Power Returns to Bright -- Orr Not?

Bobby Orr eating Hanukkah gelt in the press box? Well, stranger things happened last night at Bright Hockey Center.

The Harvard power play scored.

Until the 11th minute of the second period against St. Lawrence, the infamous Crimson power play had been 0 for its last 56 attempts.

The struggles of the man advantage dated back to the first game of the season against Brown. The Crimson scored on its first two power play opportunities and then its sticks fell silent.

Little did the coaches and fans know that the power play goals scored that night in Providence by freshmen Trevor Allman and Brett Chodorow would be the last they'd see for another 35 days.

The futility of the 5-on-4 produced no end of tinkering from Coach Ronn Tomassoni. Personnel changed. Players brought the puck down low. Shots were fired from all parts of the offensive zone. But, in the end, frustration proved to be the only thing in abundance.

Before the St. Lawrence game, sophomore forward Rob Millar said, "The power play is definitely a concern, but it's not time to hit the panic button."

Question, Rob: With the power-less play at an alarming 3.6 percent "success" rate, one wonders when exactly do you hit the panic button?

"You never want to hit the panic button," Millar said. "We just have to bear down fire the puck on the net and crash."

Last night, sophomore defenseman Ben Storey fired the puck on net and junior forward Doug Sproule crashed in for the rebound and the goal.

When the historic goal was scored, the relief of the team was palpable.

"If you could have been on the bench and just heard everybody, it was unbelievable," said sophomore forward Clayton Rodgers. "Everyone was just ecstatic. We were all hugging each other."

The five players who were on the ice for the score -- Sproule, Storey, senior Joe Craigen, junior Jeremiah McCarthy and freshman Brett Chodorow -- lingered and then skated by the bench giving their teammates high fives as they passed.

"It didn't hit me until we were on the bench that we finally broke the drought," Chodorow said. "We've been working on the power play a lot this week and really trying to get it going. I think it's going to start being a real weapon for us."

"That goal was definitely more for the team than for any one individual," Storey said. "One great thing today was that we scored on the power play."

The fact that the Crimson's power play goal was also the game-tying goal shows just how important special teams are to the success of a hockey team.

Three of Harvard's five losses on the season have been by one goal.

Any team that wants to win needs to convert consistently on the five-on-four. With the dry spell broken, the team's new challenge is to keep the power play momentum going -- which point man Bobby Orr might know a thing or two about, wouldn't he?