1/25/93 Hockey East Overall GP W-L-T Pts GF-GA || GP W-L-T GF-GA =============================================== 1 Maine 12 11-0-1 23 87-28 || 26 24-0-2 175-58 2 Boston University 14 9-4-1 19 70-45 || 22 15-5-2 107-66 3 New Hampshire 13 7-5-1 15 71-61 || 23 12-9-2 109-94 4 UMass-Lowell 13 7-6-0 14 58-51 || 24 15-9-0 103-84 5 Northeastern 14 5-8-1 11 60-75 || 21 8-12-1 93-116 6 Providence 14 4-8-2 10 51-69 || 24 11-11-2 102-97 7 Boston College 13 3-8-2 8 41-63 || 23 6-13-4 70-107 8 Merrimack 13 3-10-0 6 46-92 || 23 9-12-2 91-121 RESULTS 01/22/93 Maine 8 at Boston College 1 HE 01/22/93 Northeastern 3 at UMass-Lowell 5 HE 01/22/93 Boston University 3 at New Hampshire 1 HE 01/22/93 Merrimack 4 at Providence 9 HE 01/23/93 New Hampshire 6 at Boston University 4 HE 01/23/93 Providence 2 at Merrimack 3 HE ot 01/23/93 UMass-Lowell 8 at Northeastern 5 HE 01/24/93 Maine 4 at Boston College 1 HE UPCOMING 01/27/93 UMass-Lowell at Boston University HE 01/27/93 Boston College at Merrimack HE 01/27/93 Providence at Northeastern HE 01/29/93 Merrimack at Boston College HE 01/29/93 Boston University at UMass-Lowell HE 01/29/93 Maine at New Hampshire HE NESN 01/29/93 Northeastern at Providence HE 01/30/93 Maine at New Hampshire HE 02/01/93 Boston College vs Boston University NC Beanpot (Boston, MA) 9:00 02/01/93 Northeastern vs Harvard NC Beanpot (Boston, MA) 6:00 THIS PAST WEEKEND MAINE SWEEPS BC Maine returned to league action by continuing its winning ways, taking a pair at BC by the combined score of 12-2, although the second game (4-1) proved to be a lot tougher than the first. The Eagles employed a defense using players spread out along the blue line, preventing the quick-skating Maine forwards from carrying the puck into the zone. Mike Sparrow was outstanding in net for the Eagles with 39 saves. On Friday, Mike Dunham came about as close as you can get to posting a shutout for the Black Bears, but Ian Moran scored with three seconds left for BC to foil the bid. Paul Kariya led Maine with 2 goals and 5 assists on the weekend. See below for more on Kariya and his assault on the record books. TAKE TWO: CHIEFS BROOM HUSKIES UMass-Lowell pulled off a sweep of Northeastern to vault over the Huskies and into fourth place. After Friday's 5-3 win, the Chiefs roared out to a 7-0 lead halfway through Saturday's game and held off a ferocious comeback to win, 8-5. Shane Henry and Ian Hebert each had a hat trick and two assists to spark the Chiefs. For the Huskies, of note is that deaf goaltender Elijah Gold made what I believe was his first-ever start and after the Chiefs went up 7-0, he allowed only one goal the remaining 29:02 of the game and stopped a total of 26 shots. The only other action I know of Gold seeing was when he played the final few minutes of NU's 9-2 win over Merrimack earlier in the season. CATS AND DOGS TANGLE; NOTHING DECIDED In a showdown of the 2nd- and 3rd-place teams in HE, BU and UNH each took a win at the other's rink. Friday, Scott Cashman stopped 37 shots as BU won, 3-1. Saturday, after falling behind 4-2 after two, the Wildcats scored the game's final four goals and won, 6-4, to break BU's 13-game unbeaten streak and hand the Terriers their first loss since they fell to Princeton 3-2 on November 28th. BU had also been unbeaten in its last 9 Hockey East games. UNH goalie Brett Abel stopped 36 of 40 shots, while teammates Kent Schmidtke (two goals), Jesse Cooper (1-1--2, GWG) and Glenn Stewart (1-1--2) also played key roles in the win. Steve Thornton (2-0--2), David Sacco (1-1--2), Jay Pandolfo (0-2--2), and Doug Friedman (1-1--2) all had multiple-point nights for the Terriers. BATTLE OF CATHOLICS COMES OUT EVEN Providence and Merrimack also split a home-and-home