Icemen Suffer Four Setbacks During Vacation Competition

The Harvard hockey team ended the Me Decade with a stirring display of unselfishness, dropping four straight over vacation by a combined score of 30-11.

Fortunately for the icemen, only one of the losses may come back to haunt them. That setback occurred at the then-still-intact Bright Hockey Center on December 15, when Ivy and ECAC Division I rival Dartmouth jumped out to an early 3-0 lead and coasted to a 5-2 victory.

Sporting an 0-1-1 Ivy record and a 3-3-1 mark in ECAC Division I play, the Crimson then caught a jet for the coast, there to absorb a few rays on the beach, survey the flora and fauna of the San Diego Zoo, barter in the squalor-surrounded markets of Tijuana...and lose three hockey games, very convincingly.

Not That Kind of Guy

"It wasn't the hockey kind of trip," commented freshman defenseman Mark Fusco--with reason. United States International University (USIU), an independent team stocked with talent and experience, blew the Crimson out of the rinky-dink Mira Mesa House of Ice in San Diego on December 18 and 19, 7-2 and 8-3. Two nights later, Colorado College broke open a close game by exploding for six goals in the third period and a 10-4 win at Broadmoor World Arena in Colorado Springs.

On the Beach?

There were some bright spots to remember from the trip, but most of them occurred off the ice. When play was on, Fusco (three goals) and Tom Murray (two goals and an assist) led Crimson scorers out west with three points apiece.

"The "ocean blue and sun gold" USIU "Soaring Gulls" peppered Harvard goalies Wade Lau and John Hynes with 97 shots, as Harvard never challenged USIU in their first encounter and then fell apart in the third period of the second. "California," summed up Dave Burke, "was disillusioning."

The Crimson did make a game of it in Colorado Springs, however, charging back from a 4-0 deficit after the opening 20 minutes with three power-play markers-- two slapshots from the point by Fusco, and one by Bobby Fowkes--during a penalty- filled second period. (Officials whistled 30 minors on the night, 18 against CC and 12 on Harvard.)

But dreams of an upset died quickly as the Tigers (ranked seventh in the country) rammed two shots past Lau in the first 34 seconds of the final period and never looked back. Appropriately enough, the icemen were then snowed in for four hours at Denver airport before flying home.

Arriving home with a 3-6-1 record overall, the Crimson now can look forward to a pair of crucial Division I confrontations this weekend.