Bagels, tennis balls and Herb Hammond. Three terms that mean nothing to the average person, but inside the Plattsburgh State-Oswego State men’s hockey rivalry, they are staples. Hammond was the head coach at Oswego State from 1968-1979, leading the Lakers to a 175-123-5 record over that span. In his final season at the helm, Hammond led Oswego State to an ECAC Div. II West Championship. But after the program refused to put adequate funds into the men’s hockey program, Hammond left to become the head coach at Plattsburgh State.
“The rivalry was already going,” Oswego State head coach Ed Gosek said. “Plattsburgh came onto the scene with a new facility, their location and they got it going in a hurry. When coach Hammond left Oswego for Plattsburgh, it added fuel to the fire. He didn’t want to leave, but Plattsburgh had a different commitment to hockey at the time. It definitely left some of our fans bitter.”
In his first two seasons with the Cardinals, Hammond led the team to the NCAA Div. II championship game, falling both times to UMass Lowell. In 1980, the Lakers and Cardinals met in the ECAC championship game. Oswego State lost a heartbreaking 7-6 game at home. Hammond would leave the Plattsburgh State program after just two seasons to coach at Brown University, but the rivalry between the Lakers and Cardinals continued to pick up speed.
The tradition of throwing tennis balls on the ice after goals at Plattsburgh State started soon after Oswego State head coach Don Unger took over the program in 1980, as Unger was the tennis coach for the Lakers. To counter, Oswego State fans celebrated home goals against the Cardinals by throwing bagels on the ice to “feed the birds.”
“We’re not talking a couple of dozen bagels here,” Gosek said. “We’re talking a couple thousand. We’re not talking a few cans of tennis balls, we’re talking the ice covered. It was 15-20 minute cleanups in both arenas.”
The rivalry reached a fevered pitch in 1987, where the two teams battled for the Div. III National Championship. It was the sixth meeting between the two teams that season, as the Cardinals had taken the first five. In the national championship, Plattsburgh State took the game by a commanding score of 8-3. However, that 1987 national championship would later be vacated because Plattsburgh State had violated NCAA rules. Even so, the win would start a period of dominance for the Cardinals in the rivalry.
From 1988 to 1992, Plattsburgh State won 11 straight games over Oswego State. The dominance would continue into the late 1990s, with the Cardinals winning 10 of 11 games from 1997 to 2001. At the turn of the century, the Lakers began to keep the series close. Then, in 2006, the Cardinals and Lakers met in the SUNYAC semifinals in the Romney Field House. Oswego State trailed 3-1 entering the third period but pulled within one goal with 11:22 remaining. After the Lakers’ goal, an Oswego State fan threw a bagel on the ice, drawing a delay of game penalty. That penalty resulted in a power play goal for Plattsburgh State, sealing the game and adding an empty netter to close Romney Field House with a 5-2 Lakers loss.
“It just went over the line,” Gosek said. “Fans started throwing them for a second goal or a third goal. The referees had to call a delay of game penalty for throwing things. There were power play goals that determined the outcome of games.”
The Lakers began playing games inside the Marano Campus Center Ice Arena the following season. Since the move in 2007, Oswego State is 14-17-2 against Plattsburgh State. And even with over 170 miles separating the two schools, the rivalry continues.
“It takes two competitive teams in a rivalry,” Gosek said. “It takes two teams that have been in the SUNYAC championship the most times, playing against each other. Plattsburgh and Oswego have both won national championships, the only SUNYAC schools to accomplish that. And they’re both great hockey schools.”
Gosek makes sure his players know the history of the two programs and the history of the rivalry. When a player begins at either school, they know the magnitude of playing in the Plattsburgh State-Oswego State rivalry.
“You can get a feeling from the guys that have been there and played in it before,” senior Jody Sullivan said. “Coach Eddie has told us quite a few things about the history of the rivalry, dating all the way back to Romney. We know how heated it has been and can be.”
Plattsburgh State owns the all-time series with a 79-41-8 record. But the Lakers have managed to get some revenge of late, taking two of the three meetings last season, including a 3-2 SUNYAC semifinal victory that sent the Cardinals home for the season. As the rivalry enters its 129th chapter this Friday night, both teams know that when they take the ice, this game is a whole different animal.
“It’s not about the coaches,” Gosek said. “It’s about the schools. It’s awesome for both teams and both schools to have something like this. You talk to people about Div. III sports in general and they’ll bring up the Oswego-Plattsburgh rivalry.”
