Tom Columns

Question: When does a college hockey arena become a snakepit into which only the most fearless of foes may travel on penalty of death should they emerge with a victory over the heavily-supported home team?

Answer: When it is packed with voraciously partisan fans, as Cornell's Lynah Rink was last week when Harvard was bombed by an 8-4 count, and as Dartmouth's new complex will be when the Crimson icers head up to Hanover on March 2 for what promises to be a decisive ECAC confrontation.

Question: What college rink is a nice place to visit, since its fans always seem to be outnumbered and certainly out-noised by visiting contingents, who make it a point to turn said location into a home-away-from-home for their invading heroes?

Answer: Harvard's Watson Rink, as it was Tuesday night when Dartmouth stunned the homestanders, 5-4, and as it probably will be this weekend for Penn and Princeton and next Wednesday for Cornell.

After listening to the chant "Go Green Go" shake the walls of Watson three days ago and watching an inspired Dartmouth team literally rob Harvard of a critical win that seemed all but locked up in the waning minutes of the game, it became evident that there was something rotten in the state of Cambridge, something missing from the Crimson recipe for victory.

The talent was not lacking: Anyone who saw the action will tell you that Harvard skated circles around the visitors for the better part of two and a half periods. Nor was the desire absent, as the Crimson showed from the start that it knew how much it meant to win the game. So what happened, specifically what happened in the last ten minutes?

It's too easy to say that Harvard just flattened out after two periods of strong effort. And the old "just one of those things" approach--hockey being as fickle and luck-ridden as it is--doesn't quite cover the occurrence. The team was missing that little extra that draws the line between winning and losing, and that's a fact. So let's start doling out some blame.

The first culprit on the list for failing to contribute "that something special" is the Harvard Band, whose between-period numbers were nice, but whose lull-in-the-action inputs were non-existent. It's against ECAC rules to play music while action in a game is going on, but how many small breaks were there when nothing was forthcoming from the musicians in the corner? Too many.

This is hardly the first time. Popping into mind immediately is a game at Watson against Brown earlier in the year when the Harvard band was completely drowned out by a smaller but more powerful group from Providence. Harvard lost that game, too.

I don't know of anyone at this school, whether hockey player, fan or otherwise, who doesn't feel at least a twinge of pride and inspiration when Harvard songs are played. The band is responsible in part for putting some fire into the Crimson heart. Its recent performance has been poor.

Next in line, of course, are the fans themselves, who expect the hockey team to revert any day now to the glories of the past and trample all comers, without any need for fan support. This lethargic mood is only partially concealed. So you yell when a goal is scored. Big deal, everybody does that. You react when a Crimson uniform breaks in on goal alone. That's fine.

While Dartmouth was coming back, while the visiting Hanoverians screamed "Go Green Go" the Harvard players were greeted with silence and tension from their fans. Disbelief is one thing, and tacit rejection of a struggling team another. Maybe a noisy Harvard crowd would not have stemmed the tide of Green goals that turned the game around, but then again, who knows? It wouldn't have hurt.

There is something to be said for not taking sports too seriously, since the outcome of hockey games at Watson has little to do with the psychological stability of this campus as a whole. But don't kid yourself either. If you want Harvard to win, it's really nothing to be ashamed of.

Chances are that Penn and Princeton won't turn up with big rooting sections this weekend, but the games afford a good chance to practice up for Cornell on Wednesday. If the Big Red have a verbal edge at Ithaca, so should the Crimson at Watson.

There's an old saying that suggests you can't complain about who gets elected if you don't vote in the first place. And there's a corollary for the hockey team: Don't complain about a lost playoff berth if you weren't behind the team when it was fighting for it.