At a time when it appeared the men's hockey team's season was disintegrating, the team finally came together as one cohesive unit. The team's nine-game losing streak, which threatened to shatter the team's playoff hopes, instead inspired it to play its best hockey of the season.
As the Big Green put the finishing touches on their first win since Dec. 30 last Friday against RPI, someone on the Big Green bench proclaimed that the proverbial monkey was finally of their backs.
Shaun Peet '98 said it was "more like a bus."
Either way, the Big Green snapped a nine-game losing streak in a big way, with a 7-3 win over RPI and a 6-5 decision the next night over Union. It was Dartmouth's first weekend sweep since January 1993.
A number of factors were responsible for the team's sudden revival, but none of them can be more important than the return of starting goalie Scott Baker '97 from an ankle injury.
Coach Roger Demment said "It was a tremendous psychological lift for us to have Scott back in net. It's obvious we play with a different level of confidence with him in goal."
At critical junctures of both games over the weekend, Baker was there to make the big stop every time.
Baker said that making the crucial save was just part of his job, but he admitted that it gives him a lot of satisfaction knowing that when he makes a big stop, it can give the team a boost.
While Baker was modest about his importance to the team, his teammates heaped praise upon him. "Bakes has made a believer out of a lot of doubters," Peet said. "Just being able to make the save and not letting the soft one in really helps the team. That's exactly what we need."
Shane Ness '98 said just getting Baker back between the pipes gave the team a more positive attitude.
With Baker in net and the team playing with a high level of confidence, the Big Green put together their best effort of the season against RPI. For perhaps the first time this year, the team played 60 minutes of nearly flawless hockey.
The defensive lapses and undisciplined penalties that plagued the team throughout the streak evaporated. Demment praised the team for its play in all three zones: the forecheck in the RPI zone, the effective play in the neutral zone and the strong play in the defensive zone.
"From the defense to the forwards, the team put together sixty minutes of sound hockey and it paid off," Dion Del Monte '95 said.
Even more remarkable is the fact that the Big Green produced their biggest offensive output of the season without Del Monte, their leading scorer. Demment opted to give Del Monte the night off against RPI, and the team still exploded with seven goals in his absence.
Demment said it was a huge confidence builder, especially for the team's young forwards, to score seven goals without Del Monte. "It made them realize that we're not a team that has to rely on one or two guys to produce all of our points."
On this weekend the scoring was spread around. David Whitworth '98 erupted for a career-high five points against RPI and earned the ECAC Rookie of the Week honor. Bill Kelleher '96 had a seven point weekend and Mike Stacchi '95 had five points over the weekend.Both Kelleher and Stacchi were named to the ECAC Honor Roll.
While it might appear that a long losing streak would knock the wind out of a team, the players insist that their nine-game skid only made them stronger.
"The losing streak was certainly a rough time for all of us, but in many ways I think that it brought us closer together as a team," Trevor Dodman '95 said.
Baker said that the team kept plugging away until it finally got results. "We learned from our mistakes and finally our hard work paid off."
At first glance, the Big Green's back-to-back victories over RPI and Union this past weekend might not seem that significant. The team is still in last place in the ECAC, and it still needs to jump into 10th place to qualify for the playoffs.
But considering the direction the team was headed before this past weekend, the Big Green's accomplishment is nothing short of remarkable.
Most of Dartmouth's players come from extremely successful high-school hockey programs, so an 0-9-1 streak was something that few of them had ever faced before.
The frustration mounted when the team played fairly well during many of the games, and still came up short. For many of them, the losing streak produced a feeling of total helplessness.
"Losing nine games in a row tends to suck the life out of you," Dan Bloom '96 said. "I think a lot of guys on the team weren't having fun playing hockey."
Peet said since he came from a winning high school program, he "never expected to have it that bad."
Kelleher said once the losing streak started to mount, it became pyschologically difficult to break the cycle. "We were still playing great hockey, but we were not getting the bounces," he said. "It was frustrating."
According to Jeremiah Buckley '98, the feeling during the streak was of total frustration. "Everyone understood we had a good team and it was hard to understand how such a good team could go winless in 10 games," he said.
Now the Big Green are hoping to embark on another streak -- a winning streak that will carry them into the playoffs.
Owen Hughes '97 said that the team has its destiny in its own hands. "We need to do what has been asked of us since day one, play hard both mentally and physically. Only hard work will allow us to attain our goal of reaching the playoffs," he said.
Whitworth said it is time to win as a team. "At this point in the season, talk is cheap, and the bottom line is that we must come out and perform from here on in."
Demment said being on the brink of elimination actually helped the team, since it was forced to win two critical games. He said the two wins gave the team the confidence it needs heading into a tough four-game road trip.
"We've had our back up against the wall for a number of weeks," he said. "I think we're prepared to go into those buildings and come home with some victories."
This weekend, the Big Green face Harvard and Brown, ranked second and third respectively in the ECAC.
