Hockey All-Americans.
Goalie Ed MacDonald and wingman Ed Rowe were chosen All-
American hockey players. After MacDonald took over as goalie on February 11, 1956, halfway
through his sophomore year, he played in 45 regular season games before graduating. He
compiled an amazing record of 41 wins, four losses, five shutouts, and 14 games in which only
one goal was scored against him. He averaged 28 saves per game, with a remarkable average of
2.0 goals scored against him.
In 1957, he led the team to a berth in the NCAA tournament in Denver, where he was
named to the Associated Press All-Star Tournament First Team for his outstanding work in
turning back 99 shots on goal in two games. In Colorado he was named to the second All-Star
team behind a Minnesota player named Jack MacCarten, who went on to play a major role in
the USA hockey victory in the 1960 Winter Olympics. MacDonald led the team to the NCAA
tournament in Minneapolis again the next year.
Clarkson at Colorado.
The hockey team won third place at the NCAA tournament at Colorado
Springs, Colorado, in the 1957 tournament. The Golden Knights showed up well in the 5-3 loss
to the powerful Colorado College sextet which went on to defeat Michigan 13-6 to take the
national championship.
In the consolation game, Ed Rowe rammed the puck past Jim Bailey of Harvard at 6:51
of the second overtime period to give Clarkson a 2-1 victory over Harvard, which made
Clarkson the unofficial Eastern champions. This was Clarkson's first appearance in the 10-year
history of the tourney.
To wish the team luck in Colorado, Clarkson students and Potsdam residents sent a long
telegram. Signed by over 500 people, this 13-foot, 11-inch telegram, rolled and tied with a
green and gold ribbon, was presented to Captain Eddie Rowe and Coach Harrison just before
the start of the Harvard game. It worked for that game, at least.
Arena Bell.
From the remains of a burnt-out schoolhouse in Colton, N.Y., the members of Pi
Kappa Phi fraternity salvaged the great bell which hangs in the Cheel Arena. For its first few
years, it was hauled on a specially built wagon to all sporting events in which its fraternity
members were participating. Its tolling added such a note of excitement to those occasions that
the brothers decided to share its reverberations. Soon the bell was taken to varsity hockey
games, and then, housed on a sled, it became a regular participant in the annual Ice Carnival
parade.
When the Arena was enlarged in 1967, the bell was given a permanent home, and began
to be rung at other special occasions, also. The advent of women's hockey at Clarkson first
stretched the tradition. Women from Omega Delta Phi were permitted to borrow the carefully
guarded clapper so that goals scored by the Clarkson women's hockey team also could be
signaled by its resonant tolling.
Then, beginning in 1968, when the University president handed the last diploma to the
last senior at Commencement ceremonies held in the Arena, the bell tolled out its
congratulations with abundant cheer. When these ceremonies were moved to the Indoor
Recreation Center in 1981, the bell went with them. In 1991, it was installed permanently in the
new hockey arena in the Cheel Center.
This bell is an important part of the atmosphere that surrounds Clarkson's hockey team.
Its clangor has a positive effect on the Clarkson players' morale, and often a negative effect on
opponents. The brothers of Delta Sigma Phi were delighted when, on a nationally syndicated
