Dartmouth Spanks Icemen in Season Opener, 7-2

HANOVER, N.H.--The Dartmouth hockey team took advantage of virtual game-long sluggishness by Harvard, and got some solid net-minding from sophomore Bob Gaudet to boot, en route to a 7-2 triumph here last night.

The Crimson had seemingly gotten over its first-game disorientation by the end of the second period, but surprised everyone by saving its least productive hockey for the final stanza.

Though outshooting the Big Green in the third, Harvard let a 4-2 second-period margin balloon into the 7-2 final score.

Six different players tallied the seven goals for Dartmouth. Dean McCutcheon, Steve Higgins and Chip Bettencourt notched the final three scores that put the game out of reach.

Poor clearing by the Harvard defense plagued the icemen all evening, but at least three of Dartmouth's scores were shots that fooled legitimately nervous freshman goaltender Wade Lau. Whatever the cause, Harvard seemed victimized in its own end from the opening face-off.

Meanwhile, Dartmouth back-liners held Harvard scoring stud George Hughes pointless (a first for Hughes in a season-opening clash), while Gaudet steered aside 35 shots.

More than anything else, anxiety dominated the Harvard attack in the first period, as the Crimson trailed 3-0 with only 8:30 gone in the contest.

Junior center Ross Brownridge tallied first for Dartmouth a scant 1:08 into the game. Brownridge, a second-team all-Ivy performer last season, stole the puck in the Dartmouth zone and, working a give-and-go with wing Rick Ryerson, went down the left wing boards and drove a slap shot by Lau from just inside the blue line.

The Big Green kept the partisan throng roaring in far-from-bucolic Rupert Thompson Arena, scoring goal number two at 2:52. Defensemen Tom Cross let a shot loose from the left point that forward Rick Wilson was able to re-direct in from the slot.

Things cooled off for a while, until Dartmouth parlayed a holding penalty on Jack Hughes into the 3-0 margin. With 25 seconds to go in the man-up situation, Dartmouth mounted one last attack. Lau stopped Dennis Murphy's attempt from the left face-off circle, but center Mark Bedard was there to nail home the rebound.

The icemen managed to settle down and thwart the potential runaway, at least for the moment in the last half of the period. It paid off in a big way.

Eight seconds after Dartmouth had killed off its only penalty of the frame, freshman Scott Powers cranked a blazer from the left point. Rick Benson and Jack Hughes took swipes at the rebound before freshman David Burke got control at the right post and rammed it in for Harvard's first goal of the night, and the season.

It took another three-goal deficit in the second period to force the Crimson into its first and only crack at dominance in the contest. Harvard's all-around tentative play early in the period set up some strong Dartmouth pressure and the Green's fourth goal at 9:21 of the second.

Wilson broke in on the right wing, but his snap shot was stopped by the still stage-frightened Lau. The rebound bounced on the left to Bedard, who fed the puck back to Don O'Brien on the point. O'Brien, who scored the short-handed goal in overtime to win the opener at Watson Rink last season, would be denied this time--but the rebound of the slap shot would not.

Wilson, who for some reason was sitting all alone at the right post, gathered the puck and flipped in his second goal.

So now it was 4-1, and the freshmen realized that there was no need to be nervous, when catching up could be on their minds. Lau came up with some authoritative stops in the cage, and Harvard's offense temporarily jelled in the period's final five minutes. All told, the icemen outshot Dartmouth 15-11 in the stanza.

Freshman Mike Watson added punctuation to pressure, as he notched the Crimson's final goal of the evening at 16:22 to close the gap to two, with one period to go.

The line of Watson, between captain John Cochrane and sophomore Phil Evans, was busy forcing the issue in the Dartmouth zone when Gaudet kicked out Watson's wrister from between the face-off circles.

Suddenly, Watson's line ambushed the Dartmouth cage en masse, batting at the puck until the scoreboard read "Dartmouth 4, Harvard Freshmen 2."

THE NOTEBOOK: The icemen travel to aimless Troy, N.Y., on Saturday for a game with the deceptively tough RPI Engineers. Led by all-ECAC goalie Ian Harrison, RPI has played last-minute spoiler for the Crimson's playoff hopes the last two seasons, sneaking in on both occasions with a strong final month.