Big question on campus: Where have all the scorers gone?

Bitter cold that our New England winters can be, we long ago adopted a provincial antidote for the numbing of toes and the shortage of breath: metal grinding against ice and hard rubber hitting against wood.

It is hockey, the collegiate flavor of which is often captured in a story like the one Joe Bertagna shared last Monday night between games at the 55th Beanpot. He is a bona fide "hockey guy" -- which supplies him with good company in these regions -- and if his roots in the game date back to those frozen-pond days in Arlington, Bertagna has surely grown with the sport, from high school to distinguished play at Harvard, to his job as commissioner of Hockey East.

Bertagna's passion for the game was so serious that as a self-described "slow and chubby kid," he turned to his last hope for a spot with the fabled Spy Ponders of Arlington High School: He would be a goalie. The game thereafter was always an adventure, a nightly learning experience, and sometimes it was the loneliest and saddest place to be in the sporting world, which is what his story was about.

Standing next to a fraternity brother who could commiserate -- onetime Boston College goaltender Jim Logue -- Bertagna recalled the night referee Bobby Barry skated in to reclaim the latest puck that had slipped past the Harvard netminder.

"Leaning in to pick it up, Barry said to me, 'Don't worry, Joey, it's almost over.' "

Bertagna laughed, Logue laughed more heartily, but if the story underscored their love of the game, so, too, did it represent a touch of nostalgia, for these former goaltenders know the landscape has changed and rare are the bad nights for the men guarding the net.

It's another story for the once proud and vaunted goal scorer, however.

He has become extinct.

Numbers tell the story. Impressive numbers. Proficient numbers. They are there at every turn of the page in the various media guides -- from Jack Garrity's two-season stash of 85 goals for Boston University in 1949-51 to Terrier Ed Cahoon, who in 20 games netted 60 goals in 1948-51. Bob Cleary (81 games, 92 goals) was a Harvard force in the late 1950s, and Boston College had the late, great John Cunniff (75 games, 71 goals) in the mid '60s.

From Tim Sheehy (80 games, 74 goals) to Joey Mullen (110 goals, one for each game) the power remained on at The Heights throughout the 1970s, just as it did at the other end of Commonwealth Avenue, where John Danby scored 79 times in 84 games for the Terriers, and just as it did at Harvard (Dan DeMichele had 77 goals in 75 games).

While the 1980s produced a goal-scoring machine at Harvard (Lane MacDonald, 111 in 128 games) and the 1990s did likewise at BU (Chris Drury, 113 in 155), the turn of a new century elevated a new name into the penthouse of BC's record books (Brian Gionta, 123 in 164), but since the diminutive and dynamic one took his scoring touch to the New Jersey Devils, well . . . the red light has been dimmed in collegiate rinks throughout New England.

Oh, not completely, but surely goal judges don't have arthritic fingers as they did in eras gone by. For while the New England college hockey scene is a combative one, the sentiments of BC coach Jerry York would be seconded by everyone who skates, coaches, or watches this proud game:

"It used to be that offenses controlled the game. But no more. Defenses are definitely better than the offenses."

Scoring is down? Goals are hard to come by? You may as well tell the college coaches that the Zamboni appears between periods.

"I looked it up the other day," said Bertagna. "Up to the start of the Beanpot, we've had 42 [Hockey East] games thus far in which neither of the teams has reached three goals. In 1996-97, 10 years ago, we had 13 such games [up to the Beanpot]. There were just seven in 1986-97."

Look further and you see a total of 31 shutout wins (seven for BU), six of them by the 1-0 variety. The power outages are staggering:

Maine was shut out in back-to-back games recently.

BU had a 10-game stretch earlier this season in which it scored 16 goals.

In nine of its 26 games, BC has scored no more than two goals.

Northeastern has scored two goals in its last four games.

Merrimack is averaging 1.05 goals, UMass-Lowell 1.76, and Providence 2.05.

Vermont has scored no more than two goals 15 times -- and the Catamounts are fourth in Hockey East.

Stingy stuff, indeed, but the scoring drought is not restricted to 2006-07. The shift from offense to defense has been developing for seasons. Consider:

In his first 25 years behind the BU bench, Jack Parker coached 49 20-goal scorers and seven 30-goal scorers. In his last eight seasons, Parker has had two 20-goal scorers, both with 22.

Harvard has had one 20-goal scorer since 1994-95.

