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Men's hockey wins league
title
March 5, 2009
by Alex Goldberger '08
If you walked into Ingalls
Rink on February 27 with 2:17 remaining in the third period and Yale ahead 3-2,
it would be easy to assume the Yale men's hockey team had just grabbed a
crucial late-game lead: fans on the home side were on their feet, and the noise
had ratcheted up to ear-splitting levels.
But, of course, you would
never walk into Ingalls Rink with just 2:17 remaining in the third period -- not
this year, not with this team, and not on this night, with tenth-ranked Cornell
in town and Yale's first ECAC championship in 11 years within reach.
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"When I came in, we had the reputation as kind of a gutter team."
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The development that
stirred the crowd was, in fact, a power-play goal by Cornell's Evan Barlow, the
Big Red's second of a third period Yale began with a 3-0 lead. But there was no
cause for alarm on the west end of Ingalls, no prophesying of imminent
collapse, no second-guessing of penalty-kill methods -- only more cheers for the
team that had lost only once in that building in the new year.
Yale rallied, and 92
seconds later Brian O'Neill '12 scored a rebound goal to seal a 4-2 victory.
Nineteen minutes after that, in Hanover, Dartmouth finished off Princeton to
guarantee the league title for Yale. With an overtime loss to Colgate on
Sunday, March 1, the Bulldogs ended the regular season ranked No. 11 nationally
with a 20-7-2 record.
"When I came in, we had the reputation as kind of a gutter team, bottom of
the league," says center Mark Arcobello '10. "To turn it around in three years,
and to get so much better that we're winning a league championship, it's pretty
great."
Success for these Bulldogs
may have been preordained before Arcobello arrived on campus as a 165-pound
18-year old. After all, he wasn't the only new face in the locker room in
2006-07; Keith Allain '80, the fiery head coach, was beginning his first
season, as was freewheeling winger Sean Backman '10, a five-foot-eight,
165-pound, long-haired ball of kinetic energy.
Allain, who favors a fast,
attacking style -- and scoffs at the notion that seniority should have anything to
do with playing time -- paired the two as freshmen and watched as they led the
team in scoring.
Prior to each of the last
two seasons, Allain has stockpiled carbon copies of his pint-sized pair,
including the five-foot-nine O'Neill and Broc Little '11, who have combined for
50 points this year. The Yale power play has become a virtual Lilliput, with
ace setup man Denny Kearney '11 -- dubiously listed at six-foot-one -- cast in
the role of Gulliver.
Indeed, good things came
from small packages on Friday. The Arcobello-Backman-O'Neill line combined for eight points, including all four Yale goals.
O'Neill's late goal proved
the mettle of a group ranked seventh in the league in preseason polls and
discounted for never having won anything.
"Before the
game, everyone was saying, 'We haven't done this for 11 years,'" Arcobello
says. "Once Cornell started pressing
real hard, we all realized what was at stake and said, 'We're not letting this one
get away.'"
As regular-season
champions, the Bulldogs earned a bye to the quarterfinals of the ECAC
tournament, where they will play a best-of-three series at home March 13-15.
The ECAC final four will take place in Albany March 20-21. Yale is cohosting
the NCAA Regional Tournament in Bridgeport March 27-28; it's nearly certain
that the Bulldogs will receive an invitation. 
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