Men's Hockey Set to Open at Renovated Rink

Grave news greeted the Harvard men’s ice hockey team 10 minutes before the scheduled start of its last meeting with Dartmouth.

The Zamboni was dead.

The Bright-Landry Hockey Center’s sole ice resurfacer had stalled on the rink, and the Feb. 7 game hung in the balance.

Only the valiant efforts of an emergency Zamboni repairman and a timely assist from several strong Crimson skaters, who pushed the vehicle off the ice, prevented indefinite postponement. The first puck dropped 109 minutes behind schedule, and Harvard skated to a 3-0 win—the first of a three-game winning streak.

“I don’t know if that will ever happen in my career again,” said junior forward Jimmy Vesey, one of the Zamboni pushers. “It’s something that I’ll always remember.”

The pregame activities before Saturday’s Crimson-Big Green contest also promise to be memorable, but hopefully for more predictable reasons.

Harvard will open its 115th season with a dedication of its newly renovated rink. The ceremony will lead into a compelling matchup of evenly-matched rivals.

The two teams matched each other punch-for-punch last year, splitting their season series and tying for 10th in their conference.

When the ECAC announced its tournament pairings, however, Dartmouth had the upper hand with an extra win, earning the tiebreaker and the right to play Rensselaer in the first round. The Big Green took advantage, upsetting the Engineers in three games, while Yale swept the 11th-seeded Crimson in New Haven.

On Saturday, Harvard and Dartmouth will carry similar strengths into their first games of the season. Both teams will return all of their multi-goal scorers from last year and start reliable junior goaltenders.

“Dartmouth is a worthy opponent,” junior co-captain Kyle Criscuolo said. “It’s going to be a tough game and obviously they’re going to want the first win of the year as well.

Criscuolo, Vesey, and sophomore center Alex Kerfoot will see their first ECAC action together on the Crimson’s top line since Nov. 8, when an injury to Kerfoot forced Harvard to reshuffle forward combinations. The fast-skating trio will line up against an equally quick collection of Dartmouth forwards, who will be led by a pair of seniors—reigning Ivy League goal scoring champ Eric Neiley and Vesey’s former Belmont Hill School teammate Brandon McNally.

“They’ve got some good offensive players who can make some things happen, so we’ll have to watch out for those guys, some of their guys on their top lines,” Criscuolo said. “But overall I think we will match up well against a lot of teams this year if we can use our speed.”

On the blueline, 6’7” freshman and Boston Bruins draft pick Wiley Sherman will have an immediate impact alongside Patrick McNally and co-captain Max Everson, Harvard’s top junior defensive pair. Behind the Harvard bench, newly hired associate head coach Paul Pearl will be evaluating the early work of his new pupils on defense.

“He’s giving a lot of help to the [defensemen] in practice,” senior forward Tommy O’Regan said of Pearl. “He breaks up the drills a lot and calls the D over. I think he’s a real huge help defensively, and I think he brings a really good attitude to practice.”

The game will also feature a netminding duel between junior Steve Michalek and Big Green junior Charles Grant. Michalek led all non-senior Ivy League goaltenders in save percentage last season while Grant received a Second Team All-Ivy nod.

In the Zamboni game, Michalek stopped 21 shots to earn his first collegiate shutout.

For the Crimson, the last month has been like an extended Zamboni delay. The icemen say that they have felt season-ready since the start of school, yet Ivy League rules have forced them to wait to start their campaign this weekend—more than 20 days after most other college teams began theirs.

O’Regan and his teammates are anxious to get things started.

“It’s been a long month of watching other teams play.” O’Regan said. “So there’s a lot of built up passion and momentum and all that kind of stuff. I think everyone is looking forward to getting the first game under their belt.”

—Staff writer Michael D. Ledecky can be reached at michael.ledecky@thecrimson.com.