Home Not Always So Sweet

For Steve Armstrong, home is not always mom and apple pie. Sometimes, it's taunts and dead fish.

Every year, Armstrong returns home to Ithaca, N.Y., for a hockey game. Harvard vs. Cornell. "One of the great rivalries in all of sports," as Harvard Associate Coach Ronn Tomassoni once said.

Every year, Armstrong--a Harvard forward and now the team's captain--plays in front of the home crowd. The home crowd treats Armstrong like a king. A king in the midst of a peasant revolt.

This year, Armstrong took the ice and got booed. Fish were tossed at him. Insults were shouted at him.

Once upon a time, a Harvard goalie--not a native, mind you, just another visiting sieve--expressed his feelings to the Lynah Rink crowd with a flip of a finger.

Steve Armstrong doesn't operate that way. He's cool. Cucumber cool. And he lets his actions speak for him.

Against Cornell in early December, Armstrong recorded a pair of assists to lead the Crimson to a 4-1 victory. He has also helped lead Harvard to a 12-2 ECAC record, good for first place in the league.

"I'll remember all four of the Cornell games," Armstrong says. "They're all different."

And, when he graduates in the spring, when he leaves Harvard and hockey. he'll remember all the winning Harvard has done.

The wins at Cornell. The win in last year's ECAC Tournament. The win in last year's NCAA quarterfinals.

"My fondest memory, right now, is last year's ECAC [Championship] victory." Armstrong says. "We worked pretty hard for it. Not that winning is everything, but that is the work of three years for some of us. It was great."

The Loss

And he'll remember the losses. Especially. The Loss. The 6-5 loss to Michigan State in the NCAA final in 1986.

Armstrong and his team are a regular memory machine. Each game brings new excitement, new emotion. Wins and losses. Wins and losses. But mostly wins.

This year, Harvard and St. Lawrence--the league's top two teams--met at Bright Center in early January. The game, a series of blistering rushes up and down the ice and shots fired in rapid succession from far and near, made Harvard Coach Bill Cleary ecstatic. For Cleary, the Harvard-SLU game was hockey the way it should be played.

It didn't hurt Cleary's spirits a bit that Harvard won, 4-3.

Armstrong, on the other hand, saw room for improvement. Not a dining room full of improvement. Maybe just a closet-full.

"It's still early." Armstrong says. "Some teams don't come around until later in the year. I don't think we played well against St. Lawrence. But, for some reason, we won. Maybe it was luck. Maybe it was goaltending."

Or maybe it was because Harvard was home. Bright lights, big win.

"At home," Armstrong admits, "we're usually head and shoulders above the other teams."

Or maybe it was because Harvard has an aura. The Crimson has been on top or near the top of the league for five years. Harvard football may not make Oklahoma tremble. But Harvard hockey...

"Harvard hockey used to be a goal, now it's a serious thing," Armstrong says. "Being on the Harvard hockey team means something to everybody."

For Armstrong, a senior living in Kirkland House, Harvard hockey has meant four years of hard work. It's meant 36 goals (including a team-leading nine this season) and 38 assists. It's meant winning and losing. But mostly winning.

Clearly Clearyism

"Everyone talks about the Harvard style," Armstrong says. "There's definitely a Harvard style, a Cleary style. [Cleary] wants you to skate, skate, skate, skate until you can't skate any more."

In a game played on ice, it helps to be able to skate. And nobody skates better than Harvard.

"In a couple of years, you become accustomed to the routine and what it takes to win," Armstrong says.

Armstrong has been doing the hockey routine since age three.

"All my older brothers play," Armstrong says. "They were good players and I watched them. I only hoped I could be as good as they were. I still want to be as good as they were.

"We used to go down to the pond every afternoon and skate," Armstrong adds. "I loved to skate, and I loved to be with them."

Every time Harvard plays Cornell at Lynah Rink, Armstrong orders about 45 tickets, which he distributes to members of his family and to his friends.

He says his brothers are his biggest fans, but also his biggest critics. Not that he doesn't have enough of those at home.