with each team winning at home. Friday, the Friars belted Merrimack 9-4, with the new line of Brian Ridolfi (3-2--5), Bob Cowan (4-2--6) and Craig Darby (0-5--5, ties HE record for assists in a game) all having career nights in combining for 7 goals and 9 assists. Saturday, Merrimack's Teal Fowler unofficially had both the game-tying and game-winning goals as he scored with 3 seconds left to force overtime and then deflected home a shot by Dan Hodge with 23 seconds left in OT to give Merrimack a 3-2 win. Merrimack is 2-0-2 in overtime this year with both wins coming against PC, and while PC is 4-2-2 in OT, both of their losses have come to Merrimack. WARRIORS TAKE ONLY THIRD SEASON SERIES EVER With the win, Merrimack took the season series from Providence 2 games to 1, the first time they have done that against the Friars since joining HE in 1989. In fact, the only two series left that Merrimack can win this year (they COULD tie with Maine, BU and NU) are against BC and UMass-Lowell. Before this season, Merrimack had taken only two of 21 season series through three years, and both of those were with Northeastern. NO SISTER-KISSING ALLOWED IN NORTH ANDOVER Merrimack also avoided tying its first HE game ever. Through 3 1/2 seasons, Merrimack has played 76 games in HE play, winning 17 and losing 59 with no ties. The Warriors have gone to overtime four times in those 76 games and won three of them. Other than the two wins this season over PC, Merrimack has both won and lost single OT games against Northeastern since entering the league. NEXT WEEK: ACTION STARTS EARLY Only a few days' rest before six of the eight teams get back into action with three games coming at mid-week, this Wednesday. Providence is at Northeastern (NESN), UMass-Lowell plays at BU, and Merrimack entertains BC. The teams swap sites for rematches just two days later on Friday. Maine and UNH will not be in action Wednesday, but the teams will play a pair at UNH Fri-Sat with Friday's game on NESN. BEANS, BOSTON GARDEN STYLE The reason for the rare mid-week slate of games is the 41st annual Beanpot Hockey Tournament, in which BC, BU and NU will all see action next Monday, February 1st. All three will be off Saturday night and will have three days' rest heading into that tournament's first round at the Garden. NU will play ECAC leader Harvard in the opening game of the Beanpot at 6 pm, and BC and BU will meet for the fourth time this season (BU has won all 3) at about 9 pm. NESN will show both opening round games with former NESN and current Red Sox/CBS/ESPN announcer Sean McDonough calling the action, I believe. The championship game will be live on WSBK-TV38 at 8 pm 2/8/93, and WSBK is available on basic cable throughout much of the United States. I'D LIKE TO GET TO KNOW YOU... With the way the scheduling is this season, Merrimack and Providence will each be playing their next opponent three straight times over a span of 10 days. Merrimack has BC, twice at Merrimack, and Providence has NU, twice at NU. The advantage could go to the non-Beanpot teams who will have nothing but BC/NU to think about for the next week and a half, although BC and NU will probably be less rusty with only four days between the Beanpot and next Friday's games as opposed to MC/PC which will have to sit around for a week. But what makes these games interesting is the potential effect upon the standings that they could have. NU is one point ahead of PC in 5th, and BC is two points ahead of Merrimack in 7th. THE MAINE THING The Black Bears tied the HE record for longest regular season unbeaten streak (12 games) with their 4-1 win at BC Sunday. The Black Bears are 11-0-1 this season in HE. They tied the record set by the 1991-92 Maine