Bloodbath Revisited

Nobody likes a sore loser, especially a sore winner.

And if things go like they did last year, the Harvard men's hockey team is going to be by late Saturday night.

Last season, the Crimson's ECAC quarterfinal matchup with Colgate turned into a bloodbath when Harvard, which took the first game, 4-2, took a commanding 5-1 lead in the second game of the series.

The Red Raiders, despite the heroics of its All-ECAC goalie Jeff Cooper the night before, were going down and they weren't happy about it.

The visitors' best skater took out a little of his mounting frustration on Harvard goalie Grant Blair. What a fine euphemism, "took out his mounting frustration."

What nonsense.

What Gerard Waslen really did was kick Blair in the head with his skate.

It was a vicious assault which started an even more vicious brawl between the clubs. Thanks to the fine work of Harvard Coach Bill Cleary--who hopped to the ice and stood facing his own bench, arms out-stretched to keep his outraged players from jumping into the fight--and the efforts of Colgate Coach Terry Slater--who at one point grabbed a hold of Waslen's jersey to try and prevent him from rejoining the fray--the battle was confined to the players on the ice.

One Harvard player, Captain Brad Kwong, was tossed, along with Waslen and teammates Brad Martel and Scott Reston. The ejections meant Kwong would have to sit out the Crimson's semi-final battle with Clarkson the following Friday at the Garden. The three Red Raiders suffered no consequences, their one-game suspensions--per league rules--did not carry over between seasons.

A miscarriage of justice that was only slightly mitigated when the Crimson topped Clarkson, 2-1, without Kwong, and redeemed its captain.

Kwong's gone now, but Waslen (whose 63 points are the high for both teams), Reston and Martel are all back. So is Mike Leblanc, another, if less well remembered, villain.

Late in the third period, after Blair had left and after Cleary had pulled his first line from the game to protect them from any would-be head-hunters, Leblanc got in one last cheap shot--one for the road back to Hamilton, so to speak.

The Raider came in on Harvard's back-up goalie John Devin and slashed him trying to get at the puck.

Slashed him in the head.

And broke open his helmet.

No penalty was called, but Leblanc's crime was as sordid as Waslen's.

Both of them, along with the rest of a team that lost control when it was down, blew it. In the face of defeat, they acted not as gracious sports or even as proud, defiant adversaries, but as embittered cheap-shot artists, interested only in trading their tears for a little Bright Crimson blood.