Too Many Wilsons Ruin Opener for Icemen, 5-4

It was March hockey in December, the kind of game that chills your insides and turns Watson Rink into a heart attack ward. It was far too much excitement for this early in the season, and it was what very well might have been the best home opener in years. Providence 5, Harvard 4, and it was a lot closer than that.

Basically, the Friars have too many Wilsons on their roster. Senior defenseman and captain Ron tied the game at one early in the second period, sophomore forward Randy and then Ron again broke a 2-2 deadlock early in the final frame for a 4-2 Providence lead, and junior forward Brad was all over the place.

And then after Harvard had gone wild to tie the score, for a second time, midway through the third period, the Wilsons watched from the bench as, with 1:40 remaining, defenseman Steve Roberts fired a mortar from the right point that cleanly beat Brian Petrovek and gave the Friars the victory, their sixth of the young season without a single blemish.

For the Crimson, who now stand 2-1, it was a loss that showed that this team should be able to skate with anybody. Providence was eighth-ranked nationally (third in the east) before the opening face-off, but when the Friars left Cambridge, they were counting their Wilsons.

The wild finish, which saw Harvard get the best opportunities but Providence the goal, was made possible by a ten-minute span of Crimson dominance earlier in the period.

E.O.,Richard and Dennis

After Ron Wilson's second goal at 6:55, the young Harvard offense quickly matured. First, John Cochrane took a pass on the right wing from Randy Millen, skated halfway between the blue line and Friar netminder Ray Moffitt and took a shot that Moffitt won't even find in the lost and found department. That was at 7:48.

Two minutes later, the score was knotted at four, and this time the Crimson had only its skates to thank. Specifically, the left skate of Murray Dea, who couldn't have been positioned in a more propitious spot when Kevin O'Donoghue wheeled around at the point and slid the puck backhanded in the general direction of the goal.

O'Donoghue had simply been trying to keep the puck in the Providence zone, Dea hadn't been trying at all, but when the puck was somehow deflected at just the right angle and behind Moffitt, the latter tried his hardest not to cry.

Earlier, Dea had once before tied things up--midway through the second period--as he took a centering pass from Bill Hozack and beat Moffitt with a soft shot through a screen.

Hozack's first-period tally 11 seconds before the buzzer had given Harvard the initial advantage, but the oldest Wilson set matters straight with a slap shot from the, right point after a non-Crimson clear at 2:23 of the second period.

Core Curriculum

Art Johnston gave the Friars their first lead at 9:29 of the middle frame with a pop fly over a sprawled Petrovek, but then Dean, the Wilsons, Cochrane and Dea again went to work, and with the clock ticking down, it was suddenly 4-4 and this was playoff hockey on the early side.