In 16 of its 35 games last year, Harvard scored no more than two goals -- and the Crimson were 21-12-2.

In 1990-91, BU had three 30-goal scorers (Shawn McEachern, Tony Amonte, David Tomlinson) and they combined for 95 in 41 games. As a team in 2003-04, BU scored 103 goals in 38 games.

The worst defensive team in Hockey East this year is allowing three goals per game. In 1977-78, BU won a national championship with a team that allowed 3.97 goals per game.

What has happened? Would Snooks Kelly and Cooney Weiland recognize their beloved game?

Parker chuckles softly. The man who nearly 20 years ago coached that powerful team of Terriers and their three 30-goal scorers and a 6.19 goals-per-game-average is still behind the BU bench, and for tomorrow night's Beanpot final against BC, he'll send out a team that averages 2.61 goals and gives up a mere 1.7. Different complexion, for sure, but he knows one thing: Snooks and Cooney would recognize right away what's changed.

Goaltending.

"No position in any sport has made the jump of how it's played better than goaltending," said Parker, who looks around Hockey East and sees three starting goalies yielding fewer than two goals per game and the other seven no worse than 2.8. "Save for the split-fingered fastball, from Herb Score to the Big Unit [Randy Johnson], pitching is still pitching. They made the pads smaller, but they made them lighter, so the kids can move quicker and they have better technique."

Follow the Green Line to Chestnut Hill, and you'll hear that sentiment echoed by Parker's archrival.

"There have always been good goaltenders," said York. "[Ken] Dryden, [Chris] Terreri, [Paul] Skidmore, but as a rule the goalies today are better athletes. I don't know if years ago many of the goalies could have skated [on defense or offense], but today's goalie could."

Is it the sort of suffocating defensive talk that makes Bertagna wish he were back behind the mask and in front of the net? He laughed.

"Certainly, it's not the stick-the-younger-brother-in-goal-for-a-target days anymore," he said. "We used to coach ourselves. The kids today are actually learning the position.

"But [the lack of scoring] is not just one answer. It's fashionable to talk about bigger goalies and how good they are, but . . ."

Bertagna lets the thought dangle, because as an administrator he knows he has to brush aside his allegiance to goaltenders and think about the overall game. Coaches are worried; they openly wonder whether it's time to make some changes.

"The goalies are too good; they're too big, and the nets are too small," said Bowdoin coach Terry Meagher, who 30 years ago was a goal-scoring machine for Parker's teams that went 74-18-1 from 1973-76 and captured three straight Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference championships. "Better athletes are playing goal, no question. But what happens when the Zdeno Charas of the hockey world start playing net? It's time to make the net bigger."

A hush envelops the hockey community. Bigger nets than the 4-foot-by-6-foot standard that has been in play since ice was invented? Is that the panic button being hit? Perhaps not, because even old-school guys support such a notion.

"It's a real simple thing to me," said Parker. "Make the nets bigger. We don't want this to be soccer."

Added Bertagna: "As a former goalie, people might be shocked to hear me say it, but I believe it [that nets should be bigger]."

There is, of course, a cautionary flag being waved elsewhere. Former BU goal-scoring star Dave Silk fears any sort of reactionary move. "A little bigger? Maybe, but I would want them to be careful how much bigger they made it," said the Scituate native, who netted 70 goals in 85 games for BU in the mid '70s before going on to fame with the 1980 US Olympic team and playing 10 NHL seasons.

"I just don't want them to make it bigger for the sake of making it bigger."

Some coaches would argue that 2-1 games can feature terrific hockey and that the game is as competitive as ever.

"I'm not ready to give in to that yet," said New Hampshire coach Dick Umile. "I'm not ready to make the net bigger."

Like most of his colleagues, Umile has watched his team's offensive output shrink during his 17 years behind the UNH bench. From 4.4 in Umile's first year (1990-91) to 5.2 in 1996-97, his squad's offensive output dipped to 3.0 in 2005-06, but one thing hasn't changed: The Wildcats are still one of the premier teams in the country, currently in first place in Hockey East, and that is a testament to their ability to change with the times.

The times not meaning a lack of talent, however. About that, Umile is adamant.

"We all get better with age," said Umile with a laugh, knowing that players of his generation might suggest today's kids can't measure up. "But believe me, these kids are pretty good. They've got the speed, the size, they're in better shape. They're good."

