Winthrop Wins Intramural Final on Late Goal

Well, it was not the Beanpot; it wasn't even Harvard-St. Lawrence. But if you sat back and thought hard, real hard, the finish to last night's hockey intramural final between Winthrop and Kirkland could have been B.U.-B.C. in another ECAC thriller.

The score was 3-2 for Winthrop House and the clincher came with less than a minute left. Steve Mullin scooped up a loose puck to the left off the crease and fired it through a crowd sending the Winthrop squad into raucous celebration.

Outfit the players with fancy uniforms, fill the stands with 15,000 frenzied fans instead of the 30 who looked on at Watson Rink, and chant "Screw B.U.," and you could almost see Boston Garden on any of a number of nights this past season, with players from Harvard or B.U. or UNH dancing at center ice.

But dreams only last for a while and most of the game left little doubt that this was only House hockey. It was a good game anyway with the teams trading goals and playing tough all night. "Kirkland is a good team. It was pretty close," Winthrop's John Otsuki (2 assists) said after the game.

Kirkland goalie Steve Groper agreed that the two teams "could go either way any day."

Winthrop's Bob Lindsay was the big gun, scoring both of his team's early goals assisted by Otsuki. The line of Lindsay, Otsuki and Kevin Noughton gave Kirkland trouble all night. Chris "BoBo" Dowd singled out their passing as a key to the victory.

Kirkland's offensive spark was provided by Bob "Bear" Murray and Robert Wagmun.

Lindsay attributed the Winthrop victory to team spirit. "Everybody shows up for the games so everyone has a sense where we're going to be." Alex "Hatchetman" Vik, varsity golfer and a former all-Oslo player, said "We outroughed Kirkland House."

Team captain Mullin credited his team's development program for their 10-2 season. "We've been waiting three years for this one," he said, singling out seniors Matt Hobbs, Jon Goldblum, Lindsay, Todd Looney, Andy Ritter and Dave Gardner.

Kirkland goalie Groper offered his postmortem by saying that Winthrop's passing game was good. "They had three good goals. We didn't control the puck--we usually do." Looking back at his team's earlier 6-2 victory over Winthrop, he added, "We have the potential to kill them again."

But, like the Harvard varsity, Kirkland must hang up their skates for now.