It was quite a weekend for the ECAC's Road Warriors, as Clarkson's loss to St. Lawrence ended their home unbeaten streak at 28 (during which the Golden Knights went 27-0-1), and Princeton managed to double their victory total this season with a pair of wins at Notre Dame. Clarkson's loss to the Saints means that neither team in this rivalry has beaten the other in front of the home folks since the ECAC quarterfinal series between these two in 1990. Results from the weekend: Friday, December 13: St. Lawrence 4, CLARKSON 3 Princeton 5, NOTRE DAME 4 Saturday, December 14: Princeton 6, NOTRE DAME 4 ECAC standings as of 12/16/91: League Overall Team W L T Pts GF GA W L T Pts GF GA ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Yale 6 0 1 13 39 25 6 0 1 13 39 25 St. Lawrence 6 1 0 12 41 24 8 3 1 17 70 46 Clarkson 6 1 0 12 38 19 10 2 0 20 67 34 Harvard 4 1 2 10 34 18 4 1 2 10 34 18 Brown 3 3 1 7 29 31 3 4 1 7 34 40 Cornell 2 2 2 6 18 17 2 4 2 6 22 25 Princeton 2 6 0 4 33 37 4 6 0 8 44 45 Vermont 2 4 0 4 21 27 5 5 0 10 42 35 Dartmouth 1 3 0 2 10 29 1 4 0 2 12 32 Colgate 1 3 0 2 16 24 1 6 1 3 28 43 RPI 1 5 0 2 14 28 5 6 0 10 40 50 Union 0 5 0 0 12 26 1 6 0 2 28 38 I thought I'd give your eyeballs a rest by not doing my usual lengthy summaries (especially since Cornell didn't play last weekend). Brian Farenell asked me to post his summary of the St. Lawrence - Clarkson game, so here it is: ---------- ST LAWRENCE at CLARKSON; 12/13/91 ECAC GAME 1 2 3 T St Lawrence Saints 2 2 0 4 Clarkson Golden Knights 1 1 1 3 SHOTS on GOAL St Lawrence 14-10-6 =30 Clarkson 11-13-13 =37 GOALIES Spagnoletti, SLU Rogles, CU POWER PLAYS SLU 2 for 5 Clarkson 0 for 7 (!!!!) ATTENDANCE- 3615 (seating capacity-3000) OFFICIALS- Ref Harry Ammian, Linemen John Murnane and Joseph Kelly SCORING 8:11-1st SLU Albert (8) from Wells and Beattie 14:27-1st CU Marchant (6) from Theriault 16:33-1st SLU Dent (1) from McGeough 9:31-2nd SLU M.LaCroix (11) from M.Lappin, E.LaCroix [PPG] 18:38-2nd CU Thomas (5) unassisted 19:40-2nd SLU E.LaCroix (6) from LaPerriere and M.Lappin [GWG,PPG] 5:15-3rd CU Thomas 2(6) from Dubinsky ANALYSIS 1ST PERIOD Both teams skated well early but Clarkson was haunted by 2 key saves early by SLU goalie Spagnoletti. This seemed to let the air out of their attack. After SLU's first goal, the Saints totally dominated play. They were skating much better than the Knights and were basically outplaying in every aspect of the game. 2ND PERIOD Much like last Sat.'s win against RPI, Clarkson had a terrible time clearing the zone against SLU's point men, who acquitted themselves qutie nicely. The main difference in the two teams was that SLU really controlled the play in the Clarkson zone but Clarkson's offense could usually only get one shot on Spagnoletti before SLU regained control. Clarkson got a lucky break when LaPerriere turned it over to the forechecking Thomas who then put one past Spagnoletti. But SLU came right back 1:02 later as Eric LaCroix blasted a centering pass from the slot past a helpless Rogles. 3RD PERIOD was totally the antithesis of the 1st and 2nd. Thomas' second goal of the game really revived the listless crowd and did the same for the Knights. They really outworked and dominated play as SLU seemed content to just dump it out of their zone when getting control. They weren't skating at all in the third. Clarkson had several opportunities as they hit the post 3 times (2 by Hugo Belanger) and Ed Sabo missed 3 empty nets. One of which he received a pass while Spagnoletti was down and instead of shooting it immediately, he tried to wrestle himself free of the defenseman and the puck just trickled to Spagnoletti who covered up. Clarkson's task was made more difficult when Guy Sanderson was given a tripping minor with 2:55 left (and was given a game misconduct). SLU did nothing on the powerplay and with 0:43 left was given a too many men penalty. Clarkson forced Spagnoletti to make several good saves and with 0:11 left Clarkson was called for an intentional off sides. I thought that Tuomainen was skating back to the blueline and was almost there when a teammate passed to him but the linesman saw it differently. With the faceoff now down in front of Rogles instead of just outside the SLU zone, Clarkson's task was almost impossible and SLU held on for the 4-3 win snapping Clarkson's 29 (?) game home unbeaten streak. NOTES Clarkson fell into the trap that it has so often before this season, they only played well for one period. They did the same thing in the BC, UVM and RPI games but got away with it, but tonight their luck ran out. They have to learn to play 60 minutes of hockey if they want toavoid this situation again...despite his turnover to Thomas, LaPerriere and played quite well in the game, as did SLU's other defensemen. Especially at keeping the puck in the zone...Clarkson coach Mark Morris was burned once again for going out of rotation. According tohis rotation, it was Jason Currie's turn to start in goal but Morris decided to go with Rogles. Morris broke his rotation twice last season, and lost both times (in all fairness to Rogles, he had little chance on 3 of the goals)...I was kind of disappointed in some of the fans I talked to after the game. They were all making excuses about how CU was missing 3 players and how we hit 3 posts and all kinds of other excuses. Few, if any, mentioned the real reasons we lost: we only played 20 minutes of good hockey; and Spagnoletti stood on his head for those 20 minutes. In all fairness, Spagnoletti was unequivicobly (sp?) the player of the game... Clarkson's next (non-exhibition) game comes against Ohio St. in the Syracuse Tournament while (I believe) SLU's next action will be in the Dexter Tournament... No other scores to report as this was the only ECAC action of the weekend [end of Brian's message] Once again, this week's ECAC schedule is an abbreviated one. After Christmas, several ECAC teams will be involved in tournaments, but there will be no more league games until January 3 (except for the first-round RPI Invitational game between RPI and Union, which will count in the league standings). Games this week: Dec. 18 Princeton at Northeastern (NC) Dec. 19 Colgate at Mercyhurst (NC) Dec. 20 Dartmouth at Boston University (NC) Yaroslavl (Soviet Army) at Vermont (NC) Dec. 21 Yaroslavl (Soviet Army) at St. Lawrence (NC) -- Bill Fenwick | Send your HOCKEY-L poll responses to: Cornell '86 and probably '94 | [log in to unmask] LET'S GO RED!! "I did something kind of dumb yesterday. My friend has a car phone, and I called him up on it. I don't know what I was thinking -- I let the phone ring eleven times." -- Joe Bolster