An Authentic Beanpot Hero

The Harvard men's hockey team shocked more than a few Boston-area fans in the 1981 Beanpot.

Entering the tournament with the poorest record of the four teams, the Crimson scored a stunning 10-2 upset over Northeastern in the opener, then went on to gain and just barely--cling to a 1-0 lead through most of the final against Boston College.

With 1:55 left in the final period. Harvard's Dave Burke swung into action and clinched the game. A perfectly executed shot eluded B.C.'s "sophomore sensation" goalie Bob O'Connor, bounced off the crossbar and landed squarely in the net, sewing up the Beanpot for Harvard.

"That was a great hockey game that night," says Harvard Coach Bill Cleary. It was up and down: it was exciting--there were tremendous plays being made.

"I can still remember David picking up the puck against the boards," Cleary recalls. "It took a perfect shot to beat that goaltender."

By then Burke had seen goaltenders get beaten in the Beanpot for years. A native of Norwood. Mass., Burke says his father brought him to hockey games as soon as he was old enough to understand what was going on out on the ice.

"We went to the games all the time," he says. But he adds that his loyalties haven't always lain where they do now. "I used to root for Boston University, and my father would root for Harvard," he says.

But the Kirkland House senior's attraction to the sport began even before he started rooting for anyone. "My father used to take me skating all the time," he recalls. "I was about two or three."

Burke remembers learning to skate in "a truck yard behind the house--a guy used to flood the garden and let it freeze." From the sound of it, he's barely stopped skating since, playing in the Pee Wee leagues for South Boston when he was seven or eight. "We played kids 10 or 11 or 12 years of age--we beat 'em. too," he says.

And in high school as well. Burke was a standout. Playing for the Belmont Hill School as a senior, he racked up 32 goals and 35 assists on his way to garnering the league's Most Valuable Player honors and a place on the High School All-American team.

The History concentrator compares the process of advancing through the levels of competitive play to slipping through a funnel. "When you're smaller, in the Pee Wees, says, there's a lot of kids playing, and as you go up there are fewer and fewer."

Burke has held his own with the other players who have made it through the funnel to play ECAC hockey. "He's a good hockey player," says fellow forward Bill Larson, who scored the winning goal in the '81 final. "He's a hard worker and he handles the puck well."

In his freshman, sophomore and junior years Burke handled the puck well enough to be the third highest scorer on the team each season, with 30, 25 and 25 points respectively. Last year, for personal reasons, Burke took a leave of absence and played amateur hockey in Minnesota.

"It was a little different style," Burke says. "It's more of a pro-style." But he adds that it took only a few practices to get back in the swing of the college game.

Then, just as he was starting to fit in with the rest of the team. Burke tore a ligament in his knee at Cornell December 12. Only the day before, against Colgate, he had tallied two goals and an assist. He has resumed playing but is still recuperating.

"It's taking him a little bit of time to loosen up," Cleary says. "He's still getting back in playing shape," Burke adds. "I'm coming along slowly but surely."

Burle hopes to be at full strength for the Beanpot. "It's the season in itself. It's the bragging rights to Boston. I'd like to go for the whole ball of wax this year, because we really have the talent," he says.

Burke sums up the season in symbolic terms: "I want to get a watch, a ring and win the Beanpot"--a ring for winning the Ivy title and a watch for a victory in the ECAC or NCAA Championship.

This may well be the year that Dave Burke gets his wish.CrimsonNevin L. ShalltDAVE BURKE (10) celebrates the goal that clinched Harvard's 1981 Beanpot.