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U.S. And Canadian Military Academies Continue To Battle It Out In College Hockey's Oldest Rivalry By Elliot Olshansky Allies AFTER s the clock ticked down on a particularly spirited contest, Cody Ikkala and Patrick Pinder were at each other's throats after a battle in front of the net. Tempers flared, gloved fists flew, and it took no small effort from the on-ice officials to break up the altercation. When the final horn sounded, however, Ikkala and Pinder shared a hearty handshake, and the natives of Philadelphia and Calgary, respectively, happily joined in a group photo at center ice. With the game over, the two defensemen – Ikkala from the U.S. Military Academy and Pinder from its Canadian counterpart, Royal Military College – were teammates again, ready to guard something much more valuable than a hockey net. "We battle each other on the ice," said Army sophomore Maurice Alvarez, "and we're dogs out there against each other, but as soon as we graduate, we're on the 28 April/May. 2013 same team, no matter what." As much as the game may have changed in the last 90 years that sentiment certainly hasn't as the Black Knights and the Paladins write a new chapter in what's been billed as the "oldest continuous international rivalry in college sports." The legacy of the Army-RMC series dates back to Gen. Douglas MacArthur's tenure as superintendent of the academy. In the early 1920s, MacArthur wrote a letter to RMC's commandant, Maj. Gen. Sir Archibald MacDonnell, suggesting that the two schools compete on the athletic field. The eventual result of that correspondence was the first meeting between the teams, which took place at West Point, N.Y., on Jan. 23, 1923. A return engagement took place the next year in Kingston, Ontario, and the academies continued to exchange visits through 1939, until World War II interrupted the proceedings. USAHOCKEYMAGAZINE.COM RMC dominated the early meetings, winning the first 11 games and running off a 14-0-1 record before Army broke through with a 3-2 win in 1939. However, that victory – and a 3-1 Army victory when the teams met again in 1942 – heralded a change in fortunes during the postwar era. The Black Knights went 6-4 in the 1950s and 8-2 in the 1960s, while RMC has only won consecutive games once since 1938, a three-game win streak spanning from 1982 to 1984. While Army grew stronger as a program, the rivalry grew weaker, and soon found itself at a critical juncture. As the series moved into a new century, RMC began playing civilian graduate students against the cadets. The presence of these older students, while legal under the rules of Canadian Interuniversity Sport, became a point of contention for Army, which looked to keep the game an all-cadet affair. A current of bitterness permeated the rivalry, and following a 3-3 tie in Kingston Photos By Danny Wild