Injuries Mount Over Christmas Break

SCHENECTADY, N.Y.—Harvard captain Dominic Moore is beginning to wonder if anyone will want to play with him.

Moore lost his two wingers, junior Dennis Packard and sophomore Brendan Bernakevitch, to injuries just two games apart from one another.

“Brendan was pointing out to me the other day that it must be bad luck to play on my line,” Moore said. “It’s tough to lose both your wingers.”

But its not just Bernakevitch and Packard who have missed time for the Crimson. In a three-game stretch against No. 6 Boston College, No. 1 Maine and No. 15 Northern Michigan, the Crimson lost five players to injury and illness.

“It is unfortunate because we were starting to develop some chemistry, especially after the Yale game,” Moore said. “But this is really the best time of the year to get injured with breaks for Christmas and exams. We have the fewest number of games over the most amount of weeks right now, so these guys won’t miss a lot of action recovering.”

The injuries reached a peak at the Bank One Badger Showdown. Facing Colgate on Dec. 30 in Wisconsin, Harvard was without five regulars and could only dress 10 forwards.

In addition to Packard and Bernakevitch, junior winger Kenny Turano and freshmen defensemen Peter Hafner were injured, while junior winger Rob Fried was out with the flu.

If the injuries and unfamiliar line combinations hurt the Crimson, the team did not let it show. Harvard rebounded from its longest winless streak of the year (three games) to down Colgate 8-1.

“The great thing this year is our depth,” Bernakevitch said. “Even with guys like Packard and Turano out, there are people who can step up, contribute and play active positive roles. It is one of our biggest strengths.”

Among the pile of injured Crimson players, Packard was the first to go down on Dec. 11. Late in the third period of a 2-2 tie with BC, Packard was slashed and injured his right hand.

It turned out that he had broken his fifth metacarpal bone, which runs along the outside of the hand between the wrist and the bones of the finger.

Packard underwent surgery the following Tuesday, when doctors inserted a metal plate and six screws in his hand.

The bone must be immobilized for four weeks after surgery, and so far, Packard has been wearing a splint for three weeks so he can continue to move his fingers and retain as much strength as possible in his hand.

“Most likely I won’t play this weekend,” Packard said. “Actually, there’s no chance that I’ll play this weekend, but it was still an opportunistic time to break your hand.”

Packard will miss just three conference games and six games in total. The Crimson’s next game after the weekend is not until Jan. 31 against Brown. By that time, Packard expects to be back in the lineup.

After scoring just his first goal of the season in the second period of a 4-2 loss to Maine on Dec. 15, Turano broke his right ring finger later in the game and was to forced to go under the knife to repair the damage. Turano is expected to return in time of the Beanpot in February.

Hafner, who had already missed seven games after spraining his MCL on Nov. 9 against Vermont, reinjured the same knee in the Maine game.

“I got hit along the boards and aggravated it,” Hafner said. “It feels great now, and I’m pretty much back to 100 percent. I’ll be wearing a brace when I come back, but we have a bunch of guys on the team right now wearing braces.”

Despite the manpower crisis on the team, Hafner did not rush his return.

“Neither I nor any of the coaches or trainers wanted to rush it,” Hafner said.

Hafner missed two games before returning to the lineup Saturday. His return to the top defensive pairing with sophomore Noah Welch allowed coach Mark Mazzoleni to shift junior defensemen Blair Barlow to left wing on the fourth line.

Bernakevitch, who sustained a lower-body injury against Northern Michigan on Dec. 29, is doubtful for this weekend but should return after the break.

Alma Mater Matters

Saturday night’s game at Union was originally scheduled for Feb. 8, to coincide with the Crimson’s Feb. 7 meeting with RPI, just a couple of miles down in the road in Troy, N.Y.

With the Beanpot final scheduled for Feb. 10, the original schedule would have forced Harvard to play three games in four nights heading into what has the potential to be the most important game of the regular season for the Crimson.

Although a Beanpot win will not help Harvard in the standings, it would be hard to find a Crimson player who would not trade two points for a Beanpot title.

Harvard has not won the Beanpot since 1993. Although the schedule change certainly helps Harvard, it might have hurt Union. With the original schedule, the Dutchmen would have faced a very different Crimson team on Feb. 8 than they had to play Saturday night.

With three games in four nights and the Beanpot final two days away, Mazzoleni likely would have rested star sophomore goaltender Dov Grumet-Morris in favor of freshmen John Daigneau. That could have been the difference in the game, as Union coach Kevin Sneddon ’92 should have realized before agreeing to the change and probably realized after the game.

“He played great tonight,” Sneddon said. “Grumet-Morris was the MVP of the game in my opinion.”

Sneddon captained the Crimson his senior season and won both a Beanpot title with Harvard during his freshman season in 1989.

According to Sneddon, he agreed to the schedule change to help showcase the ECAC in a high profile tournament like the Beanpot.

“We have to do what is best for the league,” Sneddon said. “We want to make sure that, in a tournament like that, our team [Harvard] isn’t tired out there against another team that’s rested. We’re glad to help the league out and help Harvard out.”

For Union’s sake, let’s just hope that helping out Harvard and the league did not cost his own team two points.

— Staff writer Timothy Jackson can be reached at jackson2@fas.harvard.edu