squad, which went unbeaten in its last 12. Maine can set a new record Friday night when it travels to UNH, a game that will be shown live on NESN. Maine is unbeaten in its last 24 HE games. Maine also tied the HE mark for most consecutive league wins (10) with its win Sunday, and can also break THAT record with a win Friday at UNH. The old record was set by the 1987-88 Maine team. As far as Division I records go, at 24-0-2, the Black Bears are 7 games away from tying the modern record for unbeaten streak in a season. RPI went its last 33 games without a loss in 1984-85. Maine could equal this on 2/19/93 against BU. That appears to be the next milestone other than the HE records mentioned above. KARIYA WATCH Paul Kariya picked up a goal and two assists in Friday's 8-1 win by Maine, and after his four points (1-3--4) led Maine to a 4-1 win on Sunday afternoon, the freshman sensation had totals of 16-44--60 in 20 games for an even 3.00 points per game. He remains the leading scorer in HE league games with 9-30--39 in 12 HE games. Kariya is still on pace to break the HE season assist (51, Craig Janney, BC, 1986-87) and point (74, Janney, 86-87) records. In the next couple of weeks, he could break two HE records: assists by a freshman (36, Ken Hodge Jr., BC, 1984-85) and points by a freshman (49, Hodge, 84-85). From last week's HE release dated Jan 18, the players of the week were: HE PLAYER OF THE WEEK Chad Quenneville, So C, Providence: Quenneville notched three goals and three assists against St Lawrence, including the game winning goal in a 6-1 win on Friday. Honor Roll: Michael Spalla, BC; Ken Rausch, BU; Cal Ingraham, Maine; Mike Murray, UMass-Lowell; Eric Flinton, UNH. HE ROOKIE OF THE WEEK (tie) Jeff Daw, C, UMass-Lowell: Daw tallied one goal and four assists on the weekend against Merrimack, including the game winning goal on Friday night [this is incorrect since Merrimack won this game - mike] and an assist on the game-winner Saturday. Dan McGillis, D, Northeastern: McGillis exploded on the weekend against UNH with two goals and three assists for five points. He scored two goals and one assist in the Friday loss and contributed two assists in the win on Saturday. Honor Roll: Paul Kariya, Maine; Jay Kenney, Providence. Two other boxes from this past weekend that haven't been posted: Fri 1/22/93 at Conte Forum, Chestnut Hill, MA Maine (23-0-2, 10-0-1 HE 1st) 0 5 3 - 8 Boston College (6-12-4, 3-7-2 HE 7th) 0 0 1 - 1 FIRST: No scoring. SECOND: M, Paul Kariya (Lee Saunders) 6:13; M, Dave LaCouture (Martin Mercier, Andy Silverman) 8:03; M, Cal Ingraham (Jim Montgomery, Dave MacIsaac) 10:55; M, Ingraham (MacIsaac, Kariya) 15:06; M, Montgomery (Kariya) 19:16. THIRD: M, Chris Ferraro (Chris Imes) 4:58; M, Eric Fenton (Imes) 5:24; M, C. Ferraro (Kent Salfi) 7:00; BC, Ian Moran (un) 19:57. SAVES: M, Mike Dunham 28. BC, Mike Sparrow 29, Scott Caulfield 5. Sat 1/23/93 at Matthews Arena, Boston, MA UMass-Lowell (15-9-0, 7-6-0 HE 4th) 4 3 1 - 8 Northeastern (8-12-1, 5-8-1 HE 5th) 0 3 2 - 5 FIRST: ML, Shane Henry (un) 1:09; ML, Dan O'Connell (un) 8:00; ML, Henry (Ian Hebert) 11:15; ML, Henry (Hebert, O'Connell) 16:18. SECOND: ML, Hebert (Henry) 5:12; ML, Hebert (David Mayes) 7:02; ML, Mike Murray (Keith Carney) 10:58; NU, Sebastien Laplante (Bob Kellogg, Mike Taylor) 14:21; NU, Jay Schiavo (Tom O'Connor) 15:17; NU, Jordan Shields (Kellogg, Schiavo) 17:43. THIRD: NU, Tomas Persson (Mike Collett, Tommy Parlon) 5:38; NU, J.F. Aube (Taylor, Shields) 9:35; ML, Hebert (Henry, Aaron Kriss) 15:47. SAVES: ML, Dwayne Roloson 26. NU, Elijah Gold 26. --- Mike Machnik [log in to unmask] Color Voice of the Merrimack Warriors (Any opinions expressed above are strictly those of the poster.) *HMN*