Men's Hockey Enjoys Shining Moments in Lackluster Season

For two days in February they were kings. The other 139 days they were paupers.

In the heart of yet another losing season, the Harvard men's hockey team drove 15 minutes into Boston and escaped into the confines of the Fleet Center. The annual Beanpot Tournament takes place over the first two Mondays of the month, and it is the only time of the season when records, streaks, rankings and reputation are put aside and the four Boston hockey powers--Harvard, Northeastern, Boston University and Boston College--play for nothing save pride.

Record: 14-17-2, 10-11-1 ECAC

Coach: Ronn Tomassoni

Highlights: Defeats No. 8 B.C. in Beanpot; makes ECAC semi-finals.

Seniors: Henry Higdon, Geordie Hyland, Jeremiah McCarthy, Doug Sproule

Harvard entered this year's Beanpot with a lot to forget. Its record was 6-9-2. It was coming off two disturbing losses to league fodder Vermont and Rensselaer. Sophomore goaltender J.R. Prestifilippo--last year's ECAC Rookie of the Year--was still feeling the effects of a month-long bout with mononucleosis and was far from 100 percent. Junior Craig Adams, the team's leading scorer to that point, remained sidelined with a sore shoulder.

There was little for the Harvard players to smile about after three months of play, and perhaps that is why the Beanpot became their only refuge.

"We think that this is our chance, we just have to go out and grab it," declared senior Henry Higdon on the eve of the team's first round game against the No. 8 Eagles.

It was a bold statement considering that Harvard was the only competing team not ranked in the top 10 at least once during the season and the only one with a sub-.500 record.

But then again it was the Beanpot, so maybe it was not such a shock when the Crimson stormed back from a 3-0 deficit to defeat B.C. in overtime, and then pushed the second-ranked Terriers to the brink before losing at the 5:51 mark of overtime in the championship game.

For those two magical nights, there was no mention of the ECAC or of the Crimson's continual struggle through its rebuilding period. No, for those precious moments Harvard was the king of the hill.

"I think that there was no question in anyone's mind that we could have won the whole thing," said freshman Harry Schwefel. "We knew that we could beat them, and I think that we showed everyone else that we could have done it, that we could be contenders."

Those two games, however, overshadowed what was yet another frustrating and fruitless run through league play for Harvard, who finished the regular season in fifth place. Aside from the two-game Beanpot reprieve, the Crimson struggled consistently, as its longest regular-season winning streak was three games.

The youngest team in all of Division I hockey, Harvard predictably struggled in the early part of the season. After an impressive 6-5 victory over then-No. 10 Colgate, the Crimson was winless in its next four games. Nonetheless, despite an unimpressive 4-6-1 overall record, Harvard was still in the league hunt heading into the holiday break thanks to a win over St. Lawrence and two wins over Brown.

Christmas break was not full of cheer for Harvard, however. First, the team made a brief stop at Matthews Arena for a showdown with Northeastern. After cruising to an early 3-1 lead, the Crimson's attack faltered, allowing the Huskies to unload three unanswered goals and escape with a 6-4 win.

Crimson breakdowns were not a regional phenomenon, considering that the same kind of mental lapses plagued Harvard in Wisconsin at the Badger Showdown. Against both the host team in the first round and then B.C. in the consolation game, the Crimson exhibited periods of greatness that were invariably followed by defensive lapses leading to quick, unanswered tallies for the opposing teams.

In front of a rowdy crowd of 12,801 Badger fans, the Crimson came out flat and Wisconsin responded with four goals in the first 23 minutes of play. Harvard eventually found its rhythm and outscored the home team throughout the remainder of the contest, but the damage had already been done, and Harvard walked out of the Bradley Center with a disappointing 6-3 loss.

"We gave them that first period," said captain Jeremiah McCarthy, who was the sole Crimson representative on the All-Tournament team. "We gave them breakaway after breakaway and they capitalized on them. We gave them three early goals on our mistakes, and you just can't spot teams that many goals."

Even more disturbing than the mental lapses, however, were the physical losses incurred from the tournament. Not only did captain-elect Adams receive a brutal hit resulting in a season-ending shoulder injury, but on the team's return home, Prestifilippo was diagnosed with mononucleosis. Freshman netminder Oliver Jonas was given the nod and forced to play 10 games in Prestifilippo's absence.

