Men’s ice hockey has started its season with both triumphs and tribulations. While the team had a strong pre-season with decisive wins over McGill University and the University of Guelph, the team lost its first two games against Harvard University and Army West Point 5-2 and 8-3, respectively. However, the Big Green reversed its momentum this past weekend at home with a 6-0 victory over Yale University, followed by a shootout victory over Brown University.
Dartmouth faced the Bulldogs on Nov. 4, earning a dominant victory for its first win of the young season. The team started off slow, getting held off the scoreboard entirely in the first period. Dartmouth picked up the energy in the second period, with Luke Haymes ’26 notching a goal early in the period. Ian Pierce ’25 and Braiden Dorfman ’25 followed, giving the Big Green a 3-0 lead just halfway through the second.
“We had a couple goals pretty quickly,” Dorfman said. “So we had good momentum going into the third.”
The Big Green stayed hot in the third, closing out the win with another set of three goals. Joey Musa ’24 and Trym Løkkeberg ’25 made it 5-0 with a goal apiece. Løkkeberg said that the third period was exciting for the team, as the goals kept coming.
“For my goal, it was a great job by everyone in the line and we had a good breakout and entry,” Løkkeberg said. “[Steven Townley ’25] shot it and after the rebound, I was able to hit the puck in the air into the net, I was lucky.”
Dartmouth goalie Cooper Black ’26 made an impressive 28 saves in his clean-sheet performance against the Bulldogs. Haymes scored a second time for Dartmouth’s sixth goal, ending the game as it began for the high-scoring Big Green offense.
The next evening, Dartmouth faced off against Brown in Thompson Arena. Brown struck first, scoring on a power play just three minutes into the first period. Despite Brown’s early performance, Dorfman said that the team felt that it was still within striking distance.
“Even at that point, I feel like we were outplaying them, and we knew that we were still in a good position,” Dorfman said. “We just hadn’t really gotten a balance yet and we knew it was coming.”
Haymes again struck first for Dartmouth, putting the Big Green on the scoreboard on a power play of its own towards the end of the first period, and allowing Dartmouth to get out of the first period tied up.
“I received good passes from my teammates and was able to play off of that,” Haymes said.
After a scoreless second period, Brown reclaimed the lead with a score just a minute and a half into the third. The Bears were able to hold Dartmouth off the scoreboard for the next 10 minutes, making that early goal look the part of a game winner until Dorfman tied it up 2-2 at the 13-minute mark of the period with yet another power play goal.
“It felt awesome,” Dorfman said. “Our power play struggled for the first few games of the year and got going against Yale, and it was good to keep that going with Brown as well.”
After finishing the third period tied and playing through a five-minute overtime period without a score, the conference matchup advanced to a shootout.
Dorfman said that the team’s energy remained high at the shootout and they maintained their composure despite the pressure.
“With Cooper Black, we shoot off of him all the time and we’re confident in him as a goalie,” Dorfman said. “And [Musa] has his patented move which he’s done a few times before and had a good goal on that one.”
Musa was the Big Green’s third shooter, and his goal secured the Dartmouth win. Black was able to keep all of Brown’s overtime and shootout attempts out of the net and made 19 saves overall in the match.
When reflecting on the team’s strengths, Dorfman noted its ability to “spread the wealth” across all players as well as its strong defensive game. The coaching staff is still relatively new, and he noted that the players are more comfortable with the team’s systems this season.
“Coming into this year, we knew what to expect a bit more, and we’re more comfortable with the systems that they want to run,” Dorfman said. “I think our freshmen have done a great job of fitting into those.”
Haymes and Black, who are both freshmen, received awards for their recent performances. Black was named Goaltender of the Week and Haymes was named Rookie of the Week, both by the Eastern College Athletic Conference. Haymes was also named the Male Athlete of the Week by Dartmouth Sports.
“I want to give credit to my teammates because I was just in the right spot at the right time, so I got a couple goals in,” Haymes said.
Looking to the future, the Big Green hopes to improve on situational aspects of its game and continue to build off of its most recent successes.
“We definitely want to keep the momentum going, and we're still a pretty young team in terms of NCAA experience,” Dorfman said. “We definitely need to work on our overall team maturity in terms of playing different ways… and learning how to close out games when we have a lead and battle back in games where we're down.
The Big Green’s next match is Friday, Nov. 11 on the road at Union College.
