Hockey Looking to Climb out of Cellar

Friday, February 8, 2008

By A.S. Erickson

The Dartmouth men’s hockey team heads to New York over Winter Carnival to play Rensselaer (RPI) and Union College; they then return home for games against Quinnipiac and Princeton. This past fall the boys in green dominated Union at their home opener, winning 4-0. That same weekend, however, they fell to RPI by a score of 4-7. Dartmouth will be looking for payback this weekend, and RPI will be looking to right their ship after a pair of recent losses to Quinnipiac and Princeton. Union is on a bit of a hot-streak as they have won 11 of their last 15.

In recent on-ice action, Dartmouth dropped games to both Yale and Brown on February 1st and 2nd, respectively; both were away games. Yale jumped off the blocks, scoring 3 unanswered goals in the first period. Their second shot of the night found the net, and that goal was followed just three minutes later by a second, putting Yale out in front early in the first. Yale out-shot Dartmouth 18-8 in the first period.

The Indians answered quickly in the second when freshman Kyle Reeds ’11 found the net from the left sideboards 18 seconds into the second period; Assistant Captain JT Wyman ’08 had the assist. Later in the second the Bulldogs picked up their fourth goal, again widening the margin to 3 goals—but before the announcer was done announcing the goal, Dartmouth had struck back with a goal from Josh Gillam ’10 off assists from Rob Pritchard ’09 and John Grecu ’08. With just over six minutes left in the middle period, Captain Nick Johnson ’08 added a goal of his own, with help from Joe Stejskal ’11. Johnson’s goal brought the Dartmouth squad within one goal of the Bulldogs.

Alas, before the second period was out, Yale moved the margin back up to 2 goals with their third power play goal of the night (the most power play goals Dartmouth has given up this season). A quiet third period was capped off with one more Yale goal, leaving the final tally at 6-3 in their favor.

The next afternoon the Indians did battle in Providence against Brown. Dartmouth jumped to an early lead with a power play goal by Wyman off a pass from Johnson at 14:19. It was Wyman’s 14th goal on the year. The Bears got that one back a few minutes later as the puck got tipped past goaltender Mike Devine ’08.

Brown took the lead with a goal about a minute into the second period. The Indians responded with their second power play goal of the night as Grecu and Evan Stephans ’11 got it into Johnson’s capable hands. The Bears took the lead back as the rebound off a Devine save found its way to vacated net.

Brown slipped another in just minutes into the third period, putting themselves ahead by two. Andrew Owsiak ’11 found the net at 5:45 in the third, as an onslaught of shots against the Bears’ netminder finally yielded a goal. Dartmouth pulled Devine with a bit less than two minutes left in the game, but even with the extra man the squad was unable to even things up. Brown won 4-3.

Going into Winter Carnival Weekend the hockey team sits at 8-11-2, and a frightful 3-10-1 in the Eastern College Athletic Conference, putting the squad in the cellar of the conference. They will look to turn things around this weekend—both teams are in-conference foes—before coming home to face very good teams in both Quinnipiac and Princeton. n

Hockey Looking to Climb out of Cellar

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