Did Somebody Say McDonald?

In 1923, Grantland Rice, the dean of American sportswriters, wrote a poem entitled “Alumnus Football,” and from this poem the mother of all sports clichés was born.

Rice wrote: “When the Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes—not that you won or lost—but how you played the game.”

But in the case of the Harvard men’s hockey team, the more accurate assessment is in how long the team plays the game.

Friday night against Cornell, the Crimson played 40 or so minutes of hockey, falling behind 3-0 before rallying to make the game close. This year’s contest was eerily similar to last season’s encounter with the Big Red at Bright Hockey Center when Harvard gave up two power-play goals in the first five minutes and spotted Cornell a 3-0 lead before the opening period was half over.

“That’s the way you gotta play to beat them, you gotta play three periods,” Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni said after last year’s loss. “You can’t play two periods, and you can’t spot two power-play goals. You do that and you don’t deserve to win, and we didn’t deserve to win.”

Compare that to Mazzoleni’s post-game thoughts this season.

“To win a hockey game against a quality hockey team like [Cornell], you’ve got to play 60 minutes, and we didn’t play 60 minutes.

“That’s a clear indication of why we’re struggling right now—because we don’t bring it for 60 minutes.”

Look awfully similar, don’t they?

Cornell’s coach Mike Schafer noticed the pattern, saying that there were “different teams, but the same kind of game.”

There is one major difference though: last year’s game was an aberration for the Crimson. Apart from a handful of contests last season, Harvard played the full 60 minutes of hockey every night. This season, that has been the exception and not the rule. The Crimson has suffered a number of losses to less-talented teams, including a 3-0 loss to Clarkson at home, a 4-1 face-first fall at RPI, and a season-sweep by Princeton.

At roughly equal points in the schedule (the second week of January), the difference between the 2002-2003 Crimson and this season’s incarnation is striking. Harvard stood 11-3 in conference play a year ago; this year the team is struggling to stay afloat in the ECAC at 6-7-1. Last year’s team was neck-and-neck with Cornell for the top seed in the playoffs; this year’s squad is hoping to have home ice in the first round.

And the reason, ultimately, lies in how long Harvard plays each game. It’s not really a question of how Harvard plays; even ugly games like a 3-3 tie against Clarkson, a back-and-forth 2-2 tie versus Dartmouth and one-goal losses at Boston College and Cornell have shown the intensity Harvard is capable of competing with.

Friday night against Cornell, Harvard played hard over the game’s final 40 minutes, outshooting the Big Red, 23-12. But that was only after Cornell held a 10-4 shot advantage in the first.

That pattern—not being ready to play from the drop of the puck—is a “clear illustration” of the team’s struggles this season, according to Mazzoleni.

“We dug ourselves a hole early on,” Crimson captain Kenny Smith said. “You can’t spot a team like [Cornell] a lead—they’re too good, and it’s too difficult to come back after that.”

Smith was right. Despite a strong effort in the second and third, Harvard was not able to come back against Cornell. And so the Crimson heads into its extended exam period break at 8-9-2 overall, and is in desperate need of some form of catalyst.

Gone, realistically, are thoughts of an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. Gone, most likely, is a first-round bye in the ECAC playoffs. But thoughts of postseason play should be removed from Harvard’s thought process. Before anything else, the Crimson needs to find a way to start winning games. The talent is there, undeniably, but the intensity is there only occasionally, in fits and in starts.

Harvard has a long way to go if it’s to salvage its season, but the toughest part will be getting that first big win of the second half. It could come against Brown during intersession, or versus BC at the Beanpot, or at Bright against Dartmouth in the last days of February. Once Harvard has that in hand, who knows?

Since I, somewhat negatively, began this column quoting one of the legends of football writing, it is fitting to conclude it, positively I hope, with a quote from a legend of football coaching.

“It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner, when you’re number one,” Vince Lombardi said. “What you’ve got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not yet a winner.”

—Staff writer Timothy M. McDonald can be reached at tmcdonal@fas.harvard.edu.