RPI 2021-22: Picking Up Where We Left Off

[Manistee Rambler]

Agree with the seat painting; seems like a relatively easy improvement. As for the video board, I'd rather see other improvements first (improved seats in some sections, seating behind the goal at the Zamboni end). RPI's video board is only about 10 years old and is perfectly fine. The only issue with it is really a production issue getting the RPI TV replays a bit better synched. Northeastern also uses Matthews for D1 basketball which I think creates a different equation for them.

In fairness to HFH, it is an old Navy warehouse that was dismantled, shipped to Troy, and repurposed, whereas Matthews was designed specifically for sporting events. There is only so much that can be done for HFH.

I believe the color the seats referred to the quality of the seat. Red was best, Blue not so good, and then the west end was poorest of all. I think that this also was reflected in the price of the ticket-at least in the south stands for non students. Our student's group hockey tickets were rotated between red to blue to west end locations. As bad as things were in 65/6, we beat Penn something like 14-4.
The year after the football team ended the non-victorius streak in 65, the team had a winning season in 66, They lost their first four games before the coaches daughter had a dream that they would have a winning season, They won the last five games, capping the season with a 36-6 victory over Rochester on a beautiful fall Saturday.

 

[Ralph Baer]

I believe the color the seats referred to the quality of the seat. Red was best, Blue not so good, and then the west end was poorest of all. I think that this also was reflected in the price of the ticket-at least in the south stands for non students. Our student's group hockey tickets were rotated between red to blue to west end locations. As bad as things were in 65/6, we beat Penn something like 14-4.

The score vs. Penn was 4-2, and IIRC they were still a club team that year. We defeated them 11-5 the next year.

 

[DrDemento]

The score vs. Penn was 4-2, and IIRC they were still a club team that year. We defeated them 11-5 the next year.

Correct on Penn. We did have quite a freshman class coming in however.

 

[vicious]

Vicious: I was in Boston for that game. I have mentioned it a few times on various threads. I think truthfully that 78 was a gross underestimation. I thought he made about 35 saves in the first period alone. Could have been more but BU rang about 3 off the post and one off the cross bar. There were some very high scoring games against us that year (Clarkson, Northeastern) but i was always of the opinion that Dick was very good and saved us several times from even worse disasters. We were 3-19 and if you look at the schedule of who we were able to beat, we could easily have been zero wins for the season if not for some soft games.

DrD, sounds like the puck barely left the RPI zone the entire game.

 

[vicious]

No, I was not. It was during break, and I was in NYC. I didn't even hear about it until I returned to Troy. Smoke signals didn't travel too well. ;-)

Ralph, that is surprising given the amount of "smoke" one might have found on a college campus in those days

As DrD mentioned, it must have been quite a game. I did not see it but Greenlaw's game sounds reminiscent of a game of another memorable goaltending performance, in the Invitational (?) (vs McGill) and the McGill goalie recorded something like 80 saves in an 8-0 loss to RPI (I am writing all this from memory so I might be off-base). If I remember, the HFH faithful gave him a standing o at the end of the game. He may have also been tourney MVP. If someone has more accurate information or recalls the details more clearly, please correct me.

 

[Ralph Baer]

Ralph, that is surprising given the amount of "smoke" one might have found on a college campus in those days

As DrD mentioned, it must have been quite a game. I did not see it but Greenlaw's game sounds reminiscent of a game of another memorable goaltending performance, in the Invitational (?) (vs McGill) and the McGill goalie recorded something like 80 saves in an 8-0 loss to RPI (I am writing all this from memory so I might be off-base). If I remember, the HFH faithful gave him a standing o at the end of the game. He may have also been tourney MVP. If someone has more accurate information or recalls the details more clearly, please correct me.

DrD might be able to confirm this, but I recall hearing that Greenlaw was named one of the 3 Stars of the 9-0 loss to BU despite giving up 9 goals.

 

[RPI fan 4 life]

Then there were a couple of exhibition games that RPI played against a couple of Canadian schools in either the late 70s or early 80s. They beat Sir Wilfred Laurier 13-2 one night and Brock 15-0 the next. In the Brock game, RPI outshot them 35-1 in the second period. The Brock goalie made 32 saves in the period and I remember watching his teammates help him off the ice. He didn’t play in the third period.

 

[ServinisScores]

Princeton’s Wally McDonough received a partial standing O from the HFH the night he stopped 63 of 69 shots against the 1985 team - it was the regular season game, not playoffs that year.

 

[DrDemento]

DrD might be able to confirm this, but I recall hearing that Greenlaw was named one of the 3 Stars of the 9-0 loss to BU despite giving up 9 goals.

I would love to confirm it but cannot. Simply cannot recall even thinking about any RPI player being named as a star of that game (or that season since we had some results that were far worse).

 

[DrDemento]

Ralph, that is surprising given the amount of "smoke" one might have found on a college campus in those days

As DrD mentioned, it must have been quite a game. I did not see it but Greenlaw's game sounds reminiscent of a game of another memorable goaltending performance, in the Invitational (?) (vs McGill) and the McGill goalie recorded something like 80 saves in an 8-0 loss to RPI (I am writing all this from memory so I might be off-base). If I remember, the HFH faithful gave him a standing o at the end of the game. He may have also been tourney MVP. If someone has more accurate information or recalls the details more clearly, please correct me.

