Crimson Fiddles While Rivals Burn

The fact that Yale defeated the Harvard hockey team for the first time in their last nine meetings Saturday was not nearly as critical as the how and when of the icemen's setback.

The Crimson has now lost its last five games, at a time when winning is the thing to do. The race for the last two playoff spots in Division One of the ECAC, although Harvard is still hanging on by mathematical hinges, has realistically ended.

You see, the idea is for teams to come on in the stretch, not experiment and try to find themselves. That kind of stuff is reserved for early December. And so, while Providence and RPI each hit their strides and won tough games over the weekend, Harvard continued to search for missing momentum, to tie together scattered patches of good play.

Ten days and five games ago Harvard stood solidly in seventh place with a 9-6-0 record. The losing streak has made the addition painfully easy and the fall from respectability painfully hard.

Harvard must win its three remaining games and either RPI or Providence must lose the rest of the games on their respective schedules.

RPI, suddenly one of the hotter teams in Division One, does not seem to have the capacity to fold. The Engineers have won four in a row, have three games left at home, and have adhered themselves to seventh place, all in a week's time.

Providence, with two games left against Northeastern (home) and Boston College (away), needs only to split those contests. Judging from the Friars' sound 4-1 thumping of Dartmouth on Friday night, the split is not a very tall order.

So most likely the ambiguous battle won't come down to the wire and won't even be fun to watch, as the Crimson's playoff chances will probably be laid to rest tomorrow night in the Providence-Northeastern clash.

But the Beanpot championship and a winning season are still to come and targets worth shooting for in an attempt to cross-check a frustration-laden season for Harvard hockey.