The 'V' Spot: One Moore Trip to Placid

Teams elect a captain precisely for these moments.

Yale had been riding a surge of momentum that began with some cheap shots by Lee Jelenic and ended with its captain, Ben Stafford, giving the Bulldogs a 4-3 lead at 4:02 of the third period. Saturday's game and perhaps Harvard's first trip to Lake Placid in three years began to look in serious jeopardy.

But Steve Moore was not going to let that happen.

The Crimson scored three goals in a span of 2:14 in the third period Saturday, and the captain had a hand in every single goal. It was a sequence worthy of all the great players who wore the "C" on their jerseys before him.

"It was really nice to have a game like that in my final contest at Bright," Moore said. "The second period was unbelieveable because it felt like everything was going against us. Our team showed a lot heart."

It started on a series of extended pressure by Harvard. The shots came fast and furious in a period where the Crimson had 14 shots on goal.

On the first goal of the final frame, Moore got the puck to rookie Tyler Kolarik who whizzed it on goal. Sophomore winger Brett Nowak banged home the rebound.

Less than a minute later, it was Moore's turn to battle for a loose puck in front of the goal, outhustling the Eli penalty killers at 8:50 for the series-winning goal.

To give his team some breathing room, he set-up behind the net and threaded a pass to cutting freshman Dennis Packard who buried it, and the Bulldogs, with one shot.

The student section of Bright Hockey Center immediately went into convulsions not seen or heard since the early 1990s. The swagger was back in Harvard hockey because the snarl was back in Steve Moore's game. "The was the best game I've seen Steve play in my two years here," Harvard Coach Mark Mazzoleni said. "When you're a senior, you know that your time is getting short, so you have to make every game count and he did."

Moore had struggled to put together a complete game like that all season. Standing 6'2, 205 lbs, he motors like a freight train on the ice with excellent hands, shot and playmaking ability. Unfortunately, on most nights this year, only one side of Moore would come to play, and usually that would be the physical aspect of his game.

But the Colorado Avalanche spent a second round draft pick on him in 1998 because of his offensive ability. Though Moore has been the team's leading scorer for the past three seasons, he entered Saturday's game with just six goals on the season and 28 points. With his skill, this could have been a breakout season with at least 40 points next to his name.

Instead, the 40-point plateau went to his younger brother, sophomore center Dominic Moore, and Steve occasionally looked only too eager to control the puck too long to take the shot himself.

Not Saturday night. Steve Moore was all over the ice, pummeling hapless Elis along the boards. His hard work generated scoring opportunities as he used his great vision to find the open man, and the Crimson as a whole was richly rewarded for his efforts.

All three of Harvard's top lines were rolling in the climatic third period, but it was the captain who was out there setting the tone.

"We are going to take a lot of confidence out of this series, because we battled against a good team even when the chips were against us," Moore said."Everyone on this team now knows what it takes to get the job done at Lake Placid."

The Crimson, who by necessity has relied heavily on its underclassmen this year more visibly than at any time this year, got the senior leadership that it will need to triumph at Lake Placid. And the members of the Class of 2001 are the only players who have stepped out onto the Olympic ice where miracles happened two decades ago.

Harvard stands just as good a chance as any to win the ECAC championship as all of its lines pose distinct offensive threats. The Dominic Moore line combines skill and speed to finesse the opposition. The unit of senior center Harry Schwefel, freshman Kenny Turano and Nowak have superb chemistry and can just grind the opposition down on the wall until offense arrives. And the captain's unit is almost a perfect blend of both styles.

The Crimson is on a big high as it has all season. It took care of business at Bright Hockey Center. The team now knows that it can win two games in a row, can come from behind in the third period, and, if it brings its "A" game to Lake Placid, that it can advance to the NCAA tournament.

That confidence comes from superb play from a lot of sources. But credit Steve Moore on Saturday night for being the biggest.

Extras

Harvard's student section has grown increasingly louder and crazier with each game thanks to some enthusiastic football players cheering on their hockey buddies. Saturday's game, despite having only 1,407 in attendance, was louder than most sellout crowds due to the jam packed student section.

When Steve Moore scored the go-ahead goal, the place looked like a mosh pit. Chants rained down, attacking everything from Yale goaltender Dan Lombard's punctured lung, referee Dan Murphy's inane officiating (more on that later) and the pathetic offerings from both the Yale and Harvard bands. (Note to the band: When Harvard students are chanting, don't try and drown them out with that Irish jig). The chant of the series was "H-U-P-D" when the cops busted some pugnacious Eli supporters who went after the uncle of assistant captain Chris Bala.

At some points, if you closed your eyes, Bright Hockey Center almost resembled Cornell's fearsome Lynah Rink. Especially when an old tradition received a new twist. Historically, for Harvard-Cornell games at Bright, some Harvard fans would sneak out onto the ice and tie a chicken to the goal to mock the Big Red's agricultural school. In turn, at Lynah, fans would throw fish to poke fun at Harvard's proximity to the sea.

A couple weeks ago, a couple fans decided to revive the chicken tradition, and since the Big Red wasn't coming to town anymore this year, the Bulldogs had to suffice. Last week against Yale, just one dead piece of poultry made it onto the ice. But on Saturday, after the first period concluded, a veritable chicken coop was hauled towards the Eli goal to the delight of the crowd….

Normally, this column space tried to avoid ragging on the officiating, but Dan Murphy should be demoted to the squirt league for his job in this game. Not only did he engage in the traditional ECAC practice of makeup calls, but his incessant use of the whistle denied almost any flow to these games. Moreover, when Jelenic went over to taunt Jonas and sophomore defenseman Aaron Kim came over to keep him in line, Murphy did the right thing by assessing Jelenic a misconduct, but he failed to give him a minor penalty. Therefore, Yale was rewarded by the sequence with a power play and the loss of a goon.

It wasn't the first time that Jelenic lost his cool during the series. On Friday, after a particularly merciless sequence by the Harvard student section, he banged on the glass with his stick to swipe at the fans who were pressed up against it.