Icemen Well-Armed for a Return to Dairyland

The last time the Harvard men's hockey team faced Wisconsin, the game was played in Grand Forks, N.D.

On the line was the 1983 NCAA Division I Championship. The Badgers took that contest, 6-2, and Harvard University was frustrated in its attempt to win its first NCAA crown since 1906.

The second to last time that the Crimson took on Wiconsin was the last time that the icemen have visited Dane County Coliseum. That trip to Dairyland was for the quarterfinals of the 1982 NCAA Tournament and the Crimson lost again, 6-1 and 4-3.

Overall, the icemen are but 1-5 against the Badgers and when the Harvard squad braves the 8000-plus in the Coliseum Saturday night (8:35 p.m. EST) and Sunday afternoon (2:05 p.m. EST), it will have a big job to bury the Badgers in their hole.

Harvard and Wisconsin are both ranked high in all the national polls and the Crimson is red hot, coming off a four-game winning streak and an eight-game unbeaten string. The icemen have also been ripping up the opposition recently, with 36 goals in its last four games, including an 11-3 thrashing of Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y.

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Crimson Captain Scott Fusco scored once and pitched in three assists against Dartmouth Saturday night at Bright Center. The goal, which came after two first period assists, gave the Burlington native his 196th career point.

That shattered the Crimson career points record, eclipsing the longtime mark of Bobby Cleary '58.

Defenseman Jerry Pawloski set up the Captain on the record-breaking goal, slipping a nice pass up the right boards.

Today's trivia question: who got the second assist? (answer below).

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As its rung up all its goals of late, the Crimson has compiled some fascinating figures. Right now, Harvard opponents are stopping just 81.6 percent of the icemen's shots, which means, of course, that the Crimson is connecting on over 18 percent of its shots.

And Harvard is averaging 6.76 goals per game and has scored over seven goals a game in both the Ivy League and the ECAC.

And the icemen are dominating the scoring race in both the Ivies and the ECAC.

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In the net, Crimson goalie Grant Blair is pushing his numbers back to his usual outstanding benohmarks. Blair, who holds almost every Harvard goaltending mark, now has exactly 2400 saves.

His save percentage for the young ECAC season stands at .875 and he's third in the Conference in goals-against average with a 3.16 mark.

Blair, however, is well behind Vermont's Tom Draper, who is enjoying an unbelievable start with a .932 save percentage and a 1.98 save percentage.

Draper's sudden rise to prominence may be better understood considering the goalie was but 16 when he first stood in the nets for the Catamounts.

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Tim Smith--who notched a first period hat trick against Dartmouth--was named the Ivy League Player of the Week.

Smith was also named to the ECAC Honor Roll, but lost Player of the Week honors to Clarkson's Al Hill, who led the Golden Knights to a 10-1 thrashing of St. Lawrence.

The Larries are now 0-7 and probably calling Curly and Moe for help.

THE NOTEBOOK'S NOTEBOOK: The Harvard Band finally got itself on track with a pair of clever cheers against the Big Green. First, when the score was 8-2, "Two, four, six, eight, our team is really great. Two, two, two, two, humiliating, isn't it?" Second, a few moments later, "I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, we want more!"...The second assist on Fusco's record-breaking goal went to Blair. It was the goalie's second career assist. 2400 saves and two assists. ECAC STANDINGS Team  W  L  T  GF  GA  Overall Harvard  7  1  0  58  25  7-1-1 Vermont  5  1  0  19  12  8-3-0 Yale  5  1  0  30  21  7-1-0 RPI  4  1  1  31  24  9-1-1 Clarkson  3  1  3  31  21  5-4-3 Cornell  3  2  1  29  29  4-2-2 Princeton  3  4  0  26  28  5-6-0 Colgate  2  3  1  23  32  6-4-2 Brown  2  4  0  21  27  3-4-0 Dartmouth  1  5  0  53  33  1-5-0 Army  1  6  0  24  35  4-7-1 SLU  0  7  0  20  40  4-7-0