FACEOFF 2005-2006: One Last Chance

Somehow, as he waited in the wings, Harvard goaltender John Daigneau lost sight of the stage. He wasn’t having any fun as a perpetual backup, and trips to the rink had become chores. Daigneau wanted out.

He tried and failed to transfer—another entry in his sophomore-year diary of things gone wrong—and so he returned for his junior season, another spent behind engaging starter Dov Grumet-Morris ’05.

And then it struck Daigneau: "I was just going to have to live with it."

"If Dov played every game, I was going to have to live with it, because all I could do was control how I played and how I reacted."

Which makes what’s happening now, in his senior season, all the sweeter.

* * *

The last good chance Diagneau saw was nearly two years ago, on Nov. 14, 2003.

He was a sophomore, Grumet-Morris a junior, and then-coach Mark Mazzoleni opened the season with a declaration of goalie rotation: "We’re going to find out if we have two kids that are capable of being No. 1s, or if one versus the other is going to take control of the situation."

The pair traded off the first three starts, and then came Nov. 14: Princeton at home, Daigneau’s turn.

Harvard led 2-0 with 13 minutes remaining, but the Tigers pushed three quick goals past Daigneau—they tacked on a fourth, an empty-netter, after the goalie retreated to the bench—and the Crimson lost, 4-2.

The next night, as if on cue, Grumet-Morris shut out Yale.

"He gave us the kind of goaltending we needed," Mazzoleni said after the game. Grumet-Morris went on to start 30 of Harvard’s 31 remaining contests, leading the team to an ECAC postseason championship and the NCAA tournament. Daigneau got to watch a lot of hockey.

He speaks about the whole year with cool perspective now, but it was nearly impossible to do so at the time. Grumet-Morris was racking up stellar statistics, but "during sophomore year, I had a really tight grasp on my identity," Daigneau says. "I was a hockey player, and I kind of forgot about everything else."

And what else does a hockey player want to do, but play?

He asked for his release that spring, and Mazzoleni granted it, allowing Daigneau to look at programs that had, at some point, shown interest.

* * *

It’s funny how things change. Now, a year and a half later, Daigneau labors to recall the schools to which he sent transcripts.

There was the University of Wisconsin

at Madison, which made perfect sense for the Milwaukee native.

There were ECAC rivals St. Lawrence, Dartmouth, Cornell, and Brown. There were Providence and St. Cloud State. A little of the Northeast, a little of the Midwest—but no openings.

It was late in the academic year for a transfer, and freshmen had already been recruited.

"By the middle of the summer," he says, "I knew that I was going to be back here."

So what left to do but accept it?

Mazzoleni left that same summer, opting for a job closer to home. Former Boston Bruin Ted Donato ’91 took over, and Daigneau cautiously admits, "I prefer Coach Donato to Coach Mazzoleni.

"I don’t really know how to say this without sounding like a jerk," he adds.

It’s just that he needed a fresh start his junior year.

Daigneau knew that Grumet-Morris "deserved every minute he got," but articulating reality is one thing—accepting it is another.

"Part of it was letting go of hockey," Daigneau says. "I just had to take a step back. There’s more to life than hockey—hockey’s just a privilege."

It wasn’t so obvious then the game was no fun, when the hours and hours at the Bright were eating at him.

Now, "having a bad day down here isn’t the end of the world."

* * *

Daigneau mopped up 33 minutes for Grumet-Morris last year, turning away a perfect 7-of-7 shots and biding his time. Grumet-Morris graduated, and for the first time since he came to Harvard, Daigneau has the chance and the mindset.

"He took the opportunity last year to work really hard, so that he’d put himself in a position to take advantage of this year," Donato says. "And so far, he’s been excellent for us, and I’m happy for him."

Daigneau has gone 2-0-0 in his pair of starts, accumulating a .933 save percentage and a 1.51 goals against average. His case for the starter position has been convincing, though anything could happen in a season that stretches from October to March.

All that matters is that Daigneau’s got another chance. He’s got a real shot to be Harvard’s starting goaltender. And in the end, he’s glad he stuck around.

Maybe life wasn’t a barrel of laughs at the time, but it makes what’s happening now all the sweeter.

"Kind of like a storybook," he smiles. "Last chance—hope everything goes right."

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Seesel can be reached at seesel@fas.harvard.edu.