Huskies Rampage, Tear Icemen, 11-5

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven...We Want More!" --the crowd at the Boston Arena

The Harvard men's hockey team allowed 11 goals last night. As you can probably guess, the team that scored those goals--Northeastern--won the game, tallying six times in the third period to break a 5-5 tie and glide to an 11-5 triumph at the Arena.

In fairness to the Crimson blueliners and goalie Wade Lau, this was in fact only an 8-5 game. The last three goals, all deep into the third period, couldn't have been prevented by a squadron of secret service agents.

This kind of thing doesn't happen to Northeastern very often; when it does the team gets so high it becomes unstoppable.

But you don't allow eight goals and win, not even in Nok Hockey. The ridiculous defensive performance--by both teams--overshadowed the fine work of Harvard's Dave Burke and Jim Turner and Northeastern's Randy Bucyk up front, and even Husky netminder George Demetroulakas. Why skate hard when you can fire away and the puck will go in eventually?

Believe it or not, the contest began somewhat sanely. Northeastern capitalized on some loose Crimson defense to rack up an early 2-0 lead, but the icemen sliced the lead in half before the first intermission with a last-second goal by Turner.

The sophomore left winger who, along with the rest of his line, enjoyed a super first period, was stopped on his first shot but followed it up, guiding the rebound past Demetroulakas into the far corner a second before the buzzer sounded.

The teams traded goals early in the second period, and then things began to get silly. Leading 3-2, the Husky offense--which was actually not all that impressive--picked up two more goals. Brian Fahringer swept past the blueline to tally at 9:16, and Bucyk beat Lau for a short-handed tally at 13:36 to put the Huskies up by three.

But no lead is safe for Northeastern.

Mark Fusco whipped a bullet past Demetroulakos for a power-play tally at 15:59, and Burke--who continued to excel--slammed one home on a breakaway despite added red, black and white poundage draped around his legs to close the gap to 5-4 where it remained until 1:44 of the third period.

Now, the fun. Mike Watson--unassisted--tied the score and brought the 50 or so Crimson rooters who had made the trip to their feet. Then Bucyk from Rick Turnbull for the Huskies at 3:08, Paul Filipe from Chuck Marshall at 4:02, Sandy Beadle from Paul MacDougall and Gerry Cowie at 4:22, Scot McKenney from Fahringer and Glen Giovanucci at 10:42, Fahringer from McKenney and Giovanucci at 13:44 and finally Beadle from Cowie and Filipe at 16:56. Northeastern can't score like this in practice.

When the final buzzer mercifully sounded, Harvard had dropped to 1-1 and Northeastern had won its opener in a game best forgotten by both sides. Everything just went wrong for Harvard, and the mistakes weren't even the kind you can learn from.

And if Northeastern thinks it will ever score 11 goals in a game again, it is deluding itself. The Huskies may be the only team in hockey history to win 11-5 and look bad.