The Styles of Play

Back then, the top 2 forward lines got most of the ice time (best as I remember; if that wasn't the case, somebody yell). The 3rd line played a fill-in role and thus the two defense pairs almost always played with the same forward line. 

Reliance on only 2 forward lines wouldn't allow today's pace of play. The line on the ice needed to stay on long enough to allow the guys on the bench time to recover.  Today’s shift lasts 45 seconds or so, about the maximum length of time a body can sustain full anaerobic effort. Shifts back then probably lasted twice as long as that.  The pace of play in 1970-71 was more deliberate and calculating, i.e. expend maximum effort only when warranted and don't come back to the bench till the other line has gotten their breath back.

Players of 1970-71 skated tall.  Even when you watch NHL footage of that era, you’re struck by how upright everybody was and how fond yesterday’s players were of “rink turns,” taking a nice wide arc to rejoin play instead of a sharp stop and reversal.

But skating upright does tend to give you a better view of play, and that better view, combined with looser marking defensively, gave players more time and space to pass and shoot.   Not that that necessarily led to higher scoring.  Goalies had clearer views back then, too, as jamming the net with big bodies wasn’t as prevalent either.

On the 1970-71 Mount Hermon team, Bob Hanft and Jim Sweeney were particularly expert at controlling the pace of play.  On The Players page, you can see Bob Hanft doing what he did so often: controlling the puck with his feet along the corner boards, drawing a double team and then eventually finding Chuck Carrigan or George Reynolds or a point man open, left unmarked by the extra guy he had suckered into the corner.

Jim Sweeney, as I remember, could also expertly play this keep-away game.   I think Jim’s nickname on the team might’ve been Buzz Saw and my guess is Bob Hanft gave him that name.  Jim did indeed buzz around the ice.

Chuck Carrigan was not a big guy, but in my memory he played tall, with good ice vision, good balance.

Dave Terrie was a 3-sport varsity athlete (soccer; hockey; golf).  He was a quiet, focused, disciplined guy, with the gift of good hands. A gift that meant more back then, when, again, there was more time and space to shoot.  

In 1970-71, the Bobby Orr era was in full gear.  (How can anyone who saw Bobby Orr play not believe him to be the greatest player who has ever lived? Who before or since ever had the nerve and skill to rag the puck on a penalty kill, basically playing keep away, sometimes even ragging the puck by skating circles around his own net? [Come to think of it, when’s the last time you heard the term “rag the puck,” given that nobody ever dares do it anymore, i.e. keeping the puck to yourself and daring the opponent to get it away from you?] Who before or since could bring everybody to their feet by circling behind his own goal in order to generate the maximum head of steam for his dash all the way up ice? )

Good-skating defensemen felt that Bobby had given them permission to go up ice and not only join the play but drive the play.  That permission was often quickly rescinded by coaches.   

In any case, Jeff Prystupa and Mike Powers, the top defense pair, were stay-at-home defensemen.  At least as I remember.  Jeff, a soccer fullback in the fall, had long strides and a long reach.  Mike, a football player, had good lateral movement and—again, as I remember—a bit of a good-natured mean streak. He drilled you with a smile.

Dan Martignetti may have been the best skater on the team and was more of the Orr variety.  He had amazing balance. He could go into his own defensive corner at full speed, retrieve the puck and reverse direction by means of an incredibly tight carved turn.  Coming out of the arc, he almost seemed to achieve a slingshot effect—coming out of the pivot faster than he went into it.

During one JL practice Al Burnett (who also coached JL) tried to teach us how to do a Dan Martignetti-style swoop. We were hopeless, losing it to the low side as our edges washed out or losing it to the high side and toppling over.  Wherever you are, Dan Martignetti, I hope you can still make that turn.  The sheer G forces of it would keep you young.

Jake Aldred may have been the most naturally talented player on the team. He had great hands and a pure, intuitive sense of the game. 

George Reynolds played with a scary seriousness and had to be one of the hardest hitters on the team. At least he was one of the hardest hitters on the 1974-75 West Point team. I played against him in December 1974 (a game we, Amherst, won, which we had no real business doing) and I got pancaked by George along the boards. Removed by spatula. I’m sure he doesn’t remember. I do.

On a team of competitive guys, Bill Campbell may have had the sharpest competitive instincts—that sense, moment by moment in a game , of what had to be done to prevail.  He was a bow-legged skater, tough to knock off the puck.  He had from what I remember a somewhat mechanical slap shot from the point, but as he also showed in soccer and lacrosse, he always got his job done and tended to get the guys around him to do their jobs to.  In his two years at Mount Hermon—in three sports—his teams won.

Wendall Cummings, the 3rd line center, played smart checking-line hockey. John Dignan, his left winger, played varsity baseball and my guess is made his ice time count in terms of getting his shots off.  James Creed is not pictured in the team photo, nor in the senior photos.  I think he was the older brother of my classmate, Doug Creed, but without photos I can’t summon anything. I hope readers of this can.

Mark Dover, the goalie, , was a quarterback-type goalie, always calling out commands to his teammates when they were in his zone.  He played with intense focus, in contrast to one of his Mount Hermon goal-keeping predecessors, who, as legend had it, played now and then under the influence of acid and sometimes saw, in the course of game play,  multiple pucks coming at him. He stopped as many as he could.  But not always the real one.