On Friday night, the men in green mowed down the Clarkson Golden Knights behind a hat trick from sophomore David Jones '08. The hat trick was the first of Jones' career and helped him notch his team-leading 16th goal of the season.
Dartmouth lit the lamp just 1:42 into the contest when sophomore J.T. Wyman '08 picked off a Clarkson pass and sent a crisp relay to Dan Shribman '07, who sent the black disc hurling through space and behind Clarkson goaltender David Leggio to put the Big Green up 1-0.
The Dartmouth lead did not last for long, as the Knights charged back halfway through the second period on a goal by Mike Sullivan. Dartmouth responded quickly as Jones jolted one top shelf to Sullivan's glove side for his first tally of the night. Assists on the play went to Tanner Glass '07 and senior captain Mike Ouellette '06.
Unfortunately for the Big Green, Clarkson's Philipe Paquet scored less than one minute later, tying things up at two-all. The score remained tied heading into the final stanza. However, the Big Green men were able to score their third goal in the nick of time as Nick Johnson '08 netted his team-leading fourth game-winning score of the 2005-2006 campaign.
Seniors Eric Przepiorka '06 and Jarrett Sampson '06 assisted on the play, as Przepiorka set up a screen right in front of Leggio. The puck barelyslid through on what was definitely a controversial goal. The tally stood, however, and the Big Green took a 3-2 lead.
Jones stole the spotlight once more at 11:04 of the third period, driving one past Leggio from the left circle low to the Clarkson goalie's stick-side with assists coming courtesy of the precision passing of Ben Lovejoy '06 and Glass. Jones notched his hat trick on an empty net strike from center ice, giving the Big Green an important and an impressive 5-2 victory.
Goalie Mike Devine '08 finished the night with 19 saves for the Big Green, and earned his 14th win of the season. However, Devine's time to shine would come on a bigger stage on Saturday night.
With the shocking development of the Cornell Big Red's home shutout to their ECACHL rival Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Engineers, first place was the Big Green's for the taking if the team could pull out a victory over the St. Lawrence Saints on Saturday evening. This would mark the first ECACHL title ever for the Big Green and their first championship of any sort since the team won the Ivy League crown in 1980, when head coach Bob Gaudet '80 was the Big Green's goaltender.
Add to those already high stakes the fact that Saturday night was senior night, the evening in which Big Green stalwarts Sampson, Sean Offers '06, Garrett Overlock '06, Przepiorka and captain Mike Ouellette '06 would be honored after the game's conclusion, and a capacity crowd at a roaring Thompson Arena, and the stage was set for a dramatic finish to an amazing season.
Gaudet was visibly on edge throughout the entire first period, when the Big Green players looked flat and was out-shot 14-7. Early on it looked like it was Dartmouth and not St. Lawrence that had just spent hours delayed on the interstate following a 25-car pileup due in large part to the inclement weather.
The seniors needed to step it up. It was their last regular season game as members of the Big Green, and an opportunity for them to go out like Jerome Bettis and claim a championship after a fruitful career. Sampson and Przepiorka were the first to hear the call, as Sampson intercepted a Saints pass and then sent it sailing past St. Lawrence netminder Justin Pesony to give Dartmouth a 1-0 lead. Przepiorka was given acknowledgment as the man who assisted on his score
The Big Green then began a total domination of the Saints, who could not send a puck past Devine in net. Dartmouth extended its lead just 20 seconds into the final stanza, as the pair of Big Green stars who combined on the game winner against the Princeton University Tigers two weekends prior to the Saints match up connected once Jones fed the puck to Glass, who placed it past the new Saints goaltender John Hallas. Lovejoy was also credited with an assist on the score.
Przepiorka still had some unfinished business to attend to, however, as he sought his 100th career point as a member of the Dartmouth hockey team. The feed to Sampson had been Przepiorka's 99th point, and with 1:14 left, it appeared as if he would not reach the century mark.
Then Przepiorka saw an opportunity to mint his milestone point. With Nick Johnson in front of him, and an empty-net in front of Johnson, Przepiorka sent a beautiful pass his way and Johnson received it perfectly. Johnson then fired a shot from near center-ice and it found its way to the back of the Saints net. With that assist, Przepiorka was able to reach his goal. Visibly relieved, he threw his arms straight up in the air, and, overjoyed, skated the length of the ice to hug Johnson, who was already celebrating behind the Saints net.
Przepiorka is just the 33rd Big Green player to accomplish the feat. The 32nd was Ouellette, who will finish his career with 132 points after his assist on Friday evening.
Ouellette was also just 1:14 seconds away from captaining the Big Green to their first ever ECACHL title. As the clock wound down, the entire crowd rose to its feet, and when the buzzer that sounded the end of the game rang throughout Thomson Arena, and the mist from the skates slicing the ice settled, the Big Green emerged as the regular season ECACHL champions.
It looked as if the weight of the world had been lifted off of the shoulders of Gaudet, who has been through a roller-coaster ride of a season, as the Big Green started 0-4 before finishing the season 16-7-2, to end up with an impressive 16-11-2 overall record, and an astounding 14-6-2 mark in the ECACHL. The Big Green split the ECACHL title with the Colgate Raiders, a team that Devine shut out last Saturday night to earn his first collegiate shutout.
Devine finished the night with 24 saves, and earned himself a picture on the front page of the United States College Hockey Organization's (USCHO's) website. The headline was: "Cups Runneth Over." This fit the Big Green's night perfectly, as the team and Gaudet were able to hoist the ECACHL's vaunted Cleary Cup for the first time. The Big Green will be in action in two weeks at Thompson Arena to face an ECACHL foe in ECACHL tournament quarterfinal action.
The ECACHL tournament may not hold as much water as Dartmouth once believed it to, however, as the team has been penciled in as the No. 14 seed in the NCAA tournament. As it stands now, the Big Green would face Boston University in the first round of the Worcester, Mass. regional.
The Big Green would presumably be among such company as the Wisconsin University Badgers, the North Dakota Fighting Sioux, the Michigan Wolverines and the perennial powerhouse Minnesota Golden Gophers, ranked No. 1 in the country.
The Big Green men will hoist their first banner in 26 years to start next season's action, and they hope to be hoisting the NCAA trophy on April 8 in Milwaukee, Wis. as the NCAA national champions.
