Icemen Turn Lights Out on New Brunswick in 6-2 Victory

In the spirit of the Halloween weekend, Saturday night's exhibition men's hockey game between Harvard and New Brunswick had a whole lot of tricks to go along with several treats.

Harvard put together three straight goals in a five-minute span in the second period and three more in less than eight minutes in the third to thrash the Reds, 6-2. The contest was the Crimson's first action since its heartbreaking 3-2 overtime loss to Lake Superior State in the national semifinal on March 31.

However, there was almost as much trickery off the ice as there was on it, as very odd things happened at the Bright Arena.

"Well, this one kind of had everything," Harvard Coach Ronn Tomassoni said. "It was bizarre out there...but I was real pleased. I saw a lot of good things out there."

OK, Coach, but you certainly didn't see anything at 8:06 p.m., when the rink was anything but Bright. UNB was on a power play when the lights over the ice surface went out at the 11:04 mark of the second period, with Harvard holding a 3-0 lead.

The problem was fixed several minutes later, but the officials decided to send the teams to their locker rooms and continue the period after the ice was resurfaced.

The third period followed immediately after the conclusion of the second. All in all, the delay lasted 20 minutes and drew a few chuckles in the Harvard dressing room after the game.

"I thought it was the Ice Capades for a second," captain Ben Coughlin said. "I didn't know what was going on."

The power failure fit right in with the pre-Halloween atmosphere, as did the nonfunctioning public address system and the several ceiling tiles above the Harvard Band that fell out of place. Add to that a spear by UNB's Wade Simpson on senior Steve Martins and a boxing exhibition provided by Dan Sherstenka on Harvard sophomore Joe Craigen (Craigen somehow got the same four minutes in penalties as Sherstenka), and one could say the game was a wee bit atypical.

But regardless of the off-ice fun, Harvard came out flat in the beginning of the game. There was some miscommunication on the ice, a few bad line changes resulting in two spells where Harvard had too many men on the ice and several unnecessary penalties.

The Reds outshot the Crimson, 10-6, in the opening stanza, but junior goalie Tripp Tracy was sharp in goal as he kept the game scoreless through 20 minutes.

"I thought we came out a little rusty," senior defenseman Bryan Lonsinger said. "It was our first game and we had a lot of mistakes...but we just kept at it and things started working our way."

A different Harvard squad emerged for the second period, and the Crimson scored just 1:26 in. Junior defenseman Peter McLaughlin sent a shot in from the right point, and Coughlin deflected the puck past UNB goalie Frank LeBlanc.

Three minutes later, freshman defender Brian Famigletti made a sharp pass to junior Jason Karmanos, who lifted the puck into the upper portion of the net past LeBlanc to give the Crimson a 2-0 lead.

And senior Cory Gustafson's deflection capped a perfect power-play exhibition, as he upped the ante to 3-0 at the 6:20 mark.

Junior Brad Konik, who played his first game since injuring his knee two year ago, crossed a pass to the right face-off circle to Martins, who quickly centered the puck to Gustafson who converted it into a goal.

"I thought we moved the puck pretty well after the first period," Tomassoni said. "[The third goal] was a picture-perfect play. It was as pretty as they come."

UNB's Alastair Still made the score 3-1 in the final minute of the second period on a rebound goal past senior goalie Steve Hermsdorf, who came into the game at the 9:58 mark of the middle stanza (or, 1:06 before the lights went out). Hermsdorf would stop eight of the 10 shots he faced.

However, junior Tom Holmes would sandwich two goals around another Gustafson power-play deflection tally in the third to bring the Crimson's lead to 6-1 before UNB's Craig Brocklehurst ended the scoring with 7:09 to go.

The end result was a win, and the players had to be pleased with their overall performance, especially since this was the team's first action against another school. And even though the first period was truly hideous, Harvard settled down and played well in the final 40 minutes, where it outshot UNB, 28-11.

"We have been practicing for a long time, and you kind of get sick of seeing the same guys and scrimmaging each other over and over," Karmanos said. "I'm happy we got a win in the first game, and we're ready to get going for the real thing now."

The real deal starts this Saturday in a 7 p.m. game at Brown. Harvard  6 UNB  2