ECAC Predictions

You can already reserve your plane fare, hotels and rinkside tickets for the NCAA championships March 13 through 16 in St. Louis, as travel agencies are offering package deals for the tourney. But before you, or the Harvard hockey squad can go around humming "Meet Me in St. Louis," the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Association requires a couple of visits to historic Boston Garden for the ECAC annual slugfest.

And before you can reserve your subway fare, balcony seat, cup of beer and pizza slice at the Garden. Harvard, seeded on top, has to escape Clarkson, the eighth seed, in Watson Rink tonight as the ECAC tournament quarterfinals get underway at four different collegiate ice palaces. Across the river second seed Boston University hosts seventh-seeded Brown, and up north third-seeded Vermont entertains sixth-seed Providence, while fourth-seeded Cornell invites fifth-seeded New Hampshire into the makepit known as Lynah Rink.

The victors of the regional skirmishes move into the Garden Friday night and pair off for the semifinals. The two squads that survive that contest meet in the finals Saturday evening at the same place, with the winner becoming an automatic choice to represent the East in St. Louis. The ECAC selection committee then chooses a second team, not necessarily the runner-up in the tourney, to head west.

Last year, the crystal Rock was flawless in pointing the way for the victors in the quarterfinals and semifinals, including an amazing prediction of RPI over UNH in the first round in OT. This year the gazing is not quite as clear, but the crystal Rock keeps rolling.

BOSTON UNIVERSITY-BROWN

The Terriers, many say, are upsettable. But the Bruins, I fear, are not the team that's going to do it. B.U. (20-2) and Brown (13-8-1) have met once this year on the Terriers' home ice and the Bruins nearly pulled it off, scoring two goals in the first two minutes.

The final 58 minutes, however, were a B.U. rout and the final score read 6-3. Ricky Meaghar is the only doubtful starter for the Terriers as he suffered stitches over the eye in last Saturday's 11-2 killing of Northeastern (the game that knocked the hopeful Huskies out of the tournament).

The Brown squad, lead by sophomore Bill Gilligan (18 goals, 22 assists), will not be able to handle the Terriers, who will roll on towards another showdown with Harvard B.U. 5, Brown 2.

VERMONT-PROVIDENCE

Providence College (12-6-1) is in the midst of tournament fever, with both the hockey and basketball squads looking for Eastern honors.

The hockey Friars travel into hostile Catamount country to face Division I newcomer Vermont (12-5), a team that owned Division II for many years. Vermont, however, has not been impressive in the big games, notably here in Watson last month where the Catamounts looked like they belonged back in Division II again.

Providence, coming off a 7-2 pasting over perennial eighth seed RPI (in a game that dropped RPI from the tournament for the first time in five years) should follow the brothers Wilson, sophomore Ron and freshman Brad, to victory tonight. Providence 6, Vermont 4.

CORNELL-NEW HAMPSHIRE

Despite the fact that Harvard bombed the Big Red in Ithaca last month, the home-ice advantage of Lynah Rink cannot be discounted. This could spell the difference in the first meeting of the season between Cornell (15-6-1) and UNH (17-7-1). This one will be close all the way with Cornell pulling it out in OT, 5-4.

HARVARD-CLARKSON

The last time Clarkson (9-9-1) came to Watson...well, you know what happened. I would feel better if the opponent tonight was Northeastern, but this year's Harvard squad (19-1) bears little resemblance to the 1974 team that choked against the Golden Knights. Harvard 7, Clarkson 2.