These Eagles Simply Could Not Fly

Only a quick global warming could have saved the Boston College women's hockey team last night.

A complete meltdown of the Bright Center ice might have slowed the Harvard attack. The Eagles alone could not.

In what has become an annual rite of winter, the Crimson demolished the Eagles, 10-0. Harvard Coach John Dooley did the best he could to ameliorate B.C.'s plight, giving his second and third lines--not to mention his backup goalie--extended playing time.

But what Dooley couldn't do was tell his players not to score.

Harvard scored four goals in the first period, two in the second and four in the third. For her heroic efforts in the face of the terrible onslaught, B.C. goalie Kerri Tiernan should have been given a purple heart.

Tiernan had a dinner date with the entire Harvard squad. She supplied the net, the Crimson brought a few thousand pucks.

At game's end, the Eagles were like those unhappy tourists in American Express commercials.

Defense: don't leave home without it.

There is a danger in playing a team far worse than you. It is the Michael Dukakis principle--you play down to the level of your competition.

Put a Shakespeare scholar in a room with a baby for a long time, and the baby will not emerge spouting lines from "Hamlet"; rather the scholar will be saying, "Goo, ga" and asking for a bottle.

Last night, Harvard restisted the temptation to talk baby talk.

"B.C.'s not a challenging team," junior Char Joslin said. "But that, in itself, challenges us to do different things. I don't think we played down to their level. Sometimes that does happen."

Instead of playing merely to win, the Crimson played to see how well it could utilize its new plays and players.

"We knew before the game that we were definitely favored," Joslin said. "It allowed us to use lots of different combinations, to put people at defense who had never played there before."

The Crimson roster features seven freshmen, all of whom played last night. Sophomore goalie Gillian D'Souza fought off boredom and a handful of shots.

"We have a lot of freshmen, and we want to work on getting to know each other as well as we can," Tri-Captain Brita Lind said. "Any game is good for that."

Nothing like a blowout to build team spirit.

"Everyone was anxious to score," Lind said. "There wasn't much to go around last time [in the Crimson's 5-1 season-opening loss to Providence]. This is only our second game. We're so anxious to play games."

This year, Harvard will be seeking a third-straight Ivy League title. The Crimson opens its league slate Saturday against Yale in New Haven, Conn.

Dooley said parts of his team's game need to be ironed out before the Crimson will be able to reach the heights it achieved the past two seasons.

"The biggest area we have to work on is passing," Dooley said. "It's a timing thing. We're behind. We're not crisp with it yet."