FACEOFF 2005-2006: Juniors Take to Air and Ice

“I’m very upset about the way you acted,” says the voice of a man wounded. “Let’s roll the clip.”

It’s Wayne’s World on tape delay. Add two goofy Harvard hockey players, an WHRB radio host, toss it around in Pennypacker’s basement studio, and welcome to the world of “Top Shelf”.

“Rebound loose in the crease,” queues the sound clip, the voice of WHRB’s Rick Goldberg calling the action from a previous Monday-night affair against Boston College. “And now there are punches being thrown! As Dylan Reese just got knocked in the FACE by one of the BC skaters!”

Adds Goldberg’s voice: “Dylan Reese got dropped!”

The tape stops rolling. Back to reality: the latest episode of “Top Shelf,” entitled “When Radio Reporters Mess Up,” resumes in-studio.

Goldberg, the show’s moderator, indicates little remorse for an apparent on-air mistake. Co-hosts Reese and Steve Mandes sit across from each other, and Reese is incensed.

It was not Reese who “was victimized” during the brawl in question—“Because obviously I would not ‘get dropped’ by a BC Eagle,” Reese says—but in fact special guest freshman Dave Watters, whose No. 22 jersey was confused with Reese’s customary No. 2.

“Embarrassed us,” Reese says of Watters.

All told, it’s a typical scene in the grubby den of “Top Shelf,” a place where sophomoric juniors let their tendencies roam free on the airwaves.

That is, before Goldberg cuts episodes from nearly 40 minutes to a shade under 10.

Listenership is at an all-time high. The new season, which began the same night as the Crimson’s, promises better sound, music, and put-downs.

“I know we’re getting better on the air, so it’s fun,” Reese says.

“It’s just a good old-fashioned fun, messing-around type of show,” Mandes adds.

During a typical intermission, WHRB listeners hold steady, keeping their radio sets dialed in. The few remaining non-listeners in the building talk strategy in team locker rooms.

“I didn’t really follow it too much [last season],” says Harvard coach Ted Donato. “Knowing the two of them, my knee-jerk reaction would be that it would be a very bad idea.”

Donato thinks again.

“To me,” he says, “I love to have personalities on my team—and character—and I think both of those guys bring a lot of that.”

* * *

Of six talented juniors on the men’s hockey team, Kevin Du, a 5’10 forward out of Spruce Grove, Alberta, may well be the most electric on the ice. In this season’s opening win over Dartmouth alone, he accumulated four points.

“I think there were times last year,” Donato says, “when he was unstoppable with his speed and skill.”

With Ryan Maki, a 6’3 bruising offensive threat from Michigan—and a recent sixth-round draft pick of the Nashville Predators of the NHL—Du will form one of the most devastating junior tandems in the league. Last season, the pair accounted for 19 goals, nearly 20 percent of the team’s scoring output.

On a recent weekday afternoon, Du emerges from the team locker room, wearing street clothes and an imperturbable grin.

“Every one of the juniors will tell you that we’ve gotten a lot more confident,” he says.

The graduation of last season’s stellar senior class likely will mean big minutes and bigger numbers from the 2005-2006 juniors, an outfit that Donato has called the team’s core.

Reese, the team’s brash defensive anchor, “will be one of the best defensemen in the country this year,” the coach says.

Mandes, he adds, is headed for “a breakout year” and could join Du and Maki among the team’s top scorers. Classmates Justin Tobe, a goalie, and two-sport star Brendan Byrne—a .326-hitting regular on the varsity baseball squad last season—will provide their share of valuable minutes.

The kicker? All six share a suite in DeWolfe 10.

“We just spend more time together,” says Reese, who was lotteried away from his blockmates last season. “You really do learn a lot more about some guys that maybe you didn’t know.”

Reese credits the rooming arrangement for a bit of extra friction over TV-watching privileges.

“Cable has really taken a backseat to the NHL package,” he says, adding, “it’s usually a battle to see which game we’re going to watch.”

When it comes time to hit the ice instead of watch it, the teammates put aside their differences; from then on, hockey is all business.

But in the studio of “Top Shelf?”

All bets are off.

“I don’t know if they’re going to try to ambush me in there or what,” says Maki, a likely special guest of Mandes and Reese. “But we’ll see. It should be fun.”

—Staff writer Alex McPhillips can be reached at rmcphill@fas.harvard.edu.