Fighting Sioux Crush Crimson

According to local jokes, you can tell a North Dakotan if he thinks that summer means three months of poor sledding and has a ballistic missile silo in his backyard. Unfortunately, those jokes left out North Dakotans intense passion for hockey.

Goal-greedy North Dakota (6-8-1, 4-5-1 WCHA) devastated the Harvard men’s hockey team (4-5-2, 4-3-1 ECAC) Friday night in a 10-1 blowout, breaking the Crimson’s undefeated record at home.

“I think that they beat us soundly in every aspect of the game,” Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91 said with impressive frankness.

“I think that obviously they deserve a lot of credit for what happened,” he added. “But I think that we realized that that wasn’t a really good effort by any means.”

Harvard out-shot North Dakota 40-37 but could barely find the net. Meanwhile, North Dakota humiliated the otherwise-stingy Crimson defense, exploding against Harvard to defy the Fighting Sioux’s usual average of 2.57 goals per game.

“5-on-5, special teams, goaltending, coaching...they outplayed us,” Donato said. “I don’t think we executed really anything that we wanted to do.”

Harvard looked promising in the first period. The two teams played evenly until 7:15, when UND’s Brad Malone snagged the puck in front of the Crimson goal, knocking it past freshman goalie Matt Hoyle. Just one minute later, the Fighting Sioux’s Brad Miller made the score 2-0 after slamming a shot over Hoyle’s right shoulder.

Harvard cranked up its defensive play for the rest of the first period with some impressive saves by Hoyle, keeping an aggressive UND at bay. Co-captain Jimmy Fraser tried a couple of quality shots but was frustrated by Fighting Sioux goalie Brad Eidsness.

“I think we have to do a better job earlier in the game of staying with the gameplan even though things aren’t going our way,” Donato said.

The struggles began early in the second period, starting with a goal at just 1:21 from UND’s Matt Watkins. The Fighting Sioux struck gold again a couple of minutes later at 3:23, when Andrew Kozek found the net past Hoyle’s left skate.

Facing a 4-0 deficit, the Crimson at least prevented a shutout when sophomore Chris Huxley scored at 5:05, assisted by sophomores Michael Biega and Michael Del Mauro. Biega’s smooth pass from the right side set up Huxley for a crisp shot that directed the puck into the right-hand corner of the net.

The brief interruption did not deter the Fighting Sioux from routing Harvard. UND’s David Toews scored at 9:39, and 10 minutes later, with the Crimson a man down, Watkins followed with his second goal of the night. As the zamboni came on to clean the ice for a second time, Harvard went to the locker room staring at a 6-1 deficit.

“I thought we played okay, but for some reason or another, everything that North Dakota was shooting was going into the net,” Fraser said. “If you look back to our playoff series against Quinnipiac last year, we actually beat them 11-0. And then the next night they came out and they were a different team and they beat us 7-4. Unfortunately, in sports stuff like that happens.”

One word sums up the third period: penalties.

First, sophomore Ryan Carroll took Hoyle’s place in goal. The Harvard offense, desperate to close the gap, tore into UND with solid passing between juniors Alex Biega and Doug Rogers and a close shot on goal by sophomore Pier-Olivier Michaud.

But the mood in the arena shifted after the Fighting Sioux found an opening at 9:24, and Ryan Martens popped the puck into the left corner of the Crimson net.

At this point, Harvard’s apparent frustration and aggressive play backfired. Crimson players seemed to prefer the penalty box to the ice, allowing UND to score its last three goals on the power play.

The Fighting Sioux’s Matt Frattin scored at 14:26 on a 5-on-3 man advantage. Just minutes later at 15:32, Martens scored his second goal of the night on another two-man advantage. UND’s 10th and final goal was scored by Zach Jones at 16:13 in another 5-on-3 power play, followed by another string of Harvard penalties.

After an ugly clash behind the Crimson net, Harvard juniors Chad Morin and Rogers and UND’s Corey Fienhage and Brent Davidson all ended up with 10-minute penalties for misconduct.

“I think it was just the guys’ way of letting the [other players] know that, even though the game was out of reach, we weren’t giving up,” Fraser said.

“There are a lot of changes to be made and...from all aspects of the game, we need to do a better job, very much including the coaching,” Donato said.