Coming off an exciting Beanpot victory over Boston University last Monday night, and looking ahead to tonight's all-important Ivy League clash with Cornell, the Harvard icemen had trouble getting psyched for last night's encounter with ECAC basement-bound Colgate.

It took Harvard a period to get untracked last night in Starr Rink, but when it finally did, it outscored the Red Raiders, 7-2, in the final two periods to take a wild 8-6 victory.

The Crimson icemen stood around during the first period and watched Colgate score three goals. Neil Abbott started it out with the first of his three goals at 4:36 on the power play. Rick Marabelli beat Harvard's John Aiken next at 9:34 of the first.

Abbot struck again at 10:52, and it looked as though Colgate was going to blow Harvard right out of the rink. If the Red Raiders had been any better, Harvard would have been in real trouble.

Ed Rossi finally scored one for Harvard at 17:24 of the first, and that's how the score stood at the buzzer, much to the delight of the Colgate fans. The Red Raiders upped their lead at the start of the middle stanza as Abbott got the hat trick, but from then on it was all Harvard.

Randy Roth, who was the offensive star for the Crimson, collected the first of his three goals at 5:57. From then on, all hell broke loose on Colgate goaltender Chris Gregg.

The Crimson scored four more unanswered goals between 7:08 and 16:45 of the second. Roth nabbed his second on the power play, followed by Jim McMahon and then Leigh Hogan and Ted Thorndike. Suddenly it was 6-4 for Harvard.

Colgate did not give up, however and tied the game with goals by Dan Desmond at 18:00 of the second and Mirabelli who made it six all at 3:54 of the third.

Hogan got the game-winner at 9:36 of the final stanza with an assist from Jim Thomas. The tally came with Harvard a man down. Roth bulged the cords five minutes later, on the power play, to cap the scoring.

The contest featured 17 penalties, as both sides played a scrappy, sloppy, poor excuse for a hockey game. There was only one penalty of more than two minutes; the contest was merely careless, not malicious.

Symbolic, perhaps, of the whole evening was the turkey placed in the Harvard nets between the second and third periods. That's exactly what last night's Harvard-Colgate contest was: a turkey.