“Too Normal” for a Goalie? Phy
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JOHN HARVARD'S JOURNAL Pick six! Against Brown, The following week in the nation’s capi- senior defensive back tal, Harvard was barely challenged in whip- Tanner Lee clutched Harvard’s first intercep- ping Georgetown for the fourth straight tion of the season, year. The highlight came early in the first pe- which he turned into a riod, when Shelton-Mosley fielded a punt at game-breaking his nine-yard line, identified a seam and, set touchdown. up by a wall of blockers, streaked to a touch- downs against a Harvard down. The 91-yard return was the longest defense turned over (like in Crimson history, surpassing the 89-yard the offense) largely to effort of Hal Moffie ‘50 against Holy Cross the subs made the final in 1948. Smith again started at quarterback score look more respect- and went 16-for-30 passing. Booker pow- able than it was. ered to two touchdowns, the Crimson de- As Murphy announced fense forced four turnovers and McGhee had afterward, the game ball Harvard’s second interception return for a was ticketed for Ab- touchdown in as many weeks, a 23-yarder. ercrombie. Before the All in all, a good warmup for the cauldron playing of the national of the Ivy campaign. anthem, the scoreboard Tidbits: Harvard has not lost a home THE HARVARD CRIMSON HARVARD THE had showed a video that opener since 2000, and it has not dropped included heartfelt greet- an Ivy League opener since 2010. Murphy TIM O’MEARA/ ings to him from mem- is 19-5 in Ivy openers…. Of the home states way into the Brown end zone. The intercep- bers of Harvard men’s and women’s athletic of players on the Crimson’s opening-day tion was Harvard’s first of the season and teams; it can be viewed on gocrimson.com roster, California was most represented, one of three on the day. The Crimson now and on YouTube. On their helmets this season with 17, followed by Texas (14), Georgia had a 14-2 lead. the Crimson players will wear decals reading and Massachusetts (eight each) and Ala- During his tenure Murphy has been re- “BA.” Said Tanner Lee, like Abercrombie an bama (seven)….At season’s start, nine for- nowned for “taking the temperature of a Alabama product: “The season’s now about mer Harvard players were on NFL active game.” With 9:31 left in the second quarter winning games but also for a lot of us about rosters or practice squads. the thermometer dictated another quarter- putting a championship ring on Ben’s finger.” vdick friedman back switch—back to Viviano. “Based on the first couple of series, I felt like Joe would give us the best opportunity to maximize our chances of winning this game,” said Mur- “Too Normal” for a Goalie? phy. The place where Viviano had to begin Merrick Madsen was the brick wall in net for last season’s Frozen Four team. was hardly propitious: the Harvard two-yard line. In nine plays Viviano took the Crimson Last march, Harvard goaltender Merrick ing to leave everything he had out on the 98 yards to pay dirt, the big plays being toss- Madsen ’18 played one of the best games of ice, no matter what. “I thought, I want to es of 31 and 27 yards, respectively, to Scott his life: a 3-0 shutout against Providence, on be stretchered off if I have to. Because I am and fellow junior wideout Henry Taylor. The the road, in the east regional semifinals of trying that hard.” capper came when sophomore running back the NCAA tournament. The contest was a In the next three periods, Madsen (and former high-school quarterback) La- big deal—Harvard had made seven NCAA stopped 41 pucks, a furious assault from the vance Northington, working from the wild- tournament appearances in recent years, Friars, who took half again as many shots on cat formation, took a direct snap and ran six but the team hadn’t won a game there since goal as the Crimson. In the first three and yards for a score. McIntyre kicked the extra 1994. This season was already something a half minutes alone, he made seven saves. point. Harvard 21, Brown 2. different, though. By the time the Crim- That was pretty much how the next two With the Crimson defense throttling son reached Providence, it had begun to hours went. “I think we had something on the Brown running game (23 yards on 20 seem unbeatable. The players were riding our side,” Madsen told reporters after the attempts) and sacking Duncan five times, a streak of 14 consecutive wins. They’d won game. His coach, Ted Donato ’91, put it a Viviano set about building the lead. By late the Beanpot Tournament for the first time different way: “I think it starts with the in the third quarter it reached 38-9. Murphy in 24 years. Two weeks before the Provi- goaltender.” pulled Viviano—he finished 11 of 13 passing dence game, they had taken the ECAC And yet, when you ask Madsen to think for 150 yards—and reinserted Smith. In the conference championship, thrashing pe- back on the season that took his team all fourth quarter the freshman (five of seven rennial foe Cornell 4-1 in the final at Lake the way to the Frozen Four, the first game passing) threw his first touchdown toss, a Placid, New York. That victory had earned to come to mind for him is an earlier, less five-yarder to a fellow Exeter product, junior them the chance at this one. And so here glorious contest: a late November matchup tight end Cecil Williams, who made his first they were, back at the NCAAs. Before the against Boston University. At that point in touchdown catch. Four late Brown touch- game, Madsen told himself that he was go- the season, Harvard was 5-2-1; they’d had a 40 November - December 2017 www.gocrimson.com Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 JOHN HARVARD'S JOURNAL couple of significant games, but most were down one by one—I should be able to save that moment too. “We were trying to light still to come. “We had been playing pret- almost all of them.” The confidence to do a spark in him,” he says. ty well, a few blips along the way,” he says, that took time to grow into. The next year, Madsen found himself “and we were in a tight game against BU— Madsen was raised mostly in southern competing against incoming freshman Mi- we always play a tight game against BU— California—more of a hockey region than chael Lackey, who’d played international- and then we ended up losing.” The final people realize, he says—and learned to skate ly—and won medals and accolades—with score was 5-3. A couple of the Terriers’ goals at four years old; he started playing hockey the U.S. National teams’ under-17 and un- were flukey, a weird bounce from the corner, a year later. He wasn’t a good skater at first, der-18 squads. They split the season between a puck that chipped in off Madsen’s stick. he remembers, and he hardly scored. Then them, Madsen taking the lion’s share—“We Still, he says, he should have saved those. He his team’s goalie aged out of the league and were each pushing each other,” he says— remembers thinking afterward that what his father, a former player himself, suggested and then last year he locked down the job, he was giving the team wasn’t enough, that he try out for the role. Instantly, he became starting all 36 games (Lackey was right be- he would have to work harder, play better, a better hockey player. The net was where hind him as backup). It was an incredible dig deeper. “I carried that with me through he belonged. He stuck with it, and in high season, which ended at the Frozen Four in the year,” he says. school became one of the best players on Chicago, where Harvard lost to Minneso- his team. ta-Duluth, which then lost to the eventual At 6-feet-5-inches, 190 pounds, with an Then he came to Harvard and played in NCAA champion, the University of Denver. enormous wingspan and a .923 save per- only one game his freshman year, a 5-1 loss From late January until early April, though, centage, Madsen is one of the few return- to St. Lawrence (goalie Steve Michaelek ’15 the Crimson had not dropped a game. They ing players from last season’s core of stars was the senior star that season). “And that ended the season at 28-6-2. and one of three senior co-cap- tains this year—a rare position Merrick Madsen for a goalie and a testament, Do- nato says, to Madsen’s character and work ethic. It is also perhaps a testament to his un-goalie-like calm and equanimity. Madsen’s parents sometimes call to check on him after games, because he looks so tranquil on the ice— maybe too tranquil. He’s intense too, he says, but the calm is impor- tant; it moves through the lineup. “If you have a panicky goalie in net, then everyone’s panicky, and you don’t need that.” He doesn’t nurture any superstitions, either. Gave them up years ago, including the one that had him turning over his pillow the night before each game.