Dartmouth Crushes Dazed Crimson Icemen, 9-2

Contrary to rumors that surfaced last weekend, spring has not arrived yet and the seedings for the ECAC hockey tournament are far from locked up. The Dartmouth hockey team realized this in Hanover, New Hampshire, where eight inches of snow fell yesterday, but it seems as if spring fever has already taken hold in Cambridge.

Harvard's icemen, confident after tying Cornell last Wednesday and routing Yale Saturday, travelled up to snowy Hanover last night looking to wrap up the sixth seed in the tournament, but received only a cold slap in the face. The Big Green squad fired in seven second-period goals to humble the Crimson, 9-2.

Hat Trick

Dartmouth's Kevin Johnson, who scored the winning goal in Watson Rink two weeks ago, picked up the winner last night as well as a hat trick in the second period explosion. He was joined by Tom Fleming, who also had a hat trick in the second.

Fleming's first goal was an omen of things to come for the dazed Crimson squad, as the senior from Brookline scored eight seconds after the opening face off in the second, with Harvard short-handed.

Johnson was not to be outdone by his teammate, and he fired one past Harvard's Brian Petrovek just eight seconds after that. So after playing Dartmouth even in the first period (1-1) the Crimson squad suddenly found itself behind 3-1 not even a minute into the middle stanza.

And things did not get any better for Harvard, especially for Petrovek, who must have wished he was home in Norwood rather than Dartmouth's new Rupert Thompson Arena. Petro gave up eight goals in his two-period stint in the Harvard nets before giving way to John Aiken, and made just 15 saves.

'Big D'

Twelve of those saves came in the second period alone, as the Crimson defense limited the Big Green to only four shots in the first. Dartmouth goaltender Jeff Sollows, meanwhile, was busy in the opening stanza, turning aside 14 Harvard shots.

Sollows came up with 41 saves in the contest, allowing only a goal to Gene Purdy 46 seconds into the game and to Dave Bell at 6:21 of the second. Both of those goals came on rare defense lapses by Dartmouth.

Breakaway

Purdy's goal was one of the few bright spots for Harvard, as it gave the Crimson a lead it held until 14:18 of the period, when Joey Tomlak stole the puck and waltzed in on Petrovek. Things began to turn sour when Kevin O'Donoghue took a tripping penalty at 18:41 of the first, setting up Fleming's power play goal at 0:08 of the second.

It was all downhill from there. After Johnson's two goals (0:16 and 4:54) made it 4-1, Bell narrowed the Dartmouth lead to two at 6:21, but the Big Green scoring parade had already started to roll.

The rest of the second-period goals were by Dan Leigh at 6:47, Johnson at 7:29, Fleming at 10:17 on the power play again, and Fleming once more at 18:00. Rick Racic scored at 17:17 of the third.

All of a sudden Harvard had lost 9-2, it was still very much winter outside and the Yale game this Saturday will be very important. If Harvard loses that, there's a chance the team might not be one of the eight teams in the ECAC playoffs at all. ECAC STANDINGS TOP 11 TEAMS   W  L  T B.U.  20  2  0 U.N.H.  24  5  0 Brown  16  5  0 Clarkson  14  7  1 Cornell  13  8  1 Dartmouth  14  9  0 Boston College  11  9  1 HARVARD  9  7  3 Providence  11  11  2 Vermont  9  12  0 R.P.I.  8  12  2 Last night's scores: B.U. 9, Cornell 4 U.N.H. 9, R.P.I. 7