The Lost Weekend: Princeton Chips Icemen, 6-3

It does not look good, not at all.

With 11 days remaining in the regular season, the Harvard hockey team has a good chance of eliminating itself from post-season play for the second season in a row.

Though as of right now the icemen are seventh in the ECAC with a 9-8 record, a rough, tiring schedule awaits them in the next two weeks: at Cornell tonight, here versus Cornell on Thursday, at Yale on Saturday, at Dartmouth next Tuesday, versus B.U. in the Beanpot finals next Wednesday, and home versus Yale next Saturday.

That's six games in 12 days, and if that's not bad enough, Harvard needs to take four of them to be assured a playoff spot. 3-3 or worse would be disastrous. Why?

Assuming that the top six teams in Division One are set (B.U., Cornell, Clarkson, B.C., Brown and UNH), the dogfight for the last two spots is basically between four teams: Harvard (9-8-0), RPI (8-8-0), Providence (9-9-1), and Dartmouth (9-10-0). Northestern and Vermont both have an outside chance, but their schedules seem much too hard.

Count Dartmouth out, most likely. They have three games remaining, and even if they do upset Harvard, they still have to beat Brown twice, unlikely since the Bruins are gunning for an Ivy championship.

Providence looks to be in pretty good shape. The Friars have three games left--Colgate at home, at Northeastern, and Boston College at home. They need to win at least two, but judging from their recent wins over New Hampshire and Yale, they'll probably win them all and finish 12-9-1, good for one of the two spots.

RPI was the mystery team that bumped Harvard out of the top eight last season, and judging from the five-game homestand that the Engineers have left (Brown, UNH, Colgate, Northeastern, and Princeton), they're plenty strong enough to take at least three of those and wind up 11-10-0.

We're talking arithmetic now. If the Crimson goes 3-3, the slate stands at 12-11-0 for the season. Not good enough. What it comes down to is that the icemen have to win at least one of the three big games against Cornell or B.U. Not an easy task, especially after the events of the past weekend.