Taking It For Granted

"Grant Blair's kind of an unsung hero for us," Harvard men's hockey Coach Bill Cleary says. "He goes unnoticed. Everyone always says he's been on good teams. If you want to look at him, look at his sophomore year, with practically no one in front of him, he had the lowest goals-against average in the league."

In that 1983-84 campaign, the only season in the past five that the Crimson failed to earn a berth in the NCAA tournament, Blair played some of his best hockey.

He led the Ivy League in goals-against average with a 1.96 mark. He finished third in the ECAC in g.a.a. with a 2.74 mark, just .07 goals per game behind league leader Cleon Daskalakis, who played for 29-11-1 B.U. and .05 behind second-place Daren Puppa, who played for 32-6 RPI.

The goalie will be remembered for his fine performances in the ECAC and NCAA tourneys his freshman year, but considering the quality defensemen playing in front of him, his sophomore campaign may be his most impressive.

Blair's squad managed just a 10-14-3 mark, but the netminder upped his save percentage to .918, best in the ECAC, and actually allowed fewer goals than he did with the NCAA runners-up the year before.

Blair was named Ivy League Co-Player of the Year (with his old teammate from junior hockey, Duanne Moeser of Cornell) and selected the most valuable player on the Crimson squad.

After he was drafted in NHL amateur draft following his freshman year, Blair was also starting to think about the pros. His distinctive stand-up style had won him admirers and was cleary suited to the pro game.

Not only was Blair coming out and cutting down the angles, he was playing with consistency, and his performance peaked come March and playoff time.

"He's very consistent--that's one of his trademarks," says Mike Schafer, a two-year Cornell tri-captain and Blair's teammate in juniors.

"He seems to sense when we're down and we need him," Crimson Captain Scott Fusco says.

A week ago, hosting Colgate in the ECAC quarterfinals, the Crimson came out flat, but Blair's sparkling 40-save performance bailed his team out and delivered a 2-0 shutout.

Keeping the Crimson out of trouble isn't always easy for the usually cocky netminder. Being put on the spot night after night has taken its toll.

"I feel sometimes I lack confidence," Blair says.

Father Knows Best

His father has noticed a tell-tale sign in his son's pre-game habits.

"Sometimes he gets too tight," Matthew Blair says. "He's best when he's relaxed before a game. He's got a real habit of yawning when he's nervous. He just yawns and yawns."

Despite his moments of doubt, Blair's provided a constant level of play throughout his career.

"What's mind-boggling is his consistency," his father and coach says. "He keeps the team continually in the game."

Aside from consistency, Blair's hard-nosed attitude has been his most noticable trait.

In his junior year, Blair's aggressiveness began to spill over into his stickwork. He started directing his blade toward opposition forwards, and Grant Blair began to get penalties.

A lot of penalties.

His 26 minutes that year were just off the team high of 30--certainly a Harvard record and may be an ECAC record for a goaltender in a season.

"I laugh when people compare me to a Billy Smith-type goaltender," Blair says of the New York Islanders' slash-happy netminder. "I take it as a compliment, because I figure I'm more of a Billy Smith-type goaltender because I play well in the playoffs."

The roots of his aggressive play lie in the philosophy Blair and his father share about what sort of attitude and game it takes to make it to the big time.

"You don't let anyone intimidate you," Matthew Blair says. "In juniors they run, hack and slash a goaltender and a goalie has to stand up for himself."

Blair's antics wore Cleary the wrong way, however. The Crimson coach wants his team to play a clean game, and throughout his junior year there was clear tension between Blair and Cleary.

"My junior year, I had some tough times at Harvard," Blair says. "Leaving was in the back of my mind."

But while Cleary frowned on Blair's tactics, others, like Val Belmonte, the Harvard assistant who recruited him and is now the head coach at Illinois-Chicago, liked Blair's style.

"At times [in juniors], he would get a penalty," Belmonte says. "In a way I saw that as a positive, not a negative. Bill knows that, and he's careful not to break his spirit. For a goalie, it's not that good to be passive."

This year, Blair's penalties are down.

Slash-Happy

"Last year, I felt players were taking shots and doing a lot of stuff to me that I didn't feel they should do, and I retaliated because I felt that you've got to protect yourself," Blair says. "You've got to show the other team you're not afraid, and whatever they're gonna give, you're gonna give back.

"A lot of referees are looking for me," Blair adds. "They know my style of play. I still get the odd slash here and there. It's more or less me getting smarter. They're not catching me now."

As he's cut down on his penalties, Blair hasn't lost the playoff touch that has also been his hallmark.

Even though the Crimson dropped a crucial semifinal contest to Clarkson Friday, Blair still ended his ECAC Tournament career with some pretty impressive numbers--a 10-3-1 mark, .925 save percetnage and a 2.06 goals-against average.

"I think he's a born winner," Matthew Blair says.

Blair has always relied on a come-out-and-get-'em style. The Kirkland House senior likes to skate way out of his net to try to reduce the shooter's angle.

"Sometimes he puts pressure on a shooter," says former Harvard goaltender Joe Bertagna '73, executive director of the ECAC and the Boston Bruins' goalie coach. "Instead of taking normal shot selection, he tries to work the puck a little deeper or tries to take a perfect shot and loses the puck."

Without a coach at Harvard, Blair has had to rely on himself or fellow goalies John Devin and Dickie McEvoy.

"Just before the B.C. game early in the year, John goes to me, you seem to be going down a bit more and staying back in your net more than earlier in the year," Blair recalls. "In the B.C. game, I stood up, I came out and I had 45 saves and played twice as good as I had earlier in the year."

At the beginning of this season, Blair struggled before getting his g.a.a. down to the nation-leading 2.67 he now sports.

"I went in with the wrong attitude," Blair says. "I had to do everything right, I was so responsible for what happened to this team, and I wasn't having fun. Before we played RPI, just after Christmas, halfway through the practice I was just hating it. I said, I hate playing, I'm just sick of it.

"I felt I was doing two things wrong. I fixed 'em and then, all of a sudden, I was having so much fun. From then on I've streaked through the last 12 games," Blair said a week before the end of the regular season.

After the Crimson's season ends, Blair will begin to think about Calgary training camp in September. A sixth-round draft choice in 1983, Blair has impressed the Flames with his progress over three years.

Blair is hoping to make Calgary's International League farm team in Moncton, New Brunswick, next year. Right now, Calgary has one proven goalie, Reggie Lemelin, and a group of three or four journeymen.

Blair thinks he has a chance, but he admits that his experiences in college aren't always uplifting.

"When I play a game here--and it's not nice to criticize a team or a school--but when a kid from Dartmouth comes down the wing and pumps a puck by you, you wonder what Mike Bossy'll do to you," Blair says.

"My adjustment will be that the players can shoot the puck harder and get the shot away quicker, which means you have to be in position that much quicker," Blair says. "If you're lazy, there gonna put the puck by you. But people seem to say my style of stand up and come out is more fit for the NHL than the college game."

Often in the past season, as the Crimson has sped to eight-and nine-goal victories, passing the time has been Blair's biggest concern.

What does Blair do when the offensive machinery of the 1985-86 Crimson gets in gear and leaves him a lonely figure at one end of the rink?

"I watch the game," he says. "I pay attention to how we move the puck on the power play. I look at people in the stands. And I clean the ice. Then I think about what I'm going to do after the game. What I'm going to do next week.

"You wonder what everybody thinks of about you standing down there all by yourself."