RPI 2021-22: Picking Up Where We Left Off

[Ralph Baer]

I wonder what the championship trophy was like in 1973.

I can remember that some years later, North Dakota won the NCAA championship. The next week, Sports Illustrated did their once-a-year article on college hockey, in which one of the North Dakota players mentioned that the Fighting Sioux, as they were then known, had won the RPI tournament that season. According to him, the championship trophy was a wrist watch. One watch, for the whole team. I guess they gave it to their captain.

Don't think the article did much to advance the prestige of our tournament.

Edit - Upon checking my facts, I find that North Dakota played in the RPI tournament only twice, in 1959 and 1981. They won the national championship in 1981-82 - but didn't win the RPI tournament. They only placed third. So perhaps it's not so surprising that they didn't get an elaborate trophy for their effort.

I vaguely remember that watches were what the tourney All Star team selections got.

[Ralph Baer]

I do miss the tournament, for the reasons you mention. They used to get some quality teams into the building. Sorry to see it go, but understand it had run its course.

BU's Jack Parker had a great story about the 1973 tournament - Leon Abbot was fired from BU and Parker became head coach and made his coaching debut against Dartmouth in the Invitational at the Field House. BU then played RPI in the tourney finale that year and got blown off the ice. But BU finished the tournament with the best record and thus was the champion. Parker was stunned that the team that just beaten him something like 8-1 was then handing him the championship trophy.

Well. it was a round robin back then and BU was 2-1 while RPI was 1-1-1 as was Dartmouth. OSU was 0-1-2. https://sports-chronicles.com/chit/p...nal_tournament

[DrDemento]

I vaguely remember that watches were what the tourney All Star team selections got.

I wonder if those were the ones where Mickey had the big white gloved hands or the little ones?

[DrDemento]

Agreed. Don't want to get fooled by the record; this will be a test.

Latest odds I can find have these games all as virtual ties (2-2 most likely scores). We are a 46% to 40% win favorite but these are just oo close to call. Alaska has had a lot of trouble scoring goals but their defense is rather stingy.

[fr. joe]

I wonder if those were the ones where Mickey had the big white gloved hands or the little ones?

Dean Carl Westerdahl had a hand in the All Tournament Team selection as well as a hand in the watches.

[engineerhockeyfan]

Latest odds I can find have these games all as virtual ties (2-2 most likely scores). We are a 46% to 40% win favorite but these are just oo close to call. Alaska has had a lot of trouble scoring goals but their defense is rather stingy.

That sounds like a mirror image of our team.
But looking at individual stats, we have more potential to score than Alaska. We will just have to play the games to see what happens.

[Wicked Slappaahs]

See Cornell and Clarkson. Beat CCT in their first game of the season and played 2 games at Cornell losing by one goal each time (a tad better than we did in Ithaca). They will of course be playing us at home. 4 games in a short time frame. This could be a lot tougher than it looks on paper.

They've lost ten straight ---albeit to a very tough group of opponents. Most recently they tied (lost in OT) #2 UMD in Duluth. We'll have our hands full for sure.

[jericho]

We will just have to play the games to see what happens.

this is the best analysis from anyone in the history of this board.

[Ralph Baer]

Dean Carl Westerdahl had a hand in the All Tournament Team selection as well as a hand in the watches.

Was he the hour hand or the minute hand? ;-)

[Ralph Baer]

Alaska's pregame writeup https://alaskananooks.com/news/2021/...dec-14-15.aspx.

[DrDemento]

That sounds like a mirror image of our team.
But looking at individual stats, we have more potential to score than Alaska. We will just have to play the games to see what happens.

this is one time that we need to have a high scoring set of games. You are right, Alaska just simply has trouble getting goals and if we can play a run and gun type of game perhaps it plays into our hands. Against most other teams i would prefer we play the tight defense that leads to scores like 2-1. For these four games, want them to fly out there and just put pucks on net.

[DrDemento]

Alaska's pregame writeup https://alaskananooks.com/news/2021/...dec-14-15.aspx.

Somewhere in that write up they mention the 1986 game that Alaska beat us 5-4 in Troy. One of the most difficult losses for us to take. It was the first night of the Invitational Tournament and of course by losing we played in the early game the next night (which we also lost to Merrimack i believe 2-0). The thing i remember clearly from the Alaska game is how we carried the play throughout the third period and it felt for sure that we would win only to have Alaska (Fairbanks in those days) skate up ice and after a short flurry score with about 6 seconds left in the game. This is one of the few times the tournament was held in late November instead of scheduled as a Christmas Tournament.

[RPI fan 4 life]

Actually the tournament was played in November of 1985-1987 and then the last 7 years of the tournament (2004-2010).
it got harder and harder to find teams who wanted to play during the Christmas season and there were more tournaments that were being played at that time.

[mmf]

Hope your boys have a safe visit to Fairbanks and get to experience some unique life experiences, if not any success on the ice. Hope your coach has some activities planned. Timing is good for the life experience part.

a. Last weekend it was -40F.
b. Friday it may be a tad above 0…a relative heat wave. There will be some fans in shorts.
c. But don’t fret about the boys missing out on the true Alaskan experience, it’s supposed to drop to -30F by Sunday or Monday night.
d. We're near the Winter Equinox (Dec 21), the shortest day of the year. Sunrise is about 10:45am and sunset is about 2:45 pm. At high noon the sun just peeks over the horizon. So during the warmth of the mid-day sun it will feel like only -29F.

On a hockey note, our boys play hard but we struggle for scoring. We are young and inexperienced. 18 underclassmen who never played a college game before this season. 14 non-North Americans (Latvia, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Hungary). Both goaltending and defense have been fairly solid. We have also been a bit snake bit, with not a lot of puck luck going our way. We have been right in most games until fairly late. Four OT games, two we played a man down. Lost all four. We haven’t played anyone not ranked in the top 20 yet. We’re due for a game or two where we put it all together and avoid stupid mistakes. We’ll see.

Stay safe.
Go Nooks!

[Ralph Baer]

Hope your boys have a safe visit to Fairbanks and get to experience some unique life experiences, if not any success on the ice. Hope your coach has some activities planned. Timing is good for the life experience part.

a. Last weekend it was -40F.
b. Friday it may be a tad above 0…a relative heat wave. There will be some fans in shorts.
c. But don’t fret about the boys missing out on the true Alaskan experience, it’s supposed to drop to -30F by Sunday or Monday night.
d. We're near the Winter Equinox (Dec 21), the shortest day of the year. Sunrise is about 10:45am and sunset is about 2:45 pm. At high noon the sun just peeks over the horizon. So during the warmth of the mid-day sun it will feel like only -29F.

On a hockey note, our boys play hard but we struggle for scoring. We are young and inexperienced. 18 underclassmen who never played a college game before this season. 14 non-North Americans (Latvia, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Hungary). Both goaltending and defense have been fairly solid. We have also been a bit snake bit, with not a lot of puck luck going our way. We have been right in most games until fairly late. Four OT games, two we played a man down. Lost all four. We haven’t played anyone not ranked in the top 20 yet. We’re due for a game or two where we put it all together and avoid stupid mistakes. We’ll see.

Stay safe.
Go Nooks!

I was surprised that you have so many players from Latvia. RPI has three from Finland, one from Slovakia, and one from France. Simon Kjellberg grew up in Sweden but is listed as from Tennessee where his father was playing when he was born. We have an assistant coach from Austria.