Land of Ne'er Do Whales

Call me Ishmael.

The Harvard men's hockey team tonight journeys into the rough seas of New Haven, a city that has proved anything but a haven to the Crimson.

More precisely, the icemen go in search of a strange and unique whale, not the Moby Dick of Melville's time but a larger, more formidable opponent made of concrete and aluminium.

It's scientific name is Ingalls Rink-or rinkus ingallsus, as Virgil might have referred to it. But in the vernacular, this killer of Crimson teams past is known as the Yale Whale.

Coach Ahab--some call him "Bill Cleary '56" -- hasn't escaped New Haven with a win since the 1976-77 season. True, some of those games weren't played in the 2908-person-capacity Whale, but in the 9000-seat New Haven coliseum, where the Crimson is 0-2-2. Yet this fact remains: the Whale has swallowed Harvard three times in a row (0-2-1).

Why this trouble with a team that hasn't won in Cambridge since the 1970s?

Part of the credit goes to Tim Taylor '63, captain of Harvard's first ECAC championship team. In 1976, Taylor left his job as an assistant under Cleary, moved down south and built a respectable program, one that has placed in the top half of the Ivy standings the last three years.

This year, Taylor's squad ranks fifth in the ECAC (7-4-1). The top four teams get home ice for the first found of the playoffs, so Yale-currently on a 9 2-1 tear--is fighting for home ice. The Elis four losses came against Harvard, RPI, Clarkson and Cornell, the four teams above Yale in the standings.

"We've got to turn that around," says Taylor. "We have to start beating some of these teams."

The 3-1, loss to Harvard came almost three months ago, the night of The Game. "I'm not sure we're that much different of a team,' Taylor says. So how will Yale Whale on the Crimson tonight, and more importantly, how will the Elis stop the Lane MacDonald-Scott Fusco-Tim Smith line?

"We've got something in mind for them," Taylor assures. "I don't think The Harvard Crimson needs to know exactly what."

Whatever it is, it'll probably include a red-hot goaltender. Senior netminder Scott Relick ranks third in the nation in goals against average (2 73). He won't be playing. In goal will be sophomore Mike Schwalb, who didn't play against Harvard in November because he was taking the semester off. Last year, Schwalb ranked fifth in the nation in goals against.

Great goaltending is the reason that Harvard has averaged just two goals a game against the Elis in the last three years. Schwalb has an added incentive to be great tonight. He graduated from Belmont Hill, the Boston-area prep school that spawned Bill Cleary Jr. '56, senior defenseman Bill Cleary III and Fusco.

Of course, the Crimson again counters with a superb netminder of its own. Even before allowing just one goal against Dartmouth. Grant Blair was in a third-place tie for best save percentage in the nation.

Whatever happens, look for a Whale of a game.