The "V" Spot: Killer Cornell

If Harvard men's hockey Coach Mark Mazzoleni needed a goal in the resurrection of the men's hockey program, the 2,000 Cornell fans at Friday's home game gave it loud and clear:

"This is our house. This is our house."

Sadly, the Big Red fans weren't exaggerating. The score was 6-2 Cornell. The crowd was dominated by Cornell. All that was missing were a few flying fish.

The Big Red silenced what Crimson fans were in attendance with a four-goal second period. Harvard played as bad a period as it has played in a long, long time. The Crimson was outshot 19-4 in the stanza and struggled to simply clear the puck out of the defensive zone.

Even if the game were closer, the battle of the crowds wouldn't have been close. The Harvard band gave it its best shot with such winners as "We found Waldo," referring to the Cornell band's white and red horizontal striped rugby shirts.

But as Cornell was putting the nail in Harvard's coffin on the ice, a group of students did the same off of it. A bunch of Big Red kids had painted their stomachs with "JR Sucks!", an extremely inaccurate, but humorous attack on senior netminder J.R. Prestifilippo.

After Cornell's fifth goal, Mazzoleni felt it was unfair to leave Prestifilippo in the game any longer. Junior backup Oli Jonas was immediately greeted with cheers of "Safety Sieve." However, these intrepid Cornellians convinced a few of their buddies to bare their gaunt chests and had a "Jonas Sucks!" painted in less than two minutes.

The point is not to highlight the exhibitionist tendencies of the Reds, but to note the devotion they have to their program. Cornell had lost five straight ECAC games, but the renewal of the Harvard-Cornell rivalry meant enough at the school for fans to make a rowdy trip to Cambridge anyway.

Once upon a time, Harvard students had this fervor. Cornell's really disgusting tradition of throwing fish on to the ice began as a response to Crimson fans tying a chicken to the Big Red goal (making fun of their agricultural school).

I myself had attempted to revive some of this spirit myself with a column last Thursday lampooning the Cornell fans and the way they support their team.

[By the way, thanks to those kind Cornellians who responded with the chicken story. Extra gratitude to those who subscribed me to every pornographic email mailing list on the web.]

Mazzoleni will know his job is done in turning the program around when the students feel some Crimson pride again. He'll know he's achieved success at Harvard when Bright sells out with its own fans and that a Cornell fan would fear using body paint because he would be surrounded by a host of Crimson crazies.

This is a gradual process that is going to take a couple of years. It starts with the product on the ice. Students that come to games have to want to return. Though they were vastly outnumbered by the Big Red cadre, there were more Harvard students than at most home games.

The second period had to have left a sick taste in their mouths. It certainly did in mine after I kept recalling all the complimentary things I said about the Ivy in Ithaca.

The real transformation will happen after Mazzoleni has the opportunity to bring in recruiting classes of his own. Though nothing is official, next year's group appears to be extremely good. Mazzoleni has the track record and the vision to return Harvard to national prominence.

But the Crimson can take the first steps right now with its competitiveness on the ice. It doesn't have to dominate to start attracting a following, and the ECAC is not the CCHA.

Encouraging signs came at the end of the Cornell game, when junior defenseman Liam McCarthy finally tried to respond to the unfolding embarrassment, by ramming Cornell winger Shane Palahicky over his own bench and refusing to stop shoving until he had shown Palahicky to his seat.

A much more impressive showing came the following night, when the Crimson came back from a third period deficit to tie Colgate, a much more talented team than Cornell. Senior winger Scott Turco bagged a beautiful goal at 10:24 to send the game into overtime. The Crimson has had difficulty all season in playing from behind.

Harvard has the ultimate chance to make a statement both to college hockey and to its own school tonight at the prestigious Beanpot Tournament. It has a chance to end No. 4 Boston University's five-year run as champions at the Fleet Center.

The Crimson narrowly lost to the Terriers 2-1 earlier this year, and with junior center Steve Moore making a successful return to the lineup Saturday, the team stands a fighter's chance in this Best-of-Boston battle. Harvard has always played BU very tough regardless of rankings.

An upset victory will undoubtedly draw some Crimson fans out to the Fleet Center to cheer on a shot at Harvard's first Beanpot since 1993.

No the support won't be enough for the Crimson to chant "This is our house" with justification. But an audible "Let's Go Harvard" would be a nice beginning.