Why are the Winners Looking So Darned Glum?

It was a strange scene last night at Bright Center when the final buzzer sounded.

Michigan State had just defeated Harvard, 6-5, in the first game of its NCAA first-round series with the Crimson.

But when the game ended, the Spartans crowded around goalie Jason Muzzatti. Some of their heads were bowed. All of them looked dejected.

Guys, pick your heads up, you won the game. Remember that 6-5 game two years ago in Providence for the NCAA Championship? You weren't bowing your heads then.

The Harvard players crowded around goalie Mike Francis and were celebrating. They were giving highfives and whooping it up.

Excuse me guys, you're not supposed to do that. Look at the scoreboard.

It would have been a strange scene if this game counted as one game. But according to the NCAA's playoff format, this game was only part of a bigger game--the total-goals game. The game where the winner scores the most goals in 120 minutes of hockey.

The Spartans looked dejected because they could have entered tonight's game with a four-goal lead. Instead, the Crimson came back and is now only one goal behind with three periods of hockey left. Three periods of hockey at Bright Center.

"We don't seem to handle prosperity well," Michigan State Captain Tom Tilley said. "It's kind of disappointing for us."

The Spartans saw prosperity sink in the Charles River. The Crimson just didn't come back in this game. It came back with authority. It came back like a team that was slapped in the face from a bad dream. And it needed only three skaters on the ice.

"That's when we had the big advantage," Peter Ciavaglia said. "We wanted to really put it out."

After a scuffle occurred late in the final period that sold out the penalty box for the rest of the game, Harvard and Michigan State started to play a game of pick-up hockey.

You got your three skaters and we got ours. Let's choose to see who gets the puck.

The rink looked very white. But the Crimson managed to light up the red twice.

First, defenseman Jerry Palwoski did hockey's version of a Dominique Wilkins 360-spin and backhanded the puck into the net.

Then, Ciavaglia asked the puck out to dance and ran circles around a dizzy Mezzatti for Harvard's fifth goal.

"Their talented forwards are good with the stick," Spartan Coach Ron Mason said. "We had a three-goal lead and we should have tried to keep it a three-goal lead."

Tonight, the game will go into the fourth period. After the Spartans took a 4-1 lead in the first period, the Crimson outscored the Spartans, 4-2, in the next two periods.

"Those goals were huge," Pawloski said. "You could feel the momentum changing."

Things were changing at Bright. You could sense it in the bowed heads of the Spartans. The team that once had a four-goal lead. And even though Michigan "won" this game, Harvard still could celebrate its "loss."

"We just didn't skate and they were flying in the first period," Harvard Coach Bill Cleary said. "But we didn't lose our cool. We just kept banging back."

Both teams now have an entire day to think about the game's next three periods. The Spartans can think about how it could have entered the second part of the game with a comfortable lead.

"Right now, we're playing halfway through the second period," Pawloski said. "The momentum's in our favor. We're coming [out tonight] with fire in our eyes."

The Crimson had fire in its sticks and skates in the third period of the 120-minute total-goals game.

The Spartans had their heads bowed, even though they "won" the game.