Friday 2/25 results

[PrincetonFan]

Any finals in the Dartmouth-Harvard or Colgate-St. Lawrence games? I was at the Princeton-Union game, Coach Kampersal told me that Colgate and St. Lawrence had gone to overtime. If anyone has gametracker, please post finals.

[dave1381]

St. Lawrence ties Colgate, Harvard beats Dartmouth

[PrincetonFan]

So we now know slots 1-5: Harvard, Dartmouth, St. Lawrence, Yale, Princeton.

[CrimsonFan79]

Some thoughts about the Harvard-Dartmouth tilt at Bright tonite.

1. Not a bad crowd but I was hoping for a near sellout. These two teams play hard and fast and display some great hockey. A shame that more people didn't see it.

2. Keenan, the ref, made a strange call towards the end of the game. He called Nicole Corriero for diving while calling a Dartmouth player for hooking on the same play. If Nicole was diving, then why call the Dartmouth player for a penalty? Haven't seen that one before.

3. Dartmouth did a great job on faceoffs and their passing was crisp.

4. Harvard played tentative and scared for the second and some of the third period. They really can't handle the physical aspect of the game and it shows. Since Dartmouth and to some extent SLU play this style, Harvard has to adjust or face some real problems in the postseason. I like Katey Stone's system but every system can use a tweak now and then.

5. Dartmouth has perfected the art of obstruction/interference. They got called a few times and there were many more instances that went unchecked. I suppose if it works, you stick with it but that's not hockey based on skill.

Congrats to the Crimson for clinching 1st place. It has been a tough road this year with a very slow start. Given that SLU tied Colgate, I believe tonight's win should propel the Crimson over SLU in the national rankings and PWR.

[dave1381]

Yeah, I was hoping for a better crowd but this is about what I expected. 1600+ was down from 1700+ in 02-03 and 1900+ last year. The 1900+ game was on Sunday and might have been easier for some people in terms of travel. Other factors might be there's no draw quite like Ruggiero or Botterill any more, and there wasn't any women's hockey press in the Globe this week like their had been (One example, Bobby Orr said he came last year after reading the article on Ruggiero in the Globe.) Student section was strong eventually, though I wish people would actually show up in time for the start.

I think the ref's argument would be the BreMiller held Nicole as she was driving to the net, but then Nicole was diving later on in the play. Nicole's argument is that she was off balance and trying to avoid running full force into the goal posts. Regardless it was a strange call and frustrating at that point of the game. It all looked clean to me.

Harvard did play tentative in the second period. I think part of the problem is that so much of the game was on special teams. Harvard played its top PP unit for pretty much the last five minutes of the first period, and then the same kind of players suddenly had to kill a lot too right after that which wasn't part of the plan. So I think that kind of shook up their rhythm rolling three lines.

I think saying "they can't handle the physical aspect of the game" is a little too extreme, but you're right that it's an area that could use some improvement relative to the opposition, esp. when moving the puck in the offensive end. I don't think Harvard hesitates to play physical in the defensive end or when it doesn't have the puck in general. It helps if stuff is actually called from the beginning though.

And yes, I was also disappointed with the officiating. Almost nothing was ever whistled away from the puck, and the most ticky-tack calls were made when someone nudged a puck-carrier. I'm not saying this was all Dartmouth. Harvard certainly adjusted too and got away with stuff. But both Dartmouth and St. L certainly realized they were better off interfering with Corriero every time she might receive a pass, and both have gotten away with it. This is the kind of thing the emphasis was supposed to prevent. On the other hand, Corriero probably needs to adjust and do more to keep her feet if they're not calling it.

[toots]

originally posted by dave1381 Harvard did play tentative in the second period.


I think it was less about Harvard playing tentative than Dartmouth finally playing. Dartmouth was outshot 20-3 in the first and was down 3-0! I assume Hudak lit a fire under their butts to get going during the break. Glad they decided to start playing, as it was a great game after that (although I would have taken a humiliating blowout ;) !)

[CrimsonFan79]

Well, yeah Toots, Dartmouth did have something to do with Harvard's tentative play in the second period but I think the Crimson played as if they were in a "prevent" defense thinking the game was theirs if they sat back. You can't do that against Dartmouth - they have too much skill. Havard also gave Piper and Apps way too much room to operate and you can't do that against those players.

[superk]

Dartmouth played pretty terrible in the first period. Most of their passes were off target and even a man up they struggled to bring the puck in the Harvard end. Lane did all she could to keep her team in the game and I think the only goal she could have stopped was the second one.

I like the way Dartmouth responded in the second period. They haven't played their best over the last couple weeks and so they were able to build some confidence in those final two periods. Though it looked like at the end they just ran out of gas.