SEASON RECAP: Men's Ice Hockey

At first, the 2004-05 campaign was supposed to amount to little more than a rebuilding year for the Harvard men’s hockey team. But it didn’t. By mid-season, pundits of every stripe suggested that the Crimson would punch through the opening round of the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1994. But it wouldn’t.

And as the Crimson skated off the Mullins Center ice following its 3-2, overtime loss to UNH in the NCAA regional semifinals, several were quick to say that, when all was said and done, this season was almost exactly the same as the three that had preceded it. But it wasn’t.

Of course it’s easy to make that claim. The return trip to the ECAC tournament final and another one-and-done showing in the NCAAs certainly suggested that to be the case.

But those who would argue that Harvard simply provided more of the same this time around weren’t paying attention before March, when the Crimson made its greatest strides on the national level in years. Under previous coach Mark Mazzoleni, Harvard’s seniors had experienced their fair share of success within the ECAC, but they had struggled against premier non-conference opponents.

Against Boston College and Boston University alone, they’d posted a rather dubious 1-8-1 mark since the second half of 2001, good enough only to secure consistent also-ran status in both the unofficial race for best in Boston and the all-important Beanpot.

And though Beanpot glory would again elude the Crimson this year—Northeastern saw to that with its 2-1 double overtime victory in the opener—Harvard reestablished itself as a contender on the Boston scene with a pair of stirring, early-season victories over its crosstown rivals, spurring a 9-1-0 run that propelled the Crimson back into the national spotlight.

The scheduling of those back-to-back duels with BC and BU couldn’t have seemed any worse at the time. Harvard had stumbled out of the starting block, tying Brown before receiving twin whippings at the hands of Cornell and Colgate. Only a three-goal, third-period surge had saved the Crimson from a disastrous home loss to Yale, and Harvard’s performance the following night against Princeton, an 8-6 victory, wasn’t much more convincing.

So when the Crimson fell behind the then-No. 1 Golden Eagles just 62 seconds into the contest at the Bright Hockey Center, one could have been forgiven for expecting the worst. But Harvard’s power play supplied the requisite offense, notching three man-advantage goals, and, as would be the case all season long, Dov Grumet-Morris made the lead stand up, stonewalling the Golden Eagles’ offense with a performance highlighted by his rebuffing of a penalty shot with less than five minutes left to play in the second period.

“We knew we were the underdogs,” Pelle said afterwards. “Every guy in that locker room believed that we could win. We knew that probably everyone outside the room didn’t think so, but we believed it, and we knew that was what it would take to get the win.”

Just a week later, Harvard would again come from a goal down to brush aside one of the nation’s 10 best in the Terriers. Grumet-Morris again provided the defensive backbone, logging 30 saves, and Pelle and fellow freshman Mike Taylor, two of the Crimson’s four regular first-year contributors, provided all the offense Harvard would need.

Three wins and four games later, the Crimson was again paired against a top-15 tandem, Vermont and Maine, the latter of which had bounced Harvard from the NCAA tournament nine months earlier. With seven goals in two contests, the Crimson’s even-strength offense at last began to resemble its 5-on-4 counterpart, and Grumet-Morris logged a total of 61 saves to anchor the victories.

“That was probably one of the best parts of our season this year, the big wins that we had against the non-conference teams,” captain Noah Welch said. “I think it was huge.”

Those wins did, in fact, eventually secure the NCAA tournament bid, and they restored Harvard to national prominence as a legitimate threat. And though the Crimson wouldn’t reproduce those results in the second half of the season—against the top-level ECAC programs, Harvard managed only mixed results—the shift in the program’s direction promised by new coach Ted Donato ’91 was well underway.

“It was a tough ending on the season,” senior Andrew Lederman said. “We went into it with really high expectations—it was different from when the season started and expectations weren’t that high. I think we surprised ourselves in the beginning, and we went with it.”

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.