Adam's Ribbings

One of the biggest complaints about the NFL's Super Bowl is that it has become too much of a media spectacle and too little of a football game. The participating players and coaches spend two full weeks trying to unnerve the opposition with secretive quotes and overly-modest remarks on television and in the nation's newspapers.

Unfortunately, the situation before the ECAC hockey playoffs is remarkably similar to that preceding Super Bowl.

It's on a slightly smaller scale, granted, and the national attention devoted to this weekend's Boston Garden action is a little less intense than the hype before the Super Bowl. But the psyche jobs the players and coaches parade before the media is no less serious.

The ECAC luncheon/press conference at the Garden yesterday provided the perfect forum for the coaches to display their humility and meekness. Instead of talking about how good their teams are, most spent their time praising others and belittling their own accomplishments.

In last Friday's quarterfinal match-up, St. Lawrence blasted Vermont, 9-1, in one of the most brutal beatings administered by an ECAC team this season. But you wouldn't have known that by listening to Saints Coach Joe Marsh.

"That was not a 9-1 game," Marsh said. "Vermont gave us all we could handle." Kind of like Denver's effort against the Giants. "We're just happy to be here," Marsh continued.

"We're delighted to be back here in the Garden," echoed Crimson Coach Bill Cleary.

"Delighted?" If Harvard, the preseason favorite to win the conference, had not qualified for the Garden action, it would have been the biggest surprise since...well, Cornell's finishing ninth in the conference this season.

"It's a thrill being here," Crimson Captain Pete Chiarelli said, faithfully repeating the Harvard party line for this week.

But although the Crimson is favored to capture this tournament, it does have just cause to mingle caution with excitement. Harvard is only 10-14 in the Garden this decade.

Yale's Tim Taylor, who was named the first-ever ECAC Coach of the Year yesterday, spent the bulk of his speech discussing how great the other coaches in the conference were.

But clearly the coach most given to hyperbole and psychological intimidation was RPI's renowned leader, Mike Addesa.

Addesa, after telling the luncheon crowd about how "the great character and poise of the Harvard team" was too much for his lowly Engineers to handle earlier this year, spent approximately 10 minutes praising the four seniors on his squad.

It is true that RPI has been through much adversity in the past two seasons. Since its incredible 35-2-1 national championship season of 1984-'85, the professional hockey teams have grabbed 11 players, mostly underclassmen, from that Engineer squad. According to Addesa, it was his four remaining seniors, the "ones who were left behind" by the "play-for-pay" crowd, which enabled this rag-tag collection of freshmen to advance to the semis.

Then Addesa, the Sparky Anderson of collegiate hockey, told the assembled crowd that those seniors were "four of the greatest guys God ever put on the face of the earth."

Certainly Harvard has no chance against these legends of mankind.

As if having such players on a squad isn't enough to bring down divine destruction on any hockey team unlucky enough to stand in RPI's path, the Engineers have a plan.

Oh, that plan can't be revealed yet, of course. And that does make competitive sense--there's no point in letting the opponent know about your new strategies ahead of time.

"We're changing [our tactics] again," Addesa said. "We've got a thought in mind, and we hope the conception of our plan has some merit."

"It's like my wedding day," the RPI coach continued. "I had a plan, but with all those people watching, I had to change my plan. I tell you, we'll be going to church Friday morning so Harvard doesn't get on the power play."

Perhaps the crowning glory of this luncheon of humility was Addesa's comment that RPI can't play a physical contest against the Crimson because his players are "small and wispy."

Yeah, right. RPI has five players over 200 pounds, and seven taller than 6-ft., 1-in. By comparison, the Crimson has only two players in each category, Randy Taylor and Chris Biotti.

Enough of all this nonsense. Let the hockey begin.