The past two seasons of Dartmouth men's hockey have seen the Big Green skaters begin to reap the benefits of an upward trend that began five years ago with the hiring of Bob Gaudet '81 as head coach. Gaudet returned to Hanover after a successful coaching career at Brown that saw the Bears win two Ivy League titles.
While the Big Green men have yet to hang a banner in Thompson Arena, the past two seasons have seen Dartmouth make two trips to the ECAC Championships in Lake Placid, NY, the school's first since Gaudet himself was in goal for the Big Green. For the men's hockey Class of 2004, however, the first and most important accomplishment was to make the adjustment to playing hockey at Dartmouth.
According to defenseman Brian Van Abel '04, "It's just kind of an adjustment for all of us coming in. You don't know what to expect. The game's faster, quicker. It takes a while.
"When you come in as a freshman, you're nervous. It takes a while to get used to everybody, but once you get settled down, you fit right in."
"It was a lot different for me," said Van Abel's fellow blueliner Mike Turner '04. "A lot of the guys came from juniors, which is a lot more like college hockey, and I came from prep school hockey, which was a little more 'skate around with the puck,' and less [physical]. So it was an adjustment for me."
In adjusting, however, the '04s had the aid of their coach, who as an alumnus of the College himself, had a very helpful perspective to offer his new players. "[Coach Gaudet] can relate to the atmosphere up here," said forward Jason Costa '04, "and how to deal with it, and what people expect of you in this area, and playing in Thompson, and what to expect in there."
For Turner, having a coach who played at Dartmouth "means a lot in terms of the pride of the school. He's not just some guy who came in here, was hired, and wants to win. He wants to win, but he also wants to represent Dartmouth as Dartmouth should be represented. The pride of wearing the uniform, on top of just putting a banner up there. He wants to do it the right way."
Forward Mike Wheelihan agrees that Gaudet's alumni status adds a dimension to his ability to coach the Big Green. According to Wheelihan, Gaudet knows "how it feels when you put on the Big Green sweater. Maybe coming from somebody who hadn't done that, you wouldn't take it as seriously, but he's been there. He's played at this school, and he knows how big it is for the school, and also for the community."
Under Gaudet, the '04s have helped the Big Green bring excitement to Dartmouth and the surrounding community over the last two years, as the Big Green have made two consecutive trips to the Olympic Arena in Lake Placid, trips that Turner believes were a long time in the making.
"I think that the past five years, even before we got here, things were leading up to [our going to Lake Placid]," said Turner. "Each year, the team got better and better. It wasn't as much of a surprise, it was just inevitability."
Wheelihan also associates Dartmouth's recent success with development over the five years since Gaudet's arrival. "I think that maybe before Coach Gaudet got here, all the pressure wasn't on winning," said Wheelihan.
"There was a lot of concentration elsewhere, but since [Coach Gaudet has] been here, he's really been concentrating on making a winning program, a program that can compete with all the other top schools across the country, so I think it is expected of us now, and I think every year the expectations are getting higher," Wheelihan added.
Van Abel added that the team's higher expectations also come from within. "We kind of expect ourselves to be at that high level of play all the time," said Van Abel. "We don't want to go from two good seasons to having a bad one. We expect to keep it going, keep building on the two seasons before, and do even better than we did."
One school that hopes to be a roadblock in the Big Green's continued progress is Renssalaer. The Engineers have faced the Big Green in the playoffs in each of the last three seasons. The two teams traded first round victories in 2000 and 2001 before taking their rivalry to Lake Placid in 2002. There, the Engineers came from behind to walk away with a 2-1 victory.
Each time Dartmouth and Renssalaer have played -- not just in the playoffs, but in the regular season as well -- tensions have run high, with several fights breaking out over the past two seasons. When asked about playing against RPI, Wheelihan said, "I think that -- over the past few years, anyway -- one of the reasons [things heat up with RPI] is because we've been playing RPI in the playoffs, so obviously the intensity's at a higher level.
"I mean, things are going to happen when two teams are trying so hard to win."
Goalie Darren Gastrock '04 agreed. "I definitely think that when you end a team's season [as Dartmouth did to RPI in 2001], they tend to come out next year and remember that," said Gastrock. Gastrock went on to add that after seeing their season end at the hands of the Engineers, the Big Green men will have the same motivation to take it to the Engineers next season.
As the '04s head into the next season, they join the veteran half of the team, and will be looked to for advice by the incoming '06s, and eventually, the '07s. According to Wheelihan, "I think that especially with last year's class, we lost a lot of older guys, and a lot of leadership.
"I think that for most of us, you could say that all those guys took us under their wings when we came in, showed us the ropes and whatnot, so I think that just goes without saying. For all the older guys, the younger guys are going to look up to you, and ask you for advice, or little tips on how to make life here easier."
On that score, Costa hopes to give the incoming players an idea of "the overall experience of what to look out for," and with the help of those newcomers, make other ECAC and Ivy League teams "look out for" the Big Green in the 2002-2003 season.