Men's Hockey Draws Past Tie Record

It’s been a record-setting year for Harvard athletics.

Football broke the program’s modern-era points record. Barring a shocking collapse, the men’s basketball team will cruise past its previous team high of 23 wins. And Jeremy Lin ’10, well, he’s had more than his share of Harvard firsts this year.

But while impressive, those are school records, not national ones. So in that respect, the Harvard men’s hockey team did those squads (and JLin) one better.

Because on Friday, men’s hockey broke the NCAA D-I record for most ties in a single season with 11.

Eleven ties. That’s more than the team had in the past three years combined. The previous program record was six in one year.

Before the Crimson (8-8-11, 6-5-9 ECAC) made history, three teams sat at 10 ties: Minnesota State (2002-03), Colorado College (2008-09), and Western Michigan (2010-11). But no squad in the long and storied history of NCAA D-I hockey was able to attain that elusive number 11.

It must be the most boring record any team could break. No other honor exists, as far as I know, for being so remarkably average in so many games. It’s a record for being the Switzerland of the ECAC, for being the little train that stalled at the peak of the hill, for sitting smack on the top of that bell curve, right at the 50th percentile. Occupy Harvard must be delirious—someone really took the demands to leave the confines of the one percent to heart.

For those who mastered the virtues of sharing in kindergarten, for those who are radically moderate, for those who Santa has no clue what to do with—you were neither naughty nor nice—this record is for you.

And if a tie is like kissing your sister, then what is this? What Oedipus had going on? No, come on, that’s child’s play.

But what is interesting about this unprecedented, historic streak of ties is that they came for the Crimson in all shapes and sizes. In some, like the Jan. 21 tie against then-No. 9 Cornell, Harvard mounted a third-period comeback to force a draw. In others, like Friday’s 3-3 tie against Brown, Harvard held the lead until the waning moments but slipped coming down the home stretch, letting the Bears tie the contest with 1:46 remaining on the clock. A similar fate befell the Crimson the week before against Rensselaer.

And no Harvard opponent has been spared. The Crimson has tied them all, from Union, now ranked eighth in the nation, to Rensselaer, the doormat of the ECAC. Harvard firmly adheres to non-discriminatory tying practices.

Indeed, there have been good ties and bad ties, strong ties and weak ties, one tie, two tie, red tie, blue tie.

“I think you could look at it two ways,” said senior forward Alex Killorn after the Crimson tied Brown on Friday to set the all-time record. “A lot of those games we came back, and we showed a lot of resiliency…. A few of these games we’ve just given away. You don’t know how to feel about it. It’s a record…. But it’s a double-edged sword.”

It has been a strange year for the team. Paradoxically, Harvard has a middling offensive attack yet the nation’s best power play. After freshman goaltender Steve Michalek appeared to be the go-to guy between the pipes, there seems to be a revolving door in goal as of late. And if Saturday’s 7-1 loss, in which Michalek let in five goals on just 16 shots, is any indication, the Crimson may have a new starting netminder soon.

Yet despite it all, this season has exceeded expectations. Picked to finish dead last in the ECAC in one preseason poll, the squad sits at fifth place, just one point away from fourth and a first-round bye in the conference playoffs. Quite a turnaround from last year’s squad, which at one point was a dismal 4-18.

Depending on the team’s results this weekend  against St. Lawrence and Clarkson, the last two games of the regular season, the 2011-12 version of the Crimson could end a three-year spell of underperforming, sub-.500 seasons. And in some strange sense, it’s the ties that have gotten Harvard there. In 15 of 20 league contests, the Crimson has picked up at least one point, allowing the team to keep pace in the tightly-packed ECAC standings.

But with the impending start of the playoffs, a mid-life crisis looms for the Crimson. It’s do-or-die, no draws allowed, and so after a long, tempestuous relationship, Harvard has to kiss the tie goodbye. And then—gasp!—the Crimson will have to sink or swim. The floaties will have to go.

—Staff writer Robert S. Samuels can be reached at robertsamuels@college.harvard.edu.