M. Hockey Records Crumble

The face of Harvard hockey changed last night. Three times.

The Crimson now has a new career-shutout leader in senior Dov Grumet-Morris, who notched his 10th in Harvard’s 3-0 win over Brown.

And coach Ted Donato ’91, who earned his 18th ‘W,’ is now the winningest rookie skipper in Crimson history, passing his own college coach Bill Cleary ’56.

Of course, there’s no forgetting Noah Welch, who set the school career-penalty mark at 125.

“Now he’s the biggest punk in Harvard hockey history,” said assistant coach Sean McCann ’94, beaming proudly at Welch’s accomplishment.

McCann was, after all, the previous record-holder, with 124.

But as the clock wound down on the final regular-season contest in the Bright Hockey Center, the evening belonged to Grumet-Morris.

The goaltender earned his fifth whitewash of the season—which, coincidentally, ties another team record—and his third in the last four ECAC games.

“I don’t think anyone focuses on that,” he said after the game.

Grumet-Morris thought wrong.

Or maybe he just didn’t hear the crowd’s chants of “Dov! Dov! Dov!” as the buzzer sounded.

Or maybe he wasn’t in earshot last week when Welch said, “I hope he gets it more than anything.”

“I’m so pumped that he got it,” Welch said last night.

“Especially how he got it—the last night here, our last regular-season home game. It was definitely on my mind the whole game tonight as I kept watching the clock.”

All the while, of course, Welch was going for a record of his own.

The 109th captain of Harvard hockey skated into yesterday’s contest with 122 penalties, two away from tying McCann’s mark and three away from breaking it.

At 18:41 into the first period, Welch took the first step with a hooking minor, upping his total to 123.

I kind of knew I was going to get it tonight,” he said, adding with a smile, “I wanted to get it with [referee] Scott Hansen.

“I just wanted to make sure, since I think he gave me my first penalty, and about 75 penalties [since].”

But then Welch had to play the waiting game.

Though Harvard dictated play for much of the evening, it held just a 1-0 lead until midway through the second. And it wasn’t until 19:43 through the middle frame that the Crimson went up 3-0 and gained some breathing room.

Then, Welch could go for it.

“I just wanted to make sure we had, at the end, a good lead,” he said. “And I had a good excuse, too. That kid, [No.] 12, took a run at [Harvard freshman] Jonny Pelle and a couple other guys.”

In fact, what Welch got wasn’t an “it”—it was a “them.”

The blue-liner earned two penalties—cross-checking for a total of 124 and roughing for 125—thus breaking and tying McCann’s record in the same instant, 15:38 into the third period.

The catch? Welch’s whistles gave Brown a power play, throwing Grumet-Morris’ shutout into peril.

But Grumet-Morris and the Crimson defense stood strong. Welch later joked, “I’m pretty psyched [about the penalty record], to be honest with you. Now I can just focus on winning games.”

And that is something Donato has done all season long. Now 18-7-2 in his first season behind the bench, the homegrown product has etched his own name in Harvard history—though all Donato could remember after last night’s game was the record he might have ruined.

“I pulled [Grumet-Morris] after two periods in Princeton with a 6-0 lead,” he added. “Had he ended up one short...I would have felt pretty poorly about that.”

Instead, Bright’s last home game saw the Crimson crown its newest, staunchest “wall” of a goaltender, in Welch’s words. And its newest winningest rookie coach. And its newest “biggest punk in Harvard hockey history.”

That’s six superlatives—and three records—in one night.

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