A Welcome Home Party

Ain't it great to be home...for a change?

Believe it or not, it has been over a year and a half since the Harvard men's hockey team has swept up Bright Hockey Center with its opponents.

"When I was coming down to the rink with my roommate Jason Karmanos," senior goalie Tripp Tracy said, "we looked back and realized that we hadn't swept at home since the Colgate/Cornell weekend my sophomore year [February 11-12, 1994]. We just were not getting the job done at home."

Maybe not, but hey, that's all in the past, right?

The Harvard team that emerged this weekend against visiting Yale and Princeton was not about to lose on its home ice. On the contrary, there were many times throughout the weekend when Harvard was absolutely unstoppable.

The visiting Tigers and Elis could do nothing but wish they were somewhere else--anywhere besides Bright Hockey Center.

Picture it--Saturday night, midway through the third period the Princeton team down 3-2 and trapped shorthanded in its own zone.

Enter the Harvard power-play unit, who after whizzing a couple of passes around the perimeter, put the final nail in the Tigers' coffin. On a play which could not have been diagrammed better, the Crimson took a commanding 4-2 lead just 23 seconds into the man advantage.

The Princeton defenders barely moved. But then again, who could blame them?

As the Tigers trudged back to their bench (well, they did eventually move) with their heads down in defeat, even New Haven was looking like paradise compared to Cambridge.

It is this instillation of fear that has escaped the Crimson in the last 18 months. Teams had entered Bright Arena with confidence--and with good reason. Harvard consistently failed to assert any dominance in its own rink in 1994-95 when it went 5-8-2.

Prior to last year, the Crimson had lost only nine home games in its previous five seasons combined, including a 10-0-3 record in the 1993-94 campaign.

"We need to reestablish the fact that when teams come here they've got to be a little afraid," senior captain Brad Konik said. "They've got to think, Wow. Harvard hasn't lost a home game in a long time."

Being home this weekend also welcomed back Harvard's long-lost friend--the power play. After a rough outing on Friday night against Yale (1 for 10), the Harvard power play resurged for two goals on Saturday against Princeton. Even when it didn't score, the puck movemen' and scoring chances were picture perfect.

"We made a little adjustment on the power play by moving [Kirk] Nielsen inside," Harvard coach Ronn Tomassoni said. "That little change made for better execution, and it was clearly a big factor in the games."

What a truly sweet season this will be for Harvard if the power play and weekend sweeps return to the Crimson.

The disappointed fans from last year left Bright Hockey Center on Saturday night with smiles and thought only, 'Ain't it great to be home!'