NOTEBOOK: Trio of Leaders Pushes Men's Ice Hockey to ECAC Crown

LAKE PLACID, N.Y.—Kyle Criscuolo watches as a Harvard stick knocks away Colgate’s final shot attempt. Behind him, there’s jubilation—the Crimson men’s ice hockey team (21-12-3, 11-8-3 ECAC) has just earned its first conference championship since 2006. Fourth-year goaltender Steve Michalek extends his arms towards the skies. Several others do the same. But until the final horn sounds, Criscuolo’s eyes are on the puck.

CAPTAIN CRISCO

At its annual banquet last April, Harvard made an announcement that broke from tradition. Coming off its second consecutive 10-win season, one that saw the Crimson finish third to last in the conference, Harvard took a different approach when appointing its new leadership. For the first time in almost 70 years, the Crimson elected to look beyond its pool of seniors to find a co-captain.

Criscuolo, a Southampton, N.J., native who logged 20 points his sophomore season, became the guy for the job. Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91 gave the then-second-year forward his vote of confidence, and come Saturday, that vote paid dividends.

Harvard's first line (junior co-captain Kyle Criscuolo, junior Jimmy Vesey, and sophomore Alex Kerfoot) celebrates with the Whitelaw Cup. By Michael D. Ledecky

The Crimson got everything it could ask for out of its co-captain. While junior forward Jimmy Vesey made headlines for his ECAC record-tying eighth goal of the tournament in the first period, Criscuolo made the history happen.

With Colgate defenseman Kevin Lough facing the back boards and the puck on his stick, Criscuolo came barreling in. The co-captain delivered a hit on Lough that sent the defenseman flying, enabling the junior to gain possession of the puck. A few passes through the attacking zone later, it was Criscuolo who forced a shot on Finn from the edge of the crease to produce Vesey’s rebound opportunity.

One period later, with the Crimson up 3-1, Criscuolo continued to cause problems for the Raiders. Michalek got his body on a tipped Spiro Goulakos shot from in close, but the puck escaped him, giving Colgate forward Emilio Audi a prime opportunity inside the crease to punch it home.

But in came Criscuolo. With the Raiders primed to cut their deficit in half, the junior got the puck out of the danger zone with one swipe of his stick, even initiating a two-on-one attack the other way seconds later.

Nonetheless, the co-captain won’t take all the credit for himself.

“There’s a lot of leaders that are on this team,” Criscuolo said. “It’s an honor to be the captain, but I think a lot of the other guys deserve some credit for that.”

Acknowledging the leaders without “C’s” on their chests, Criscuolo pointed to the veterans of the Crimson squad—the ones that have endured their share of tribulations over the course of their Harvard tenures, including two in particular.

PAT’S BACK

When Patrick McNally held the puck near his own goal in Ithaca back in January, he couldn’t have been thinking too far ahead. But when a Cornell skater got tangled up with the blue-liner’s leg, that all changed.

Within a week, McNally revealed that he would be out for the remainder of the regular season. Nonetheless, holding out hope that his teammates could orchestrate a lengthy postseason run, McNally refused to rule out a return. After Harvard made quick work of Brown in the opening round, the defenseman’s optimism came to fruition the ensuing weekend.

At Ingalls Rink for the Crimson’s quarterfinal series at Yale, McNally took the ice. In Harvard’s first taste of an elimination game, the defenseman served as an immediate sparkplug, scoring the equalizer with 3:30 remaining.

With the stakes even higher on Saturday, McNally made up for lost time again. From the right faceoff circle, the blue-liner added what proved to be the game-winning wristshot to extend his side’s advantage to 3-1.

“I know Pat,” Donato said. “He came back to win the championship, and he knew that he could be a big part of it. And certainly he was.”

BACK IN BLACK

McNally missed all but that one game in Ithaca on the back half of the Crimson’s schedule, putting the defenseman in similar company as one of his classmates, Colin Blackwell.

Fourth-year forward Colin Blackwell scored an empty-net goal with 55 seconds left to help Harvard clinch its first ECAC title since 2006. By Michael D. Ledecky

After sitting out the majority of the last two seasons due to recurring concussion issues, the fourth-year forward returned for the season’s final weekend. Afterwards, Blackwell acknowledged that he came back to provide a difference.

“As one of the seniors on the team and [one of the] leaders, I kind of pride myself on getting the boys going and trying to get a little spark,” Blackwell said on Feb. 28.

Over the ensuing seven games, that’s exactly what he did, coming up with five goals and an assist to lift his squad past three of the top four seeded teams in the ECAC. After battling back from another injury scare on Friday, the second-liner clinched the title on Saturday, finding the empty Colgate net with 55 seconds remaining to jumpstart the Harvard celebration.

“I think we certainly were hurting with more than our share of injuries, but I think we have a lot of unselfish players who put the team first,” Donato said. “[I’m] very proud to be involved with this group, and they’re very deserving of a championship.”

—Staff writer Jake Meagher can be reached at jake.meagher@thecrimson.com.