Weinlanguage: It's Time to Share the Beans

Imagine this scenario.

The women’s hockey game between the Boston University club team and No. 1 Harvard was hard fought for the first two periods, but in the third, the Crimson finally began to give way. Down a goal, tired and out of breath, the Harvard skaters appeared defeated. As Olympic silver medalist Julie Chu approached center-ice for the face-off, she gave a sly smile to Boston University captain Chrissy Lenahen.

“You are a very good hockey team,” Chu said to Lenahen, winking.

“Why thank you,” replied Lenahen. “But why are you smiling?”

“Well I know something that you do not know.” Chu announced.

“And what is that?” asked Lenahen.

“I’m not left-handed. And neither are Ruggiero or Corriero or Catlin. And Botterill and Ingram aren’t right-handed either.”

This scenario never actually occurred. It never could have, for two reasons. First: because the Harvard women’s hockey team is too classy to demean its opponents in such a way. Second: because even playing on their weaker sides, Harvard would wipe the ice with BU. They’d probably win with the butts of their sticks.

The BU Terriers are a club team. The Crimson is the No. 1 ranked team in the nation. Resting its top players and goaltender, Harvard defeated BU 7-0. BU took 4 shots.

This game as it is played now is silly. There is talk of BU finally sponsoring a Division I team when the construction of its new arena is finished in 2004-05. If BU fails to come through, however, more drastic action must be taken to bring parity to the next scheduled Harvard-BU Beanpot matchup in three years.

In all future contests with such mismatched teams, the Beanpot coaches should implement any or all of the following amendments:

1) The “Inigo Montoya” rule described above. All Crimson skaters play on their weak sides. If they continue to destroy the Terriers, they switch to the butts of their sticks.

2) The 5-on-3 rule. The Crimson should play only three skaters the entire game, to practice defending 5-on-3s.

3) The “backwards” rule. All Crimson players must only skate backwards at all times.

4) The “switch up the teams and let’s all have fun” rule. Award Harvard a 10-0 victory, and then simply divide the teams to make the game more even. Since the Crimson has four captains, we can divide those four, and then have them chose their players.

5) The “pylon goalie” rule. Instead of having Jessica Ruddock, Emily Smith or Ali Boe in nets, simply place a pylon in the crease. This will at least force the Crimson to play perfect defense in order to record a shutout.

6) The puck-touch rule. For every time the Terriers touch the puck, they are awarded one goal. Thus, the Crimson must score more goals than times BU touches the puck.

7) The Mathematicians rule. Every shot the Crimson takes must travel on a perfect 45-degree angle. The Crimson is also only allowed to score goals when the amount of seconds left on the scoreboard is a prime number or a perfect square.

8) The poetry rule. Each Crimson goal scorer must recite a line of poetry related to her own name before she scores. Some examples:

a. Nicole Corriero: I am Nicole, now I will score a goal!

b. Mina Pell: A goal for Pell, all is swell.

c. Kat Sweet: That Kat Sweet, she can’t be beat!

d. Julie Chu: A score from Chu and the opponents are blue.

e. Angela Ruggiero: My name is Angela Ruggiero and I have two Olympic medals.

9) The “Harrison Bergeron” rule. All the Harvard players must wear lead weights on their skates to slow themselves down and put rubber on their sticks to give themselves less control. A remote controlled device must create a loud beeping noise in their heads whenever they see a teammate open for a pass to distract them and impair their vision.

10) Instead of dressing the women’s hockey team, suit up the members of the Crimson sports board. Our top players would be among those that cover hockey. Junior Timothy Jackson (of Toronto, Canada!) will play goal. I, sophomore Dave Weinfeld of Montreal, will play center every shift. Of course, with this scenario, the “Crimson” would probably lose just as badly as BU did to the real Harvard women’s hockey team, but for the sake of parity, it makes the most sense.

—Staff writer David A. Weinfeld can be reached at weinfeld@fas.harvard.edu.