Coach Latoya Jackson?

LAKE PLACID, NY--Somebody call the psychic hotline. Tell them that one of their people has infiltrated the Harvard hockey head coaching position.

For it was only two nights ago that Ronn Tomassoni made a prediction as rash as any he has publicly made in his tenure at the Harvard helm.

"Our third line has been playing very well," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised to see one of the guys score three goals this weekend."

OK, so Kirk Nielsen still needs a goal in tonight's ECAC final against RPI to fulfill that prophecy. But it seems of late that the nickname of "Neilee" has more than purely homophonic meaning.

But wait, there's more.

Nielsen related after tha game that Tomassoni has stressed the process of "visualization," telling his players to see themselves on the up-side of a 5-1 win in yesterday's game.

Of course, that remark at the post-game press conference brough cries of "Do you know any hot lottery numbers?" form the assembled scribes at the press conference, but this only begs the question: Can Harvard harness the powers of Zen Buddhism in bringing about the successful ending to the latest Five-Year-Plan for a national title?

It was, of course, 1989 when the Crimson last found St. Paul in April to be anything more than a repository of melting snow, but fathom this: the last time Harvard was in an ECAC post-season final game was even two years earlier.

A sophomore named Lane MacDonald won that year's tournament MVP and Harvard went on to defeat St. Lawrence 6-3 to take home the play-off trophy. MacDonald was later acquainted with Hobey Baker in that 1989 NCAA championship season--an impressive double, but his alma mater has a defenseman who is poised to accomplish the dual feat in one year.

Yes, forget MacDonald, Tomassonni, even Nielsen, I'll take Sean McCann as my first pick in the Harvard hockey rotisserie draft.

As they say, you can't stop McCann, you can only hope to contain him. And last night, there was no paly Brown Coach Bob Gaudet could diagram to stop number ten. Three times Derek Macguire to Chris Baird to McCann hit mesh: once top shelf, once five-hole and once near-side.

They call Bear's goalie Geoff Finch "Dr. No" in Providence. But it was an evening when McCann was the man with the Golden Gun and Gaudet acknowledged as much.

"There are very few guys who can one-time the puck as well as McCann does," he said. "It's an art, and it takes a little bit of luck, but when you hit the six-by-four (goal area) that hard, the puck wants to go in sometimes and it seems like Harvard has a lot of guys on their team that can do that."

Harvard goalie Tripp Tracy also praisd his captain.

"Sometimes I look like Swiss cheese in practice when he onetimes like that," he said. And he reiterated that an opposing penalty kill can't just focus on McCann. Harvard has five good players out on the power play for every shift.

But as long as McCann Keeps shooting like that--20 goals on the year for an Ivy League defense man?--his Hobey outlook becomes all the rosier.

And maybe Tomassoni should stay in the prediction business. What do you say, Coach? How about 7-2 tonigh?

With Harvard playing like it did last night, I can't see why not.