Jonnie on the Spot: They’re True Champions

LAKE PLACID, N.Y.—Bless you, boys.

As I watched the Harvard men’s hockey team mob Crimson winger Tyler Kolarik after he scored the game-winning goal in the ECAC Championship Game on Saturday night, those three words kept going through my mind.

Maybe that’s because I remember them as the slogan of the first champions I ever knew, the 1984 Detroit Tigers. I was two years old at the time, but I have vague recollections of my father telling me that a championship was something very special.

And the members of this Harvard hockey team are champions in every sense of the word.

Bless you, boys.

As I stood in the press box at the 1980 Olympic Arena, I wished I could walk onto the ice as the team celebrated and say to them, “You have shown great character. You have made Harvard proud.

“You are champions.”

But they didn’t need to hear that from me. They knew that. The smiles on their scraggly-bearded faces showed that.

They understood just how far they had come and how much they had come together as a team since going 2-8-1 in the final 11 games of the regular season. They understood that coming back from the adversity they faced to win an improbable three consecutive overtime games in the ECAC playoffs was something very special.

They understood they were champions.

Bless you, boys.

It was the biggest win of Harvard’s season—heck, you have to go back to the Crimson’s last trip to the NCAA tournament in 1994 to find a more meaningful game—and it couldn’t have come at a better place than Lake Placid, site of the United States’ historic defeat of the Soviet Union at the 1980 Olympics.

Certainly, the return of the “Miracle on Ice” to the national consciousness—in the wake of the Sept. 11 tragedies and Salt Lake City Games—made Lake Placid an even more meaningful venue this season.

And when a very moving national anthem was sung before Saturday night’s game, anything less than a classic college hockey game between two great rivals would have been a letdown.

Harvard and Cornell didn’t disappoint. The game was well played on both sides, with each team working hard for its offensive chances. Each was dominant for stretches and had the crowd sitting on the edge of its seat all night long.

But in the end, it’s safe to say that the Crimson was the better team Saturday. It executed its game plan very well, stifling the Big Red’s dump-and-chase offensive philosophy by clogging up the neutral zone and then using its team speed and the large Olympic-size ice sheet to create good scoring opportunities.

In other words, Harvard did the things it had to do to force the Big Red away from what it does best. That’s why it won. Cornell didn’t give the game away at all. The Crimson earned it.

Certainly, though, the Red deserves some degree of credit. Cornell has been the ECAC’s best, most consistent team throughout the season. Big Red Coach Mike Schafer assured those assembled at the post-game press conference that his team would do the ECAC proud in the NCAA tournament, as Cornell was virtually assured of an at-large berth regardless of Saturday’s outcome.

And maybe that was in the back of Cornell’s mind. It really seemed like the Crimson wanted this one a little more. Harvard had more to play for—its entire season was on the line. If the Crimson had lost to Cornell, it would have returned to Cambridge and handed in its gear on Monday. Season over.

But instead, the Harvard players gutted one out. They did it. They deserve the credit. They earned their spot in the Big Dance.

“We’ve been down awhile,” Harvard Coach Mark Mazzoleni said after the Cornell win. “I never envisioned that this would happen, but the way we played over the past couple of weeks this was no fluke. This was our best game.”

Was this win another “Miracle on Ice?” Maybe, maybe not. While Cornell certainly dominated the ECAC this season, the Crimson did beat the Big Red earlier this year and scored more goals against Cornell than any other of its opponents.

But Harvard’s players didn’t need the memory of November’s 4-3 overtime win over the Big Red to motivate them. The Crimson is simply on a roll and playing its best hockey of the season. It’s almost as if the team’s mentality right now is that they can beat anyone, anytime, anywhere.

And I’ll confess that I didn’t think this team would get this far before the playoffs began. In fact, I wasn’t even confident that the Crimson would get past Brown in the first round.

But I’ve learned something about the Harvard men’s hockey team. When the chips are down, it comes to play. This Crimson team has made me a believer, along with everyone else who has seen it play this playoff season.

A grateful University turns its eyes to you, the 26 members of this Harvard team. You have made us believe.

Bless you.