Next Stop: Calgary for Harvard's Best

For three Harvard students and a pair of graduates, the road to Calgary has been smooth.

But for Donald La Vigne, the road has had one pothole after another.

When the Olympics begin Saturday in Calgary, Alberta, current Harvard undergraduates Allen Bourbeau and Lane MacDonald, along with Scott Fusco '86, will take the ice for the U.S. Olympic Hockey Team in its opening game against Austria.

Harvard sophomore Paul Wylie, the United States' number two male figure skater, will compete in figure skating competetions. And James Herberich '85 will be a brakeman on the second U.S. bobsled team.

And for La Vigne, the wait finally ended yesterday. La Vigne, who thought he had made the team as a brakeman on the third U.S. sled, was removed last week in favor of professional football player Willie Gault. La Vigne was in the process of appealing his case to the United States Olympic Committee and the United States Bobsled Federation, but was reinstated yesterday as a non-competing athlete.

While the wait finally ended for La Vigne, the three Harvard icemen have just completed a rigourous 60-game tour of the U.S. and Canada, which featured games against professional, college and other Olympic Teams. The Olympians trounced the Harvard hockey team in early November, 15-3.

Team USA, however, is not likely to find its Olympic competition anywhere near as easy as the Crimson proved to be. Many experts predict the Red, White and Blue (which finished its tour with a 37-18-5 record) will finish behind favored Canada, the Soviet Union and Austria in the medal competition.

MacDonald and Bourbeau, seniors taking a year off, finished one-two, respectively, in scoring for the 1986-87 Crimson squad that won the ECAC Championship and advanced to the NCAA Final Four.

For the Olympians, MacDonald has netted 23 goals and notched 28 assists in 50 games. Bourbeau has 18 goals and 20 assists in 45 games.

Fusco, a holdover from the 1984 Olympics, won the Hobey Baker Award (which recognizes college hockey's most valuable player) in 1986. He finished his career as Harvard's all-time leading scorer and sparked the Crimson's 1986 drive to the NCAA finals.

While Bourbeau and MacDonald have taken the year off, Wiley has taken a limited course load during his two years here in order to train for the Olympics. In January, he finished second behind Brian Boitano in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, notching him a berth on the U.S. team.