A little more about the RPI-Union matchup from last night. I did think Union put in a good effort and it took some big plays from Mike Tamburro and some shots that went just wide that cost Union a few chances to tie it up. Even so, Union's only goal came on a 5 on 3 power play advantage. You can only say "we're just missing the net" and "we ran into another hot goalie" so many times. But it was still a fun game to watch, and Union had some good chances to tie with a power play and their net empty before Tim Regan hit the empty net on a tough shot from center ice. A few other things about the game and the rivalry: - Oranges. For those who don't know, this has been going on for at least the 8 years I've been watching Union hockey. Before Union joined the ECAC, it was Union and Hamilton whose fans threw oranges at each others' teams. When that rivalry ended, I guess RPI became an instant rival and the "tradition" continued. While I've never thrown one or even brought one in, I did take one home after one of the games against Hamilton a few years back. The goalie who was the target of the oranges that night was Guy Hebert, who is just a little more well-known today.. - Goalies being checked/crashed into. I've never seen anything like it. Tamburro was checked or crashed into a few times and Shtrom at least once. A few resulted in penalties. The last one, when Union's Mark Szucs crashed into Tamburro as he skated from behind the net to get back into his crease, seemed to be a fairly solid hit which Tamburro apparently didn't see coming. I'll admit that I don't really know the rule, but isn't there some limit to how much a goalie can come out to play the puck in traffic before he becomes fair game, at least to unintentional contact? Union's Trevor Koenig probably comes out to play the puck as much as anyone, and I've never seen him get in the way of the skaters. - Nets coming off. Anyone know how the net came off behind Tamburro when the play was in the other end, only to be noticed as Union was breaking in? - Achilles Crowd. It was a good crowd, and you could really tell the people were into this one right from the beginning. A far cry from what we saw at the fieldhouse last week when it seemed that half of the fans showed up late and didn't make a whole lot of noise until late. I have concluded that the DJ who plays music for Union in place of/in addition to a band doesn't really pay a whole lot of attention to what's going on in the game. More than once, the crowd was doing very well on its own getting into the game only to have their cheers drowned out by YMCA blaring yet again. -- Jim Teresco - [log in to unmask] - http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~terescoj/ Research Assistant, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Department of Computer Science, Scientific Computation Research Center HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.