Icemen Revive Offense, Win Three Over Break

The good news first: during the vacation, the Harvard hockey team snapped out of its two-game mid-December slump, crushing Princeton at Bright Center and taking two of three at the Jeno Tournament in Duluth, Minn., outscoring its four opponents, 30-6.

Now for the bad news; in the third period of the Crimson's 9-2 pounding of Princeton December 18, a Tiger skater pounded Harvard Captain Greg Olson into the sideboards, leaving him with a broken ankle which will probably sideline him for the rest of the season (see box).

Olson played long enough against Princeton to help his high-scoring line drive the visitors' goalie. Ron Dennis, from the nets--for Dennis, a repeat of last year's visit to Bright (a 10-0 Harvard rout). Linemates Scott Fusco and Jim Turner either scored or helped set up six goals, three on the power play.

Dennis actually kept his team close early on, stopping 15 Crimson first-period shots. And Princeton trailed by only two goals midway through the contest, when the hosts effectively sewed up the contest in a two-and-a-half-minute span.

First, right wing Greg Britz gave Harvard a 4-1 lead with a power play score at the second stanza's 12-34 mark. The Tigers promptly picked up another penalty and defenseman Ken Code's slapshot beat Dennis to the far side at 13 38.

But it was netminder Grant Blair who really put the Tigers away, after Harvard's Greg Chalmers was cited for covering the puck in the goal crease and Princeton's top scorer, Ed Lee, was awarded a penalty shot at the 14:00 mark.

Lee put his shot between Blair's legs from about 10 feet out, but, Blair said later. "I got it with part of my pad and kicked it wide." After that the Princeton attack vanished; the Tigers put only three shots on net in the final period.

Harvard's most impressive performance of the vacation may well have been its sole loss on its annual western trip. In the four team round-robin Jeno tourney, the icemen smothered Northern Michigan, 7-0, on December 28, and Northern Arizons, 12-1, the next night (11 players contributed goals in the two games), before falling in Minnesots-at-Duluth, 3-2, in the championship game.

But the visitors cut played the nation's second-ranked team for two periods in front of 5116 hostile fans. Scott Fusco put the Crimson up 4:36 into the match, tucking a shot just under the crosshair. Bulldog center Das Fish back beat netminder Blair to the it early in the middle period and the sensational play of Duluth goalie Bob Mason (32 saves) stopped the Crimson offense.

The momentum switched to the home team in the final 20 minutes Bulldog Bill Watson deflected a shot off blueliner Code's skates and into the twines for the go-ahead goal at 9:14 and Fish back added an insurance tally seven minutes later. Scott Fusco made it 3-2 with 10 seconds to go with his second goal of the game.

THE NOTEBOOK: Harvard, now 8-2-1 (6-1-1 in the ECAC) placed four players on the all-tournament team: Britz, Neil Sheehy and both Fisco brothers... The icemen travel to Chestnut Hill tomorrow for a 78:30 p.m. face off at Boston College.