Thoughts of 2002 for Crimson’s Stretch Drive; RPI and Union Loom

On March 16, 2002, at Lake Placid’s 1980 Olympic Arena, the Harvard men’s hockey team shocked some Big Red favorites by a score of 4-3—sound familiar?—sending shockwaves through college hockey.

That victory over Cornell earned the Crimson—who had stumbled into the playoffs with a 2-8-1 record in the final 11 games—a third straight overtime playoff win, an improbable ECAC title, and the team’s first NCAA Tournament appearance in almost a decade.

At times like these, a little recall can be inspiring.

“That memory of two years ago,” said current Harvard captain Kenny Smith, “is a light at the end of the tunnel.”

Having lost 7 of 11 previous contests—but with 6 games to go in the season—the Crimson (9-12-2, 7-8-1 ECAC) still has a chance this year, and leaders like Smith have lost no time pointing at 2002 to show younger teammates why.

But this is a different Harvard team, and the Crimson would most certainly prefer not to rely on another miracle. With six games remaining, the team can improve its seed for the ECAC playoffs and possibly earn a bye in the first round. To do so, the Crimson will need to win most, if not all, of its remaining regular season games.

The team can get a start with a strong effort in two tough games this weekend. Tonight, Harvard takes on Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (15-11-2, 9-6-1 ECAC), a team that is less than a month removed from shutting out Cornell in Ithaca. The Crimson completes the weekend series against streaking Union (11-13-4, 5-9-2 ECAC) at Bright Hockey Center tomorrow night.

RPI has been especially strong in recent weeks. Its 4-1 victory over the Crimson on Jan. 3 was the beginning of a stretch in which the Engineers won seven of 10, outscoring their opponents 30-17. RPI is third in the league in scoring, and goalie Nathan Marsters boasts a .913 save percentage.

What’s more, the Engineers now sit in a three-way tie—with Cornell and Dartmouth, and behind Brown and Colgate—for third in the ECAC.

Few predicted RPI’s rise to prominence. The team finished a staggering 13 games under .500 overall last season and 28 points out of first place in the ECAC.

“Initially, some people were probably surprised RPI beat us 4-1,” said Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni. “But…you know, they’ve got a team with size that will smack you in the mouth. And that’s literally what they did against us.”

The Union hockey team has had a tougher road this year. At midseason, the Dutchmen hit rock bottom with a winless streak of 12 games—stretching from Nov. 15 to Jan. 23 of this year.

But after beating Sacred Heart in overtime Jan. 23, Union broke out in a big way.

They won three of the next four—including a 7-0 massacre at third-place Dartmouth—and are now approaching .500.

“They’ve put themselves right back into the possibility of hosting in the [first] round,” Mazzoleni said.

No matter what happens to Harvard over the next two and a half weeks, one thing is certain: the ECAC has been unpredictable down the stretch. That’s why the Crimson is finding reasons to forget about its recent dismal record.

“[The ECAC] is always wild and unpredictable,” Smith said. “And that makes every game that much more important. Nothing is definite in terms of other games around league.”

Mazzoleni points to Colgate as a team that “has made the climb,” trusting Harvard can do the same.

“One weekend [Colgate was] eighth, and three or four weekends later they were in second,” Mazzoleni said. “They put a real string of games together.”

Another example of the league’s unpredictability is that spring of 2002, when Harvard was swept by Yale and Princeton in the final weekend of the regular season, and figured to earn an eight seed.

Surprisingly, Dartmouth, Colgate and Brown were swept in their final series as well, pushing the Crimson into a tie for third—and, after the tiebreaker, into the third seed. What followed, of course, is history.

For this year’s Harvard team, the “playoffs” start now. The team is in seventh place, and must improve its standing to expect to compete in the postseason. For one, that means starting games strong.

“The first period is real important,” said Kenny Turano, recently returned to the lineup, and expected to play his second straight game tonight. “And in the past, that’s been our downfall.”

It also means getting healthy. Turano and freshman defenseman Dylan Reese are back from injury, but sophomore forward Charlie Johnson went down last week with a shoulder injury and is questionable for the rest of the regular season.

The Crimson is still struggling to find the depth that was supposed to be one of its strengths this season. “It’d be nice to have our whole team healthy again,” Mazzoleni said. “We haven’t had that since the first game of the year.”

Another help for Harvard would be to keep a positive outlook for the final three weekends of the season.

Harvard’s energy has been sapped by a series of letdowns, the latest of which was a loss to Northeastern in the consolation game of this week’s Beanpot on the heels of an energizing comeback win against Yale.

“We have to generate optimism and enthusiasm and passion with the guys we have in the room now,” Smith said.

Smith added, however, that for the current team this has not been a big problem.

“It’s not difficult to get up for the games,” he said. “We’ve been excited in practice this week.”

Despite the team’s struggles, things can change fast—if the team has the right attitude.

“We have a lot of character guys in the locker room,” Smith said. “We’re a family…We know what each other can do, and that’s not something that’s going to go away.”

Sure, the Harvard men’s hockey team has reached new lows in recent days. But with a healthy six games left in the season, stranger things have happened. Throw in the right team attitude, a wild league race and some Lake Placid-style playoffs?

Well, you just might get a sequel.

—Staff writer Alex McPhillips can be reached at rmcphill@fas.harvard.edu.