Bears Resume ECAC Hockey Action with Single Game at Dartmouth

Friday, January 8

7 pm

Brown University

Dartmouth

Bears Resume ECAC Hockey Action with Single Game at Dartmouth

1/8/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Ice Hockey

This Weekend: Having closed out the non-league portion of their schedule with a pair of games at St. Cloud, the Bears resume ECAC Hockey action this weekend with a single game at Dartmouth on Friday night. Friday's contest marks a homecoming of sorts for Brown head coach Brendan Whittet '94, who was an assistant for the Big Green for 11 years prior to his appointment at Brown. Whittet will be facing off against his former coach and mentor, Bob Gaudet when the Bears and Big Green take the ice Friday night. The game is the third straight road contest for Brown, which is in the midst of playing six straight road games. The Bears will look to get back to their winning ways, as their five-game winning streak was snapped last weekend against the Huskies.

Last Time Out: Brown dropped a pair of games to St. Cloud State, falling 5-1 on Saturday and 5-3 on Sunday. The Bears were within one goal after two periods on both nights, but the Huskies were able to pull away with the wins with decisive goals in the third period. After falling behind, 2-0, on Saturday night, sophomore Jeff Buvinow scored for the third straight game to bring Brown to within 2-1 after two periods. However, the Huskies struck for three goals in the third to pull away with the win. On Sunday, Brown faced a familiar deficit, but junior Jesse Fratkin and sophomore Jarred Smith scored goals 46 seconds apart to tie the score at 2-2. After St. Cloud went up, 4-2, senior Devin Timberlake netted his second goal of the year with sophomore goalie Mike Clemente looking on from the bench with under three minutes remaining. Brown pulled Clemente a second time and St. Cloud added an empty net score with 1:04 remaining for the 5-3 final. Clemente stopped a total of 60 shots over the weekend, with 30 saves in each game.

Coming Up: Brown is off for the next seven days and returns to action for a single game at Yale on Saturday, January 16th. The Bears will close out their six-game road swing with a trip to the North Country on January 22nd and 23rd, before returning home for a League weekend against RPI and Union at the end of the month.

This Date Historically Speaking: All-time, Brown is 4-8-2 in games played on January 8th. The Bears are 0-3-1 in away games and 4-5-1 in home games played on this date.

Brown vs. Dartmouth: This weekend marks the 138th meeting in the rivalry between Brown and Dartmouth. The Bears swept the season series from Dart- mouth in 2007-08 (for the first time since 1997-1998), but the Big Green earned the season sweep last season with a 5-1 win in Hanover and a 5-2 win in Providence. The victories give Dartmouth an 11- 2-1 record over Brown, dating back to February 22, 2003. Dartmouth leads the all-time series, which began on February 22, 1928 with a 15-0 Big Green victory, by a 67-63-7 margin. Seniors Jordan Pietrus
and Sean McMonagle are Brown's statistical leaders against Dartmouth with 1-1-2 totals in five games. Nine other members of the team have posted one career point against the Big Green.

Scouting Dartmouth: The Big Green hosted their Holiday Tournament last weekend and dropped both games, falling to Northeastern, 7-0, and Holy Cross, 4-2. The losses drop Dartmouth to 3-10-0 on the season, as the Big Green enter the weekend having lost four straight. Dartmouth's last win came on November 29th, when it claimed a 6-2 victory over Harvard. The win over the Crimson was the end of a three-game winning streak, as Dartmouth also defeated St. Lawrence (3-2) and Provi- dence (4-2) during that time. Dartmouth is led by junior Scott Fleming, who has 12 points (7g, 5a) in 13 games, while junior Adam Estoclet is the only other player to have reached double digits in scoring with 10 points (2g, 8a) in 11 games. Freshman Dustin Walsh (5g, 2a) and senior Joe Gaudet (3g, a) are tied for third on the team with 7 points each. Sophomore Jody O'Neill has played the majority of time in net for Dartmouth and has a 3.65 GAA and a .898 save percentage in 12 games (641:46), stopping 343 of 382 shots.

Complete release is available here.