Hello Union Fans:
On Saturday evening, January 25, Union College and RPI played at the Times Union Center in Albany, New York, in the third annual Mayor's Cup. With 47.5 seconds remaining in an 8-3 hockey game, with the outcome well out of reach, RPI's Jake Wood skated as hard as he could from behind into the back of our unsuspecting Captain and drove his head into the metal frame of the goal, opening up a gash in his head. Fortunately, Cheryl, our trainer, made it out to the ice quickly and was able to stop the bleeding.
In early January a Princeton University hockey recruit, Neil Dolf, suffered a spinal cord injury that has resulted in complete loss of movement to his lower body in a similar goal collision and is now paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life.
http://www.ottawasun.com/2015/01/06/neil-doef-injury-details-revealed
You can see this deliberate and vicious hit by the RPI player and the bloodletting that occurred all on RPI TV. You can see the blood running out of Charlie's ear
http://www.rpitv.org/productions/895-mens-hockey-vs-union
Drop Down Play List - Click Period 3, Move Slide to 34, The attack is at 34.23
I also snapped still shots from the YouTube video but cannot post them on the USCHO blog.
Figure 1 Union Captain Charlie Vasaturo is hit from behind by RPI player Jake Wood who drives Vasaturo's head into the metal goal tearing a gash in his head with much blood loss.
Figure 2 A bleeding Charlie Vasaturo (blood gushing from his ear) is helped off the ice by the Union Trainer.
The unprovoked attack by Jake Wood, in the back, was a most cowardly and most vicious act. In my opinion, a criminal act. Jake Woods leads the Engineers in penalty minutes. The other player who participates was Luke Curadi, who is second on the team in penalty minutes.
3 Luke Curadi RPI 2 ROUGHING 19:13 MINOR
3 Jake Wood RPI 5 HITTING FROM BEHIND 19:13 MAJOR
3 Jake Wood RPI 10 GAME MISCONDUCT 19:13 GAMEMISC
Please take some action now. The safety of our student-athletes is what this is about. We are going to end up with an ECAC player paralyzed or worse if we don't action. Jake Wood should be expelled from the school and the RPI coach, Seth Alpert, fired. Call President Jackson and tell her in a polite and deservingly respectful way that her legacy will be permanently stained if she allows this RPI hockey programs dysfunctional behavior to continue. Her goal is to build a world class research institution, not a third rate, chickenxxxx hockey program.
