Hockey Star Bourbeau Leaves Harvard

A freshman hockey standout, tabbed by many as the next star of the Harvard men's ice hockey team, left the University yesterday.

Allen Bourbeau of Teaticket, Mass. and Pennypacker Hall returned home last night as the result of an Administrative Board decision on Tuesday, his roommate said yesterday.

Both Ad Board officials contacted yesterday and Bourbeau refused to comment.

But roommates confirmed that the highly touted forward had returned to his parents' Cape Cod home.

Bourbeau, last year's Boston Globe Division I player of the Year at Acton-Boxborough High School, learned of the College disciplinary board's decision after its weekly meeting on Tuesday, said his roommate, John Stellato, adding he believed Bourbeau would be gone only until next spring.

"I think he was a little surprised," Stellato added, but he declined to divulge what provoked the Ad Board's ruling.

The Past

The 5-ft., 10-in., 180-lb. hockey star was still on disciplinary probation when he was placed on academic probation during the second semester, sources said.

Friends contacted yesterday, who asked to remain unidentified, and that a recent fight at Wellesley may have contributed to Tuesday's ruling.

The holder of various Massachusetts high school hockey records--including most career points (289), most points in a season (102) and most goals in a season (62)--played in one Harvard game this year while stiff on disciplinary probation but before going on academic probation, sources added.

Bourbeau scored one of Harvard's three goals in the Crimson's 5-3 loss to Colgate at the end of January. By the next game (against Dartmouth), he was on academic probation.

"He's not playing right now," Harvard Coach Bill Cleary said of his prize recruit after the Dartmouth game. "It's an academic thing," Cleary continued at the time, adding that it wasn't a case of plagiarism or cheating "It's a course."

Cleary could not be reached for comment last night.

The length of Bourbeau's departure was clouded further by the possibility that he could turn professional. The former high school star passed up a shot at professional hockey to attend Harvard. But the National Hockey League's Philadelphia Flyers, who drafted him in the fourth round even before he graduated from Acton-Boxborough, still hold his rights.

Yet, a spokesman for the Flyers said earlier this year that "if he doesn't play at all [in college], he won't get invited" to the Flyers' pre-season training camp.

The spokesman, Public Relations Director Mark Piazza, added that there is no "realistic possibility" of Bourbeau jumping to the pro ranks without some post-high school seasoning.

Friends and family members said Bourbeau had not made up his mind what to do.

If he does return to Harvard, it is unlikely that he could rejoin the Crimson squad immediately. Such Ad Board decisions usually stipulate that most students upon returning, must wait at least a semester before resuming extracurricular activities.

If Bourbeau sought a transfer to another school, National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) rules state that he would have to sit out one year before playing hockey again.