Last Modified: 2011 October 9
Joe Schlobotnik / joe@amurgsval.org
URL for this frameset: http://slack.net/~whelan/tbrw/tbrw.cgi?1999/ecac.981125.shtml
(scores are linked to boxes on ECAC HockeyNet, which is not affiliated with The Big Red What? or Joe Schlobotnik)
It was a good weekend for the home teams in the ECAC, as they posted a 7-2-1 record, including two four-point weekends. One of those came from the Colgate Red Raiders, matching their sweep on the road last weekend, and leaving them as the last unbeaten, untied team in the league. Friday night against Vermont, the Red Raiders broke open a scoreless game with four straight goals in the second half of the second period en route to a 7-2 win, while Saturday night saw them surrender the first goal to Dartmouth before pouring in a half-dozen of their own in a 6-1 rout. Two hours West in Ithaca, the Big Red of Cornell used two third period goals to pull out a 3-1 win over Dartmouth. With North Dakota falling to Colorado College out West and dropping to 5-1-1, that left the Red, 4-0-0 overall, as the last unbeaten team in Division I for the third consecutive year. For the second straight year, however, they would hold that honor for only one night, as three Vermont goals in three and a half minutes propelled the Catamounts to a 5-3 win.
The other weekend sweep came from defending regular season champions Yale, who started their defense of the Ivy League title by beating Brown 5-3 and Harvard 7-1. Eli Jeff Hamilton had a hat trick against Harvard, along with a goal against Brown and three assists on the weekend, to earn Player of the Week honors. Hamilton is considered one of the ECAC's top prospects for the Hobey Baker award. Two states over in the rink that bears Hobey's name, ECAC titleholders Princeton remained unbeaten in league play with a three-point weekend, edging Harvard 3-2, and tying Brown 3-3. Senior Nick Rankin and Freshman Dave Stathos continued to share goaltending duties for the Tigers.
There were also two battles between travel partners this weekend. Friday night Union got out to a 4-2 lead at RPI, but let the Engineers pull even in the third. Any visions of the Dutchmen's 3-2 overtime loss two weeks ago in the Capital Skate Classic two weeks ago were quickly banished by Brad Yaeckel, who netted the game winner just under two minutes into overtime. The 4-3 win was Union's first regular season victory at Houston fieldhouse. Union freshman Drew Taylor, who scored the first goal of the game, was chosen ECAC rookie of the Week.
Saturday brought a matchup rife with implications as preseason favorites Clarkson brought their 1-5 overall record to Appleton Arena to face their arch-rivals St. Lawrence, off to a 5-2 start overall. Once again the story was SLU goalie Eric Heffler. Heff turned away 40 of 41 shots as the Saints prevailed 3-1. For the fourth time in the five weeks St. Lawrence have played, Heffler was crowned ECAC goaltender of the week.
In non-conference games, all against Hockey East, Union fell 4-2 to UMass-Amherst Saturday, but the ECAC rebounded with a clean sweep Tuesday night: Harvard outscored Boston University 3-0 in the first period and held on to win 5-3, UVM's Andrew Allen stopped a penalty shot with under seven minutes remaining to preserve a 2-1 victory over Mass-Amherst, and Cornell used 47 saves from Freshman Matt Underhill to defeat Northeastern 4-2. (Tuesday night games are included in consideration for next week's Weekly All-Stars.)
Colgate take sole posession of first place as the last team with a perfect record in ECAC play, while Yale and Cornell, top two finishers in last year's Ivy League race, are again out to strong starts.
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Conference Standings
ECAC Ivy
W-L-T PF-PA-PR Pct W-L-T PF-PA-PR Pct
1 Colgate 4-0-0 8- 0-36 1.000
2 Princeton 3-0-1 7- 1-36 .875 1-0-1 3- 1-16 .750
3 Vermont 3-1-0 6- 2-36 .750
Cornell 3-1-0 6- 2-36 .750 3-0-0 6- 0-14 1.000
5 St. Lawrence 2-1-0 4- 2-38 .667
6 Yale 2-2-0 4- 4-36 .500 2-0-0 4- 0-16 1.000
7 Union 1-2-0 2- 4-38 .333
Clarkson 1-2-0 2- 4-38 .333
RPI 1-2-0 2- 4-38 .333
10 Brown 1-3-1 3- 7-34 .300 1-2-1 3- 5-12 .375
11 Dartmouth 1-3-0 2- 6-36 .250 0-1-0 0- 2-18 .000
12 Harvard 0-5-0 0-10-34 .000 0-4-0 0- 8-12 .000
In interconference play, the ECAC's 3-1 week pulled them even with Hockey East and game them an overall winning record. Cornell and Harvard remained unbeaten in non-conference play; the Crimson are 0-5 against ECAC teams and 2-0 against Hockey East.
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Non-Conference Records
Team ECAC HE CCHA WCHA D1 Indy Total NC
Clarkson 0-2 0-2 0-4
Colgate 0-1 0-1 1-0 1-2
Cornell 1-0 1-0 2-0
Dartmouth 1-0 1-0
Harvard 2-0 2-0
Princeton 0-1 0-1
RPI 1-0 1-1 1-0 3-1
St. Lawrence 1-0 2-1 1-0 4-1
Union 0-1 0-3 1-0 1-4
Vermont 2-1 1-1 3-2
ECAC HE CCHA WCHA D1 Indy Total NC
Totals [2-2] 5-7 0-2 2-3 5-0 14-14
The ECAC's absence from the national top ten lasted only one week, as an ECAC squad displaced Northern Michigan to claim the number 10 spot in each of the two major polls. The twist is that a different team appeared in each poll: St. Lawrence in the US College Hockey Online Poll and Colgate in the USA Today/American Hockey Magazine poll. In addition to those two, Cornell received votes in each poll and while Princeton and Vermont showed up on USCHO pollsters' ballots.
Each team's name is linked to information on RealAudio transmissions of its radio broadcasts. A summary of ECAC webcasts can be found on Joe Schlobotnik's Sports Machine, while a page with direct links to each of the weekend's webcasts is made available by Eric Carlson.
There's only one league contest this weekend as travel partners Brown and Harvard complete their season series in Providence Saturday night. The Crimson will also travel to Troy Tuesday to get a game with RPI out of the way and make room for their busy Beanpot week in February. Saturday also sees a non-conference game between travel partners as Cornell face Colgate for the second year in a row at the Nassau Coliseum.
In ECAC-Hockey East battles: Vermont participates in the Governor's Cup tournament in Lowell, facing the host team Friday, followed by either Maine or New Hampshire Saturday; and Clarkson and St. Lawrence play host to Boston University and Boston College; Yale and Princeton do an elaborate dance with Providence and Merrimack: the Tigers are in Providence and the Elis at Merrimack Friday, while Providence travel to New Haven Saturday and Merrimack are at Princeton Sunday.
Finally, there are four more games over the weekend with Division I Independents, with RPI and Union hosting Niagara, while Dartmouth play a pair at Nebraska-Omaha.