Exhibition games in any sport, on any level of play, are vital to a team's success in the regular season. Just ask Big Green men's hockey coach Bob Gaudet.
Following the Big Green's 5-2 victory over the McGill Redmen at Thompson Arena on Saturday night, Gaudet emphasized the importance of such a match, stating: "The McGill game allowed us to see our team play in a lot of situations that we cannot duplicate in practice. We have only been practicing since Oct. 15 so we were interested as to how the team would react to game situations with such a short amount of preparation."
Fortunately for Gaudet and the rest of the Big Green men's hockey outfit, every indication is that as of now, Green means go.
Dartmouth dominated McGill in what proved to be an extremely physical game. After a scoreless first period which was marked by Dartmouth outshooting McGill 17-5, yet scoring no goals and creating worse scoring opportunities than the Redmen, many who had watched the same type of play last year grew nervous.
Many of Dartmouth's shots in the first period were taken from the blue line with very little force behind them.
Part of this was due to defenders guarding the blue line, and part was due to the Big Green's pre-season jitters. Providentially, Gaudet was able to rile the nervousness out of the club and it was not long before the Big Green put points on the board.
Captain Mike Ouellette '06, dubbed "Captain Clutch" by teammates, lit the lamp with the game's first goal at 6:08 in the second period after taking a rebound shot from Tanner Glass '07, with Nick Johnson '08 also assisting.
Following the goal, an already physical game became even more chippy, with many hard checks, penalties for both sides and high-flying sticks.
The Redmen tied things up at 15:58 when Doug Orr flicked one top-shelf by Dartmouth goalie Mike Devine '08. Oullette, scored the next two goals of the game off assists from Glass and Grant Lewis '07, at 18:23 in the second and then 8:06 in the third, earning a hat trick.
The Redmen mounted a brief comeback when Louis-Simon Allaire scored with 8:58 to go, but Dartmouth freshman Brandon Harrington stepped up and flicked a beautiful wrist-shot from the blue-line, catching the Redman goalie Jean-Michel Fillatrault completely by surprise foiling any hope McGill had of a comeback.
At this point the Big Green men were up 4-2, and added one more goal by Eric Przepiorka '06, cementing the final tally at 5-2. Goalie Sean Samuel '07 got the win for Dartmouth, going 30:42 with six saves, while Devine finished, going for 20:36 with nine saves.
Despite the cries of the McGill faithful that the referees missed many calls of roughing and boarding against Dartmouth, the officiating, in general, was top-notch.
What truly put the nail in McGill's coffin was the "execution" by the Big Green that Ouellette spoke of. This was evident in the amount of time Dartmouth controlled the puck, Dartmouth's 45 shots to McGill's 17 shots, and Dartmouth winning 30 face-offs, 14 of which were won by Ouellette, and McGill only winning 26.
The Dartmouth women's hockey team was also in exhibition action on Saturday, as they fell to the McGill women's hockey team, the Redbirds, 3-2.
The game was tight all the way to the end, with Dartmouth trailing by a goal and deciding to pull their goalie in order to play with six skaters for the last 48 seconds.
In spite of this, they could not ameliorate their condition with a goal
The women could not find a way to place the puck in the back of the net, as they went one for six with a man advantage, and outshot the Redbirds 51-13 in the game.
The scoring for the Big Green women was almost entirely a product of potent passing and Danielle Grundy '06, who scored off assists from Meredith Batcheller '07, and Shannon Bowman '09.
With two-minutes to go in the third period, the game was knotted at two goals apiece, McGill would quickly move the puck past Dartmouth's blue line and net the game winning goal with just 1:58 remaining in regulation.
Despite the loss, head coach Mark Hudak has positive expectations for the women's chances as the season progresses, avowing: "The expectations for the season are very team oriented. Play well as a group. Support each other on and off the ice. Work hard and smart. Play with a ton of passion and improve with every game.
I think if we can accomplish those things, we've got a great chance to make some noise at the end of the season."
As for Hudak's men's hockey counterpart, Gaudet was proud of his team following their victory Saturday night, and he also felt a strong sense of appreciation towards the many fans, students, and alumni that made their way to the exhibition game this Homecoming weekend.
After the game he said that, "We are all very appreciative of the great student and community crowd that showed up for the exhibition.
It gave the feel of regular season game and that was exactly what we were looking for."
If both hockey teams are able to keep this level of play up, the fans will go home more than satisfied, as the Big Green looks to return to the big time.