That game was during the Christmas break of 1979 and was indeed 8-0. Since i do not have any of my old programs here, cannot give you any other information but can confirm the score. The days of the Invitational tournament were wonderful. You got to see schools come in that you otherwise would never see from out west or the mid west. You got 2 days of double headers (or going way back, 3 days of double headers). Most times the early games had an empty HFH since teams from far away did not bring many fans. You could sit anywhere you pleased. If RPI won the first night, then the afternoon game on the second day was also pretty empty as fans started to show up only about one period before the RPI game would start. Gosh i miss those tournament weekends! I know the reasons the Tournament was scrubbed but still miss it terribly.

 

[Ralph Baer]

That game was during the Christmas break of 1979 and was indeed 8-0. Since i do not have any of my old programs here, cannot give you any other information but can confirm the score. The days of the Invitational tournament were wonderful. You got to see schools come in that you otherwise would never see from out west or the mid west. You got 2 days of double headers (or going way back, 3 days of double headers). Most times the early games had an empty HFH since teams from far away did not bring many fans. You could sit anywhere you pleased. If RPI won the first night, then the afternoon game on the second day was also pretty empty as fans started to show up only about one period before the RPI game would start. Gosh i miss those tournament weekends! I know the reasons the Tournament was scrubbed but still miss it terribly.

I went looking for that program which resulted in an avalanche of old National Geographic maps. First of all, it was in December 1977 when we defeated McGill 8-0. I have their goalie named Al Smith, not that Al Smith, saving 44 of 51 shots. (The last goal was an ENG at 19:59 of the third period.) Of the other 7 goals, 4 were on power plays, one was shorthanded, one was 4x4, and only one was 5x5. Kevin Constantine was in our goal. Ian Harrison played the other two games.

I have the following goals an assists. Some may have been changed later.

1 5:34 Sherlock (Boyd, Stoyanovich) pp
1 9:12 Armstrong (Grothe, Sherlock) pp
1 14:00 Stoyanovich (Armstrong, Landon) sh
2 11:08 Landon (Tomassoni) 4x4
2 15:02 Boyd (Stoyanovich, Armstrong) pp
3 1:45 Auger (Sherlock)
3 8:06 Stoyanovich (Sherlock, Armstrong) pp
3 19:59 Landon unass. en

Stoyanovich was Steve. I ran out of room to record penalties in the column. Attendance was 2499.
Loris Muzzatti, an uncle of recruit Sutter Muzzatti, played in the game.

 

[DrDemento]

RB- I had calculated it as 1979 but that was the best guess i could make not having any programs here. I was sure it was Christmas break but missed by a couple years. I remembered it was just before New years as we spent that in Troy often after the Tournaments in those days. It was great staying at was the old holiday Inn when all of the visiting teams also stayed there and we could meet up with them at the bar. Most of the boys were legal and of course the coaches all were. The Holiday Inn was 'the place' for before and after the games especially in the 80's and early 90's.

 

[DrDemento]

Just checking around here (in NJ) and we only have programs and yearbooks (yes they used to publish yearbooks) from the 1990's and early 2000's. The rest are up at our home in the Adirondacks. Those go back as almost a complete set through 1975, with many going back to 1963 but many of those early years are not complete sets.

 

[rpi82]

Just checking around here (in NJ) and we only have programs and yearbooks (yes they used to publish yearbooks) from the 1990's and early 2000's. The rest are up at our home in the Adirondacks. Those go back as almost a complete set through 1975, with many going back to 1963 but many of those early years are not complete sets.

My collection was lost after my parents became elderly and had the house cleaned out of old "junk." I used to love those old hand drawn covers so buying a program was an essential part of the game experience.

 

[DrDemento]

My collection was lost after my parents became elderly and had the house cleaned out of old "junk." I used to love those old hand drawn covers so buying a program was an essential part of the game experience.

82: I can sympathize. When i left for Medical school I entrusted my entire collection of magazines to my folks. I had every issue of MAD magazine and Playboy along with first issues of so many others (mostly copiers of MAD like Cracked, Crazy, etc.). Years later my folks moved to Florida. And more years later I went to visit and reclaim my entire collection only to find out my dad had given all those boxes to the moving men!! he had no clue what was in there but I told him that the moving men probably were able to buy an island somewhere to retire to with the proceeds! My dad lived with the creed that if you have not read it, tasted it, or made love to it within the past year - it should be thrown out.

 

[engineerhockeyfan]

I just checked Alaska's won/lost record, and it is awful. But don't think that they are going to be a pushover.
They have taken some very good teams to OT and lost. We better be ready for them.

 

[DrDemento]

I just checked Alaska's won/lost record, and it is awful. But don't think that they are going to be a pushover.
They have taken some very good teams to OT and lost. We better be ready for them.

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.

 

[vicious]

That game was during the Christmas break of 1979 and was indeed 8-0. Since i do not have any of my old programs here, cannot give you any other information but can confirm the score. The days of the Invitational tournament were wonderful. You got to see schools come in that you otherwise would never see from out west or the mid west. You got 2 days of double headers (or going way back, 3 days of double headers). Most times the early games had an empty HFH since teams from far away did not bring many fans. You could sit anywhere you pleased. If RPI won the first night, then the afternoon game on the second day was also pretty empty as fans started to show up only about one period before the RPI game would start. Gosh i miss those tournament weekends! I know the reasons the Tournament was scrubbed but still miss it terribly.

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.

 

[vicious]

I just checked Alaska's won/lost record, and it is awful. But don't think that they are going to be a pushover.
They have taken some very good teams to OT and lost. We better be ready for them.

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

 

[Waite21]

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.

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.