Icemen on the Road Again

Normally a hockey club in the Beanpot finals has trouble focusing on its regular-season games between 'Pot engagements.

Normally.

But this weekend's schedule for the Harvard men's hockey club is anything but normal.

With crucial contests on the road against second-place Yale and a hot Princeton squad, Harvard players realize that they have some important ECAC business to take care of before they face Boston University Monday night in the Boston Garden.

Harvard travels down the east coast to meet the Bulldogs tonight in New Haven, Conn., and the Tigers tomorrow in Princeton, N.J.

From the looks of it, Harvard is not taking these games lightly.

"This is the biggest weekend of the season," Captain Kevin Sneddon said.

Sneddon may be right. While the Crimson (11-3-3, 10-1-3 ECAC) is alone atop the ECAC standings with 23 points, the Elis (along with St. Lawrence) are only two points behind.

"Right now, our goal for the year is to win the ECAC and Yale is number two. So obviously, this is an important game for us," senior forward Tim Burke said.

"I guess normally it would be a letdown [after the Beanpot], but this is Yale," Burke said.

A Harvard win, of course, would put the Crimson comfortably ahead of the Elis in the standings, and would undoubtedly bolster Harvard's place in the national polls.

A Yale victory, on the other hand, would send the two teams into a first place tie, which St. Lawrence could join with a win at home over Colgate. Considering Harvard's past performance at Ingalls Rink (the so-called Yale Whale), that is not an unlikely scenario.

In the last 15 years, Harvard has compiled a miserable 2-10-3 record down at Yale. No current Harvard player has ever beaten the Elis in New Haven.

Yale hasn't exactly been a powerhouse as of late, either. During the last 15 years, the Elis have never won the ECAC title and have only finished higher than seventh place in the conference three times.

This year is clearly an exception, which makes Harvard's task even more formidable.

After finishing last season at 11-16-2 (its fourth straight losing season), the Elis have turned over a new leaf. Yale Coach Tim Taylor has led his team to an amazing 14-6-2, including a 9-2-3 record in the ECAC which has kept it at the top of the conference all season long.

Junior center Mark Kaufmann has handled the lion's share of the Yale's scoring duties. Kaufmann (14-12-26) is currently third in ECAC scoring.

The Bulldogs dealt the Crimson its first blow this season when the two teams skated to a 2-2 tie at Bright Arena in November. At the time, the teams had identical 3-0 records.

Yale took an early 2-0 lead in the contest, but Harvard scored in both the second and third periods to secure the tie.

Hold That Tiger

Princeton may be an unimpressive 5-9-0 in ECAC action (ninth place overall), but the team comes into Saturday's contest against the Crimson having won three of its last four conference games, including its most recent 3-2 victory against a respectable Cornell squad.

"Coach [Ronn Tommassoni] described Princeton as the best unknown team," Sneddon said.

Princeton didn't have much success, however, during its visit to Cambridge earlier this year. Harvard manhandled the Tigers, 8-1, in the Crimson's best offensive performance of the year.

"We kind of blew them out of the rink," Sneddon said. "I think it's going to be a much tougher game down there."

ECAC Standings Team  W-L-T  Pts  Overall HARVARD  10-1-3  23  11-3-3 St. Lawrence  10-3-1  21  14-6-2 Yale  9-2-3  21  11-4-3 Clarkson  9-4-1  19  15-6-1 Cornell  8-4-2  18  10-6-2 Brown  6-5-3  15  6-12-3 Colgate  7-7-0  14  10-11-1 Vermont  6-7-1  13  12-9-1 Princeton  5-9-0  10  7-10-0 Rensselaer  4-9-1  9  10-11-1 Union  1-12-1  3  2-14-1 Dartmouth  1-13-0  2  1-17-0