 9 33 31 5 4 1 11 41 42 Vermont 4 3 1 9 28 28 5 6 1 11 41 49 Colgate 2 4 2 6 31 38 7 4 2 16 60 55 Princeton 3 6 0 6 41 40 3 7 0 6 43 47 Army 1 6 2 4 23 37 3 7 3 9 47 49 Brown 1 6 1 3 20 44 1 7 2 4 27 57 Dartmouth 0 5 1 1 13 34 0 5 1 1 13 34 Notes on a few games: Colgate 4, Brown 3 This wound up being a hard-fought game. Jamie Cooke led the Red Raiders with two goals and an assist, as Colgate scored all four of their goals in the second period, during which they outshot the Bears 18-6. Brown defenseman Jamie O'Brien suffered a hip pointer in this game and will be out for some unspecified length of time. Cornell 4, Yale 2 It's pretty clear what Cornell coach Brian McCutcheon and his team worked on in the wake of the Harvard debacle on November 30. In their previous four league games, the Big Red had allowed the opposition to score first, but they came out on fire in this one and did not let Yale get much of anything started. Actually, "on fire" is a bit of an understatement, as the Big Red outshot the Elis by the slightly unbelievable margin of 23-3 in the first period (they had a 46-19 advantage for the entire game). Only the spectacular goaltending of Yale's Ray Letourneau kept this one from becoming a rout early, as Cornell managed only one goal in the opening period, on a snap shot by Doug Derraugh from the slot at 9:57. While Letourneau was putting on a show between the pipes, his defense wasn't helping him much, as they were largely unable to clear the rebounds. The Big Red put loose pucks past the Yale goalie twice in the second period to take a 3-0 lead, as Stephane Gauvin flipped one in at 2:31 and Kent Manderville rifled a shot under Letourneau's leg at 10:29. Yale came back with a goal with less than two minutes left in the second on a great play by Jeff Blaeser and Mark Kaufmann. Blaeser back-passed the puck to a streaking Kaufmann, who slapped it past Cornell goaltender Corrie D'Alessio. Ryan Hughes made it 4-1 a minute and a half into the third, after picking up another loose rebound. Letourneau went down to block a shot by Trent Andison, and Hughes lifted the puck over the goalie's shoulder. Yale's Jeff Lavish scored on a slap shot through D'Alessio's pads at 8:57 of the third, but by then it was too late. D'Alessio finished with 17 saves, while Letourneau had 42. There were some interesting line combinations for the Big Red in this game -- most notably, Kent Manderville was replaced on the first line by Jason Vogel, perhaps in an attempt to balance out the other three lines. Whatever was going on, it seemed to work pretty well. Referee Wayne Houmiel, who I don't recall having seen for quite a while, "let 'em play" for most of the game, as he called no penalties in the first period and only seven all night. The game was pretty clean, but Houmiel definitely let some things go that might have warranted a call or two. Still, at least he didn't try to take over the game, as so many other ECAC refs have done in the past... Cornell 7, Brown 1 There were a couple of surprises lineup-wise for the Big Red in this one. First, Corrie D'Alessio started in goal instead of Jim Crozier, breaking the alternate-nights rotation that these two had been in. Actually, Crozier hardly participated in the pre-game warmups and was skating rather slowly, so he may have been sick or injured. Another interesting move was putting Kent Manderville on the fourth line with Jim McPhee and Shaun Hannah, but this one may have been a stroke of genius, as this line combined to score four of the Big Red's seven goals. Maybe it's not exactly a "fourth line" after all. As for the game itself, well, the Big Red scored four times in the first and pretty much put it away. McPhee got Cornell going with a terrific individual effort, as he reached up to snag a high pass, dropped the puck to the ice, and shot it over Brown goalie Geoff Finch at the 3:12 mark. McPhee, a junior, was a defenseman last season and saw very limited varsity action (two games). This year, he was shifted to center, and presto! Instant goal-scorer (okay, this one was only his second of the year, but he also picked up a couple of assists in this game). At any rate, the Big Red made it 2-0 at the midpoint of the first period when Ryan Hughes poked the puck into the net off a rebound of a Dan Ratushny shot (by the way, Ratushny did not look 100% this night, either -- he appeared to be skating at about half speed). A couple of minutes later, referee John Gallagher got caught in the middle of a pileup in the Brown zone and fell to the ice. He was down for several minutes, but fortunately he recovered and was able to continue. Shaun Hannah picked up his first career goal at 12:33 of the first, and Etienne Belzile made it 4-0 with a couple minutes left in the period when he blasted one in from the left faceoff circle. Finch left the game after the first period, having made only three saves, and Brett Haywood was in goal the rest of the way for Brown. It didn't make much difference to the Big Red, who picked up right where they left off in the second period. Manderville took a feed from McPhee and blew one by Haywood from the left circle at the 3:25 mark. Tim Chase put the Bears on the board at 5:55 of the second when he shot the puck past a screened D'Alessio from the left point, but it took Cornell just over two minutes to re-establish its five goal lead. Doug Derraugh passed to Joe Dragon as Dragon was skating by the Brown goal, and Dragon wristed the puck between Haywood's pads. With 2:17 left in the second, the Big Red made it 7-1 when Manderville tipped in McPhee's blast from the left circle. Freshman Parris Duffus (and once again, Cornell fans, it's "DUFF-us", not "DOO-fus"!) came in to play goal for Cornell with about ten minutes left in the game, and he looked a little nervous, overreacting on a couple of Brown shots. He did pick up four saves, however. D'Alessio finished with 18, while Haywood stopped 30 shots in his two periods of work. Next up for the Big Red is an eight-game road trip, their longest since the 1974-75 season, which will take them almost to the end of January. (Whose bright idea was that?!) Kent Manderville will miss the next four Cornell games, as he will again be playing for Canada in the World Junior Championships. This week's somewhat abbreviated schedule of ECAC and ECAC-related games: Dec. 12 RPI at Dartmouth Dec. 14 Princeton at Colorado College (NLG) Dec. 15 Dartmouth at Harvard Princeton at Colorado College (NLG) Bill Fenwick Cornell '86 LET'S GO RED!! "But weightlifting misses the whole point. It amazes me that no one has ever figured this out. A man can make any part of his body HUGE -- except one. And that, by contrast, looks smaller." -- Larry Miller