Big Green Sports UpdateBy Brendan Neff | Sunday, February 11, 2007 Hockey The undisputed king of Dartmouth sports, the hockey program, is the only team that can compel fans to brave the snow and cold of a Hanover hangout night. Students put their pong games on hold for the rare spectacle of a sporting events that actually have some national significance. This winter promised to be little different, the bar of expectations set high by past years’ successes. Halfway through the season, however, the juice just does not seem to be there, both in the stands and on the ice. Truly, Dartmouth hockey has experienced a winter of inconsistency thus far. Reflecting on the season going into this past weekend, senior forward Dan Shribman remarked, “When we look at our season so far we are certainly not happy with our record but we feel like we have our best hockey in front of us. We know that we’ve strung together some good periods and some good games and if we become more consistent good things will happen.” Indeed, Dartmouth seems to have had difficulty sustaining a high level of play long enough to really get rolling. After a promising start to the season that saw wins over Harvard and UVM, the team suffered tough home losses to St. Lawrence, Clarkson, and Yale bringing them back down to earth. A pre-New Year’s contest against North Dakota was more notable for Josie Harper’s controversial (and idiotic) statements than the actual game played (a 4-1 loss), and a loss to UNH was more entertaining for having been on cable TV than the closeness of the contest. The Green have even had trouble holding on to leads, allowing both Yale and Clarkson to overcome 2-goal deficits to earn draws. Recently, however, the team seems to have turned and corner, and the most recent contest may mark the point at which they finally have some momentum going in their favor. Going into this weekend games, Shribman summed up the teams goals going forward: “At this point we are not thinking about the national tournament but instead playing winning hockey in February and letting the rest take care of itself.” The action that followed this weekend was certainly the kind of start to the month that he must have envisioned. Realistically, however, with the next two weekends on the road, the Green needed maximum points on its home ice to keep pace with the top of the ECAC. This was accomplished, but not without making the Thompson Area crowd sweat through some nervous penalty killing first. The Green would twice, in as many days, find themselves 2-men down, protecting slim third period leads. Thankfully, they were able to ride solid netminding from Mike Devine, and timely goal scoring from forwards Nick Johnson and J.T. Wyman (2 and 3 goals respectively) to closeout the tight contests. In victory, one can hope that the penalties indicate that the team has returned to the aggressive, chippy hockey fans come to see and have come to expect at Thompson, and not ill-discipline. In my opinion, the action leading up to the penalties was great hockey, and the refs should have kept their arms down. Should they continue to find themselves in the box, however, the team may be hard pressed to keep the puck out of the net when they take to the road the next two weekends. This away contest will likely determine the kind of position Green hockey is in when they return home on the last weekend of the season. Basketball Some of the sporting buzz around campus this winter has surrounded the unexpected improvement of the basketball team, which has in recent years been more notable for its complete lack of buzz than play on the court. Much has been made of the fact that the team has already surpassed last year’s win total (six games), which is certainly an accomplishment to build on. When asked about this sudden turnabout, co-captain Jonathan Ball gave credit to the efforts of the teams underclassmen: “The improvement has to be credited to our chemistry beginning to flourish and some key guys stepping into bigger roles within the confines of the team. Sophomores like Devon Mosley, Alex Barnett, and Dan Biber have been big for us this year.” Despite the obvious improvement, the team can hardly be satisfied. Ball went on to add: “I think we are doing well but not as well as we would like. We really have the confidence that we can go out and win every game we play.” Fans of Big Green basketball can take heart in the fact that the team is probably just starting to come together. Actually, says Ball, the “results from earlier this year are a bit misleading because we were really hit hard by injuries.” Ball himself missed the first three games of the season, and leading scorer, senior swingman Leon Pattman, the first six. Said Ball, “We believe that with all of our weapons we could have won at least 3 of the games we played during that 0-6 start.” This is a team, then, that could really just be hitting its stride, getting healthy and dangerous and just the right time. Clearly this year’s squad is not satisfied with mere year-over-year improvement. Unfortunately, last weekend was a lost weekend for the Green. And as Ball himself said, “A weekend in the Ivies can make or break your season.” Having lost to three Ivy League in a row at home, chances at an Ivy championship may in fact be broken. The team’s hard road ahead may offer it’s only opportunity, as they have 4 more games combined against perennial Ivy power Penn and Princeton. If Dartmouth is to build on it early season improvement, it will have to be in these games. Skiing Dartmouth Winter Carnival is traditionally about skiing. With both hockey and basketball away, this is particularly true this year. Coming off of a 3rd place finish in last year’s national championship, the Dartmouth ski team is truly one of the elite. This year, despite numerous graduations, has been no different. Says captain, and 2005 slalom national champion Dave Chodounsky: “We’ve had a lot of good results and first place and podium finishes, but I think we have the potential to be even better.” For this unit, accustomed to New England supremacy, carnival wins are not enough: “All of our guys are fast enough to be on the podium at the end of the day, but with rough courses, tough conditions, and some bad luck in there it’s been hard to be solid and fast. That’s what ski racing is all about though.” The team has taken the top two in a few events. At the UNH Carnival, Evan Weiss won the GS with Chodounsky in second, a feat the two inversed in the slalom, with Chodounsky taking first and Weiss right behind him. But, as Chodounsky points out “if we can get a third finisher up there, we’ll be sitting pretty”. Despite the individual and team successes, the season has not been without adversity. “We’ve had a few injuries that have slowed us down as well, ” said Chodounsky. “Evan Weiss is currently skiing with a cast on his broken hand, causing him to miss the first carnival. This weekend, on Friday, I crashed pretty hard, hurting my shoulder and couldn’t race (Saturday) because of it.” Reflecting on this weekend, he went on to add: “skiing downhill while pushing your limit and skiing through foot-deep craters at every gate that the previous skiers leave behind in the snow, takes its toll on us. Some people don’t understand why there’s a reason that we can’t finish. Yes, we can make it down cautiously, but in the field that we’re skiing in, we’d never win. Try arcing through a mogul field at 40 miles per hour and see how it turns out. It’s no day in the park.” Looking ahead to Carnival, the captain was optimistic, looking forward to this year’s two slalom events: “The conditions have been great in the past so it should be a good race and we can definitely take the win”. If the season’s previous results are any indication, Dartmouth should have little trouble defending its home turf, or snow as the case may be. Looking ahead to nationals, Dartmouth should “have a great chance at taking top three again if not win. We have a very strong team in both sports, nordic and alpine. We’ll just keep skiing as fast as we can and do what we can do, and hopefully, we’ll be standing on top of the podium.” Results and Upcoming Home GamesHockey Basketball Skiing |
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