The Road: Icemen's Greatest Foe

Never mind the names of the teams.

The Harvard men's opponent this weekend will be the road.

Last year, the Crimson shined with an impressive 10-2-0 mark at Bright Hockey Center during the regular season. On the road, however, it was a different story.

Away from Cambridge, the team was 3-7-2, including its horrific 0-for-January road trip which crushed Harvard's chances at an ECAC championship last year.

This weekend, Harvard begins its four-month ECAC journey on the road and will try to set a new tone for the new season, when it faces Union tonight and Rensselaer tomorrow night.

"If you want to be a good team, you've got to win on the road," Harvard Coach Ronn Tomassoni said. "We struggled on the road last year, especially early. This year, we'd like to get off to a good start."

The Skating Dutchmen and the Engineers provide the Crimson with a perfect opportunity to get off to a good start, since neither opponent figures to skate one of the ECAC's top teams.

Union is still adjusting to the jump from Division II to Division I, and Rensselaer is reeling from the loss of nine out of its top 10 scorers.

The Crimson will face off tonight at Achilles Rink in Schenectady, N.Y., for its first-ever game against Union, which replaces Army in the ECAC ranks this year.

The Skating dutchmen (0-2-0, 0-1-0) are feeling the difference between Division I hockey and Division II, where the team amassed an impressive 16-5-3.

Now Union finds itself skating with the big boys, and it is having considerably more trouble.

The team has dropped its first two games, including an ECAC match to Vermont, 3-1, and will have a tough time squeezing a win our of its home opener against Harvard.

But don't mention a Crimson cakewalk to Tomassoni.

"We're going to be walking into a buzz-saw," said Tomassoni. "It's their home opener. They are going to be high, so we have to be higher."

"We have to score quickly in the first period and try to take their fans out of the game," Tomassoni continued.

"Whenever I think of Harvard, I think of terrific skating," Union Coach Bruce Delventhal said. "We'll have to work to match up with them."

Delventhal will be counting on seniors Craig Ferrero and Dalton Menhall to penetrate the Crimson defense, but he knows that won't be an easy task.

"We might just pull one forward and put our two goalies in the game," quipped Delventhal. "Work for the 0-0 tie."

Actually, one bright spot in the flying Dutchmen's early season has been their goaltending. Union has platooned two freshmen between the twines with some success.

In fact, Mike Gallant, a freshman from Stoney Creek, Ontario, snagged ECAC Rookie of the Week honors for his performance against Vermont. He stopped 42 our of 45 shots and kept the 'Cats zero-for-six on power plays.

Union is just happy to be in the conference and will worry about dominating it in season to come, said Delventhal.

"The kids have just been thrilled about it. The crowds have been great," said Delventhal.

Neither ECAC hockey nor Harvard are anything new to the Rensselaer hockey program.

But many of its own players are.

The Engineers (2-1-0, 0-0-0) probably have been hurt worse than the Crimson by graduation, and as a result, they are left with a young and inexperiences team.

"We basically have a whole different system this year from the one we've had the past two years," said Rensselaer Coach Buddy Powers, whose team has notched consecutive wins over Boston College and Merrimack after losing to Boston University.

"We're just trying to perfect and execute the basics right now," said Powers.

Just like Harvard, the Engineers are skating five freshmen in their top four lines and a first-year on defense.

"We've made a lot of freshmen mistakes," Powers said. "We've managed to cover some of them up. To be honest, we're very happy to have the two wins we have right now."

Rensselaer's first ECAC test comes tonight when it faces Brown, and tomorrow, it will face the Crimson at the large and noisy confines of Houston Field House in Troy, N.Y.

Last year, the two teams split their playoff series with each winning in the other's rink. But Rensselaer fans are undoubtably still smarting over the Crimson's first-round victory that knocked the Engineers out of ECAC tournament.

"It's really turned into quite a rivalry between the two schools" said Tomassoni, who is a Rensselaer alum.

Powers isn't thinking about winning any rivalries right now.

"For the first four or five games, I think most of the teams will just be feeling each other out," Powers said. "St. Lawrence and Clarkson are far ahead of everyone else."