Elis Want It, Crimson Need It

NEW HAVEN, Conn.--The math isn't very difficult any more. The Harvard hockey team now has four games remaining on its regular season schedule. The icemen have to win them all if they're planning on playing hockey in the ECAC playoffs. And it all starts this afternoon against Yale.

No contest, you say? Well then, you haven't been following Division One puck happenings very closely this winter. Under former Harvard assistant coach Tim Taylor, the Elis are finally through with the perennial rebuilding years. Although sporting a 10-13-1 record, Yale has beaten the best teams on the circuit and convincingly proven that Taylor's boys can play with anybody.

Early triumphs over Cornell and B.C. were petty larceny compared to the events at Yale's Ingalls Rink last Saturday.

Tied 3-3 with Cosmos-leading B.U. after two periods, Yale men, as coach Taylor put it so simply, "became the first team all year to outplay B.U. in the final period." It took four third-period tallies to give Yale its biggest win in five years, 7-5.

"There have been disappointing and high moments all year," Taylor said yesterday, "but I'm very pleased with how far our hockey program has come. This is the year that we have proven ourselves to be as good as anyone else in the ECAC," he added.

Anybody that is, except Harvard, and this is all that remains on Taylor's "things-to-do" chart for the season. He wants to wipe out a current eight-game losing streak versus Harvard, beat his former colleague Billy Cleary, and give the Yale fans one more big win before the Zamboni, comes off for the final time.

As for personnel, Taylor notes that his squad "is a lot like Harvard. Our youth is our weakness. Many times this season we've failed to score key goals."

Amen. And although the Crimson's play in Thursday night's 4-3 overtime loss to Cornell at Watson Rink "struck the fear of God" into Taylor, Harvard too has spent too much of this season shaking its head at missed opportunities and discarded momentum. Watson Rink, which only four years ago lodged a team that did not lose a home game, has become almost a neutral site as the iceman's current 4-5 record there indicates.

Look for surprise starter Mark Rodriguez in nets for Yale and freshman ice idol Paul Castraberti to do most of the Eli's scoring. But most of all, look for some kinda battle between two teams, one suddenly proud, the other searching for its pride.