Fierce rivals Dartmouth and Princeton, the Ivy League women's hockey co-champions, will duel for bragging rights when they face off tomorrow in the first round of the ECAC playoffs.
Although the game does not technically affect the Ivy League championship, "whomever wins this game wins the Ivies," Captain Rachel Rochat '95 said.
The game should be a fierce battle, as there is no love lost between the teams.
"It's a huge rivalry, I would be happy just crushing them, even if we lost the next game," Rochat said.
"Princeton definitely has become the biggest rival and I think all our players feel that if you're going to beat one team we'd sooner beat Princeton," Coach George Crowe said.
The rivalry, while intense on the ice, has become quite personal.
Dartmouth beat Harvard 8-3 on Wednesday night to earn a share of the Ivy League title with Princeton. According to Rochat, the Princeton team wrote a letter before the game to the Harvard team offering to buy its players a keg of beer if they beat Dartmouth. "Princeton is so obnoxious," Rochat said.
The team's split their regular season matchups, each winning at home, setting up tomorrow's rubber match.
Princeton took the team's first meeting, 3-0, at Baker Rink on Jan. 7. Dartmouth avenged the loss on Feb. 5 at Thompson Arena when goalie Sarah Tueting '98 stopped 33 shots en route to a 5-3 Dartmouth victory.
Princeton will have home ice for Saturday's contest, an advantage that should not be underestimated.
"It's really hard to play well down there," Rochat said. "For some reason their rink is hard to play in."
Crowe said the six and a half hour trip on Friday and then the all-day wait on Saturday before the 7:30 p.m. game can be tough on the team.But Crowe is not worried. "We'll be up for the game, there's no other team we'd rather beat in the whole east then Princeton," he said.
"The important thing about winning that second game was that we know we can beat them," Crowe said.
"And, really, when we lost to them we weren't playing too well," he said. "Still, we know that they have the firepower to be able to take it to us. We'll have to play a great game to beat them, especially in their own rink. But we're not scared of them by any means."
Most of Princeton's firepower comes from senior Kathy Issel and freshman sensation Karen Chernisky.
Issel lead the Ivy League in scoring this season with 10 goals and 16 assists in conference games.
Chernisky was Ivy League Rookie of the Week last week.
The Princeton defense is anchored by senior Sue Reece. Reece was a first team All-Ivy pick at defense last year.
"We really need another good team effort, that's how we beat them when they came up here," Rochat said. "We need to play the body again and shut [Issel and Chernisky] down."
"If our kids play well, we'll beat them," Crowe said. "There are no big secrets between the two teams. We have to play a real intense hard game."
Crowe said he is not looking at this game as a de facto Ivy Championship, but instead simply as the first round of the ECAC tournament.
"We're three games away from being a national champion," he said.
"I think it's separate," Crowe said. "We wanted to take care of the Ivy's first, usually the ECAC works itself out."
Dartmouth is appearing in its fourth straight ECAC tournament. In 1992, Princeton eliminated the Big Green 4-3 in overtime in the first round.
"[Princeton] beat us in the ECAC's a few years ago, and both teams have become Ivy League powers. So there's some history being played out in this game as well," Crowe said.
If Dartmouth wins the game, the team will face the winner of Saturday's New Hampshire-Harvard game in the semifinals, on Saturday, March 4.
