Icemen Feel At Home On Road

Someone should tell Harvard's freshmen forwards that the Crimson isn't supposed to be good outside of Bright Arena.

Apparently unaware of this, the freshmen have come out this year and made the Crimson a formidable road team.

Harvard (7-3-2 overall, 7-1-2 ECAC) completed a perfect three-game road trip Monday by beating Colgate, 5-4, in overtime in Hamilton, N.Y.

"It was great to be able to pull off the win," freshman forward Brad Konik said. "The upperclassmen talked to us a lot before the season started. They made it clear to us that we had to be good on the road."

Konik certainly took the advice to heart. With 1:18 remaining in the extra session, the forward tallied his second goal of the night to give Harvard the win and a share of the ECAC lead. The Crimson is now tied with seventh-ranked Clarkson with 16 points.

The Freshmen

For the season, Harvard is an unbelievable 6-0-1 on the road against ECAC squads. By comparison, Harvard went 2-5-0 in its first seven road games last year.

The difference?

The freshmen.

In addition to Konik's two tallies on Monday, fellow freshman Steve Martins collected a goal to account for a majority of the Crimson's attack. The freshman also combined for four assists in the game against Colgate.

"I think Clarkson has to respect us," Konik said. "We're a young team. But if we come out and play, we can beat anyone."

Sophomores Stepping Up

With the injuries to forwards Michel Breistroff and Brian Farrell, Harvard has gotten a boost from its bench.

Sophomores Chris Baird (playing on the second line with Cory Gustafson and Konik) and David Kilpatrick (fourth line with Perry Cohagen and Jim Coady) have filled in nicely in the past three contests.

Both Baird and Kilpatrick provided primary assists in the Colgate victory.

Elis For Real

O.K. Let's stop kidding ourselves.

Yale has proven in the past few weeks that its six-game winning streak pre-Winter Break was not a fluke.

This weekend, the Elis did the unthinkable. Yale tied St. Lawrence, 2-2, in Canton, N.Y. on Friday, and almost pulled off an upset the next night against Clarkson.

Heading into the final session with a 4-3 lead in Potsdam, N.Y., the Elis surrendered two goals in the first 2:04 and never recovered the lead. Clarkson pulled out a 6-5 victory to knock the Elis from first place.

Yale goalie John Hockin recorded 43 saves on both nights up North.

It was the Elis' first ECAC loss, but not its first of the season. At the Great Badger Showdown over Winter Break, Yale kept eighth-ranked Wisconsin tied, 1-1, into the final session. The Badgers, however, finally got their act together, rattling off five goals to take the contest 6-1.

Harvard Coach Ronn Tomassoni, for one, still isn't convinced that the Elis will be around come post-season action.

"They've been having some great goaltending but it's a long season," Tomassoni said.

Great Penalty

Martins can safely say he recorded the most entertaining penalty of the road trip.

Racing down the right wing on a breakaway seven minutes into the third period against Dartmouth, Martins was guided into the right side of the cage by an overzealous Big Green blue-liner.

After rocking the net from its moornings and flying with it into the wall, Martins stood up and pushed the cage away in disgust.

The net, however, careened into a visibly annoyed referee, taking him off his feet.

Martins was summarily banished to the sin-bin with a 10-minute misconduct penalty.

Tsk. Tsk.

Quote of the Week

Harvard may have come away from Detroit with two disappointing losses. But the team can find solace in these words of wisdom from one jaded Detroit reporter:

"Whatever happens here, they're still Harvard. And this is still Michigan."

You said it.

Freshman Brad Konik scored with 1:18 left in overtime to lead his team to a 5-4victory over Colgate.