Icemen Open Season in Style, Thrash Union

The Union men's hockey team must have felt a little uneasy knowing its first road game of the year would be at Harvard on Friday the 13th.

Then again, the Skating Dutchmen's 4-0 loss to the Crimson last night at Bright Hockey Center had nothing to do with bad luck. Union, still showing the signs of its Division III ancestry, was simply outskated, outskilled and outclassed by the sixth-ranked team in the country.

Harvard dominated the action for the whole contest, pinning the Skating Dutchmen back in their end of the ice and helping rookie goalie Trip Tracy (28 saves) to a shutout in his first ever collegiate game.

(This was the first time Union had been blanked in four years.)

Led by Captain Ted Drury (two goals, one assist) and sophomore Cory Gustafson (one goal, two assists), Harvard's offense displayed more ammunition than Union goalie Luigi Villa (37 saves) and the Skating Dutchmen could handle, particularly in the first 20 minutes when Harvard forced Villa to make 15 saves.

"We skated tremendously in the first period," Harvard Coach Ronn Tomassonni said. "When we skate like that we're going to give some teams a very hard time."

Harvard could not get anything going when it found itself with its first power play one minute into the contest, but the Crimson had gone through too many man-up drills this week to squander its second.

Harvard blasted shots from everywhere on the ice, scoring at 8:05 when sophomore forward Cory Gustafson received a pass from junior forward Brian Farrell in front of the net and slipped a backhand shot over Villa's extended glove.

"With some of those plays [in the first period], you couldn't have drawn them better on the blackboard," Tomassonni said.

Farrell scored a goal of his own at 12:56, taking a feed from sophomore forward Ben Coughlin and slipping the puck by the shellshocked Villa into the net.

But the most impressive scoring display came at 16:18, when sophomore Brad Konik--either aided by ESP or a newly-sprouted set of eyes on the back of his head--made a mind-boggling, no-look pass to a streaking Drury.

Drury flicked the puck in from the right side for his first goal of the night. He tallied again at 13:08 of the second period to bring his season scoring total to four goals.

The rest of the game looked like typical Union hockey: sloppy and slow. Union, despite a number of flagrant hits, was saved most of the penalties, though, while Harvard collected nine in the last 40 minutes of the game, including a 5-minute major called on Farrell for cross-checking in the third.

Tracy probably felt a little unlucky getting so much action in the final two stanzas, but the Friday the 13th curse wasn't fazing this freshman. With some fancy glove saves--and a little help by the Crimson's penalty-killing unit--Tracy sent Union home with its first, but not its last, ECAC loss.

HARVARD, 4-0 at Bright Hockey Center Union  0  0  0  --  0 Harvard  3  1  0  --  4

G: Union--None; Harvard--Ted Drury 2. Cory Gustafson, Brian Farrell. A: Union--None; Harvard--Farrell, Drury, Gustafson (2), Brad Konik (2), Peter McLaughlin, Ben Coughlin. S: Union--Luigi Villa 37; Harvard--Tripp Tracy 28.