Slash-Happy

"Last year, I felt players were taking shots and doing a lot of stuff to me that I didn't feel they should do, and I retaliated because I felt that you've got to protect yourself," Blair says. "You've got to show the other team you're not afraid, and whatever they're gonna give, you're gonna give back.

"A lot of referees are looking for me," Blair adds. "They know my style of play. I still get the odd slash here and there. It's more or less me getting smarter. They're not catching me now."

As he's cut down on his penalties, Blair hasn't lost the playoff touch that has also been his hallmark.

Even though the Crimson dropped a crucial semifinal contest to Clarkson Friday, Blair still ended his ECAC Tournament career with some pretty impressive numbers--a 10-3-1 mark, .925 save percetnage and a 2.06 goals-against average.

"I think he's a born winner," Matthew Blair says.

Blair has always relied on a come-out-and-get-'em style. The Kirkland House senior likes to skate way out of his net to try to reduce the shooter's angle.

"Sometimes he puts pressure on a shooter," says former Harvard goaltender Joe Bertagna '73, executive director of the ECAC and the Boston Bruins' goalie coach. "Instead of taking normal shot selection, he tries to work the puck a little deeper or tries to take a perfect shot and loses the puck."

Without a coach at Harvard, Blair has had to rely on himself or fellow goalies John Devin and Dickie McEvoy.

"Just before the B.C. game early in the year, John goes to me, you seem to be going down a bit more and staying back in your net more than earlier in the year," Blair recalls. "In the B.C. game, I stood up, I came out and I had 45 saves and played twice as good as I had earlier in the year."

At the beginning of this season, Blair struggled before getting his g.a.a. down to the nation-leading 2.67 he now sports.

"I went in with the wrong attitude," Blair says. "I had to do everything right, I was so responsible for what happened to this team, and I wasn't having fun. Before we played RPI, just after Christmas, halfway through the practice I was just hating it. I said, I hate playing, I'm just sick of it.

"I felt I was doing two things wrong. I fixed 'em and then, all of a sudden, I was having so much fun. From then on I've streaked through the last 12 games," Blair said a week before the end of the regular season.

After the Crimson's season ends, Blair will begin to think about Calgary training camp in September. A sixth-round draft choice in 1983, Blair has impressed the Flames with his progress over three years.

Blair is hoping to make Calgary's International League farm team in Moncton, New Brunswick, next year. Right now, Calgary has one proven goalie, Reggie Lemelin, and a group of three or four journeymen.