Icemen Arise Just in Time to Slay Tigers, 4-3

If hockey were just a 50-minute game, Princeton would have shut out Harvard, 3-0, at Bright Center last night. The Tigers would have won at Bright for the first time since the 1982-'83 season. The Crimson would have been shut out at home for the first time in four years.

Would have, could have...didn't.

The Tigers forgot that the rules of hockey require a game to last for 60 minutes. And if the contest ends in a tie during regulation, a sudden-death overtime period will then decide the winner.

Got that, Princeton? No? Well, the other team sure did.

Even though Harvard did not play to its potential in the first two periods of the game, it overcame a three-goal deficit to win with the help of excellent skating--and a few breaks.

"The third period is a good example," Harvard Captain Steve Armstrong said, "of the way we should have played throughout the whole game."

To put it plainly, the Crimson played so well that it dominated the action on the ice. It snatched the key away from the Tigers and locked them out of Bright Center.

To put it even more plainly, Harvard mercilessly pressured freshman Tiger goalie Ron High with a total of 38 shots on goal in the final and overtime periods. Net result: four goals and an incredible victory.

Two of those goals were simply sweet. C.J. Young's power-play goal with 10 minutes left, which started it all, was sweet. Don's Sweeney unassisted score that tied the game up was even sweeter. In fact, Coach Bill Cleary certainly liked the way this win tasted. But he'll still admit luck played a big part.

"I'd rather be lucky than good," Cleary said.

Josh Caplan's goal--Harvard's second--was a lucky break. High decided to say "hi" to a couple of his friends in the stands and went too far away from the net. Don Sweeney picked this up and flicked the puck to Caplan, and Harvard capitalized on the opportunity.

If Caplan's goal was lucky, Tod Hartje's overtime game-winning tally was a miracle. Considering the angle Hartje took the shot from and that he wanted just to put the puck into the zone, the icemen were more than lucky--they were blessed.

"I'd rather be lucky than good," Hartje said.

Hartje's goal not only kicked the Tigers out of Bright, it was also the sophomore center's first goal of the season.

"I gave my best friend a call before the game," Hartje said, "and talked about how I shot around 15 or 16 times last weekend and couldn't get anything in the net. He said 'just keep shooting and hopefully you'll get a goal.'"

After all that frustration Hartje finally got his goal. He couldn't have asked for a better time.

In the last minutes of the game, the icemen woke up and realized that Princeton was trying to sneak away with an upset.

But the Harvard icemen taught the Tigers a lesson: hockey takes a hour, and sometimes a few more minutes, to play. Got that, Tigers?

After what the Crimson did to Princeton last night, the Tigers will never forget that basic hockey rule.