"J.R. wasn't at the top of his game in Wisconsin, and when we came back home and had him tested, we found out why," Tomassoni said. "And losing Adams was a big blow for us as well. He is such a big part of our team and a tough competitor. We certainly missed him."

In the face of adversity, Harvard rebounded with a solid 6-6 tie against the Eagles, but the same type of inconsistency displayed in the holiday tournament would follow the Crimson back to Cambridge. Finishing out the regular season, Harvard struggled with its league foes, dropping games to St. Lawrence, Princeton, Yale and even cellar-dweller Vermont.

As fate would have it, however, no one else in the ECAC was winning either. So despite a mediocre 8-11-1 league record heading into the final weekend of play, Harvard found itself in a precarious position. With seven teams within four points of each other, the Crimson could have finished anywhere from fourth to 11th place.

Picking its moments well, Harvard responded with its first weekend sweep of the season with impressive victories over Vermont and Dartmouth. Not only did the sweep boost Harvard into the fifth-place slot, it also gave the Crimson crucial home-ice advantage for the first round of the playoffs.

"We went into the weekend knowing that we could have finished anywhere from fourth to 11th, but I don't think that we expected [to finish as high as we did]," said Higdon, whose team went on to sweep Colgate in the quarterfinals for a semifinal berth to Lake Placid. "All we wanted to do was go out and put two wins on the board like we did and let everything else take care of itself. And it did."

In the city of Olympic miracles, the Crimson was dealt a final blow by Clarkson in the form of a 6-2 loss. A consolation win over No. 10 Yale the next afternoon did offer a certain amount of comfort, especially for the four seniors who have been the sacrificial lambs for a rebuilding program. Throughout their careers, Harvard has posted an unusually dismal 46-65-8 record and has made it to Lake Placid only two of the four years.

The Yale victory, however, cushioned the blow. Although Higdon was forced to watch from the sidelines because of a season-ending knee injury in the Colgate series, the other three seniors--McCarthy, Geordie Hyland and Doug Sproule--all took to the ice for the final time together. In fitting fashion, Sproule was the one who sealed the Crimson's victory with a short-handed tally in the waning minutes of the contest. It was his third of the season and the 17th of his career.

"It was kind of strange ending the season with a win," Hyland said. "It's been an honor for me to play at Harvard, and it was nice to end with the win. It meant a lot to the team."

It is indeed appropriate that the 1997-98 season ended in such a bittersweet manner--a victory over a top 10 opponent--for the periods of inconsistency seemed always to be overshadowed by the fleeting moments like those experienced at the Beanpot.

Still, a 14-17-2 record is nothing to smile about.

Standing in front of his 1997-98 squad at the post-season banquet, Harvard Coach Ronn Tomassoni did his best to shed light on the year's journey as he summed up the 32-game season in one word: progress.

One year ago, Harvard barely made the playoffs, finished seventh out of 12 teams in league play and was eliminated in the quarterfinal round against Cornell. The team's highest scorer had 13 goals while the power play worked at a dismal 10.8-percent efficiency rate.

This year the Crimson finished the regular season behind only four teams, nationally ranked Yale and Clarkson, RPI and Brown. The freshman duo of Chris Bala and Steve Moore added firepower in the form of a combined 26 goals and 37 assists. The special teams also ranked in the top of the league at a clip of 19 percent.

Last season the Crimson averaged a dismal 3.28 goals per game, while this year that number was lifted to a respectable 3.71 against what was, according to the power ratings, the nation's toughest schedule.

Progress? Tomassoni says yes.

That, in the mind of Tomassoni meant not only hope, but it signaled what he felt was the end of the rebuilding era. The 1997-98 campaign was the springboard, and embedded within the 14-17-2 record is a sign of what the eighth-year coach hopes will come in the next few years.

With a healthy Prestifilippo and Adams back in the lineup as well as a year-more experienced Bala and Moore, the Crimson should no longer find itself struggling to escape mediocrity--indeed on paper, Harvard is no longer rebuilding. The word which has been its crutch throughout the past four years is now gone. No longer will two days of glory at the Beanpot be enough to make up for what was otherwise a disappointing season.

As he stared out at his 21 returning players at the post season banquet, Tomassoni firmly announced an end to rebuilding, declaring, "It is time."