LAST WILLS AND TESTAMENT: Tough Choice Mars Rivalry

It’s finally here. One of the most exciting games of the year is coming up this weekend, featuring one of those quaint, storied rivalries that could only exist between Ivy League schools. It’s got history, it’s got ritual taunts and jeers, and it inspires two student bodies not generally thought of as sports fanatics to yell their heads off at each other. In short, it’s one of the best times of the year for fans of Harvard athletics.

That’s right—the Harvard-Cornell hockey game is coming up.

Sorry to trip you up like that. You’ve most likely already donned your favorite “YUCK FALE” t-shirt (because what could be wittier than almost swearing, but not?) and have already begun ritually burning a bulldog in effigy. But I don’t blame you for being confused. You see, this year, the two games are scheduled for the same weekend. One will take place tomorrow night, across the Charles River, and the other on Saturday, across the Massachusetts-Connecticut border.

And that’s a problem. Sure, there are some brave souls, some early risers, who don’t mind heading down to New Haven on Saturday morning and will be free to take in the best hockey game of the year tomorrow night at the Bright Hockey Center. But for most of us, who are planning to pile into a car or bus with our friends tomorrow afternoon to make the trip down, it means we have to choose.

Now, I may be a hockey beat writer, but I am not a hypocrite. I’m not going to plead with the student body to choose Harvard-Cornell over Harvard-Yale, especially when I, like everybody else, will be halfway to New Haven by the time the puck drops at the Bright. Harvard isn’t a national athletic powerhouse in most major sports, but there’s no game anywhere quite like Harvard-Yale, especially not this year, and there’s no way you can miss it.

So we’re stuck. It’s hard to blame the ECAC, which scheduled the Harvard-Cornell contest, since it includes twelve schools and Harvard football isn’t really in its purview. Nevertheless, its scheduling decision has forced us to choose between the two games, which essentially means we’re forced to miss Harvard-Cornell.

The conflict is especially hard to swallow given the fact that the Cornell game is one of the few sporting events of the year where the student body does a really good job of filling the seats. We Harvard students can be an apathetic crowd; we’ll go to Harvard-Yale, and we’ll be there for truly special events such as the night game against Brown, but other than that, it’s hard to get us to make the trek across the river. The way it turned out this year, one of the few days we’re actually willing to do so is the one day we can’t make it.

And we’re not the only ones who lose out. The scheduling snafu could have very real implications for the team. Even in a normal year, when half the Harvard student body isn’t AWOL, Cornell fans regularly outnumber and outcheer the Harvard section when the two teams meet in Cambridge. This year, any hope of home ice advantage, if it ever truly existed, will go out the window, as the “home” crowd will be more hostile than what you’ll find at most road contests.

“It’s not a perfect scenario,” Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91 told me. “Our guys will be down for the Harvard-Yale football game and I’m sure Cornell’s band and fans will be here in full effect.”

“I think definitely the fans help here,” added co-captain Dave MacDonald, “but I think our team mentality is: no matter what venue we’re playing at...it’s still our rink and we’re going to make sure to prepare like we would any other game.”

MacDonald and his teammates may be optimistic, but ultimately, even if the Crimson does win, the rest of us still lose. Those of us who opted to go to Yale will miss our chance to watch it happen. The small, football-shunning Harvard crowd that does make it out to the Bright will suffer the indignity of being dwarfed by the Cornell fans like never before. Even our school’s good name is at stake. The number of students at a Harvard game is, among other things, an expression of spirit, a declaration of Harvard pride. This weekend, thanks to the scheduling mishap, Harvard pride will be confined to New Haven.

Oh, and in case you were thinking of kicking off the Tommy Amaker era by heading down to Lavietes for the men’s hoops home opener, don’t bother. That game is scheduled for tomorrow night.

—Staff writer Daniel J. Rubin-Wills can be reached at drubin@fas.harvard.edu.