Parker agrees and doesn't subscribe to the theory that kids don't know how to score like players of the past. "These kids are definitely talented with the puck," he said. "What, all of a sudden has that [scoring] gene disappeared?"

Probably not, but surely the high-scoring days have disappeared. Credit better goalies. On that, virtually all hockey people agree. But if you want to search for other explanations, the hockey crowd has them waiting.

Bertagna remembers standing in the Harvard net and being mesmerized by a trio of his teammates, the famed "Local Line" of Dave Hynes (Cambridge), Bill Corkery (Arlington), and Bob McManama (Belmont).

"When I was on the ice, I was a fan. They would just create plays," said Bertagna. "But if I see them at a game today, they'll tell me, 'If we played today, we wouldn't have time to make those plays.' "

In other words, the game is faster -- much faster than it was 10 years ago, never mind 20 or 30.

"Our game unfolded in the neutral zone, that's where we made our plays," said Silk. "Now, plays come out of the corners, or off turnovers."

There's also an aspect to today's game that never was part of Silk's hockey world. He played in the era of no facemasks and minimal equipment. Today? "They've got a suit of armor on, so the number of blocked shots is so much higher," said Silk. "Kids throwing themselves on the ice has taken away what used to be the screen shot. Now, it's blocked."

There is also the coaching angle and a football-like mentality with game film. In the cozy Hockey East, coaches and players know one another so well, and it is easier than ever to defend one part of a team's game.

"I spend more time coaching our defense than I ever did," said York, a creative playmaker during his starry BC days in the mid 1960s and always a guy who loved to teach offense. Then again, he had the philosophy that if the opposition didn't score more than three goals, his team was in good shape. Like the straight stick, that philosophy is gone to the hockey graveyard.

"Now, coaches are more defensive," said Parker. "And if you fall behind, 1-0, guess what? You coach even more defense, because you don't want to fall down, 2-0."

Meagher suggests that today's sticks have something to do with the problem.

"No question they can really shoot and fire the puck like crazy," he said, "but I see players having trouble settling the puck and quieting it. There's a jumpiness to these one-piece sticks, I think."

For an analogy, Meagher turned to golf. He suggested the titanium drivers with their whippy shafts can most certainly send golf balls into orbits far from here, "but you wouldn't have any touch with it around the greens on the 'feel' shots," said the Bowdoin coach. "But you would with an old forged 5-iron," which is to golf what a wooden stick is to hockey, which is exactly his point, because has anyone seen a wooden stick in action lately?

There are also those who'll argue, with all due respect to Umile and Parker, that today's players -- while terrific skaters and surely stronger and more physically fit than their predecessors -- indeed lack that scoring touch that once seemed so commonplace.

"Goal scoring just isn't a skill anymore," said Meagher. "It's not a mind-set."

Some wonder whether the fabled US National Program is not reflective of a systemwide problem, for they contend that talented kids go there and their creativity is immediately stifled in favor of a more structured approach. That coaching philosophy seeps through to junior hockey ranks, and before you know it, everyone is playing the same tough, defensive hockey, and goal scorers are harder to find.

"People who score goals are used to scoring goals; scoring begets scoring," said Silk. "I guarantee you, Ralph Cox scored goals at every level. He learned how to shoot it, where to shoot it. He just knew how to score. Kids today don't score as much [at lower levels], so it's no wonder they don't score as much later."

Umile has heard all the theories. He and his colleagues have been talking up this topic for years, agreeing on some points, disagreeing on others. But he keeps coming back to this: "We're all doing a much better job of coaching defense, but we have to because the competition is so good. In the old ECAC, let's be honest, there were a lot of games that were big-time blowouts, not even close. Now? Every single night in this league is a battle, every single game is competitive."

Bertagna has the numbers to prove it -- and Parker has a memory to suggest that it might stay this way, because colleges can't make bigger nets; they have to wait for the NHL to do so.

"Two years ago, Colin Campbell came down to one of our coaches conferences and read a letter that had been sent to the Board of Governors of the NHL," said the BU coach. "It was a plea, a suggestion for a bigger net, or otherwise the league would be in trouble. The letter was written by Art Ross -- in 1927."

The net is still 4 x 6 and the game is still won by the team with more goals.

There's no rule about how many of them there have to be.

Jim McCabe can be reached at jmccabe@globe.com.