ECAC Hockey Report, 1996 November 18

The big story so far in the ECAC season seems to be the Big Red of Cornell, who remained the only undefeated team in Division I college hockey with a sweep in their first home weekend. On Friday, they became the first team to score six goals against first-team All-American Tim Thomas since his sophomore year in a 6-4 victory over national #3 Vermont, then added a 6-3 win over Dartmouth the following night. Colgate, ranked #10 going into the weekend, were swept at home, being upset 3-2 by Dartmouth before falling 5-4 to Vermont.

In the Ivy clashes in Princeton and New Haven, Princeton and Brown came away with three points each, tying at three on Friday before posting wins Saturday, the Tigers 6-2 over Harvard and the Bears 5-4 over Yale. The Crimson and Elis each managed a point by tying 2-all on Friday. In the other league contest, Clarkson used five first periond goals and a hat trick by Todd White to post a 7-4 win over their travel partner St. Lawrence.

In non-league play, RPI suffered two shutouts, being blanked 3-0 Tuesday by Mass-Lowell and losing a non-conference battle to Capital District rivals Union College at the Knickerbocker Arena in Albany 2-0 on Saturday.

Turning to the standings with four games played by most teams, Cornell lead the pack with 8 points. Princeton are a surprising second with 5, followed by a pack of teams with 4 each. The Engineers of Rensselaer head that group off with two games in hand (and a perfect 2-0 record), followed by Clarkson at 2-1 and Colgate and Vermont at 2-2. Yale are in seventh with 3 points, along with Harvard and Brown, who have each played an extra game. Three teams round out the standings with but 2 points each: Union have two games in hand and St. Lawrence one, while Dartmouth are no longer winless at 1-3.

This week's conference action starts early as Brown and Harvard finish their home-and-home series in Cambridge tomorrow night. Vermont visit Dartmouth Friday in the other battle of travel partners, While Clarkson and St. Lawrence travel to the Capital District to face RPI and Union, and Princeton and Yale play host to Colgate and Cornell in the weekend series. Non-conference play sees Brown travel to Ann Arbor to take on defending National Champions and current #1 Michigan in a two-game weekend series; the Vermont Catamounts, 2-2 in the ECAC and 4-0 against non-league opponents, return to the latter on Sunday as they host Mass-Amherst in a matinee.

I'll be out of town the next two weeks, but I'll be doing an ECAC hockey update next Wednesday night on KCSB's the Mr. Squishy Show. If you don't happen to be in the Santa Barbara area, the report can also be found on Joe Schlobotnik's Sports Machine, on the World Wide Web at http://www.cc.utah.edu/~jtw16960/index.html