There is an almost hypnotic atmosphere generated within cavernous old Boston Garden at 6:30 on a February evening with only a handful of fans passing up dinner for a hot dog, beer and the consolation game of the Beanpot Tournament.

The Harvard hockey team fell into that trance in the first period last evening, as Northeastern jumped out to a 2-0 lead before surrendering in the final two stanzas, 4-2. The hapless Huskies are now 8-40 overall in Beanpot competition.

For a while, it looked like it was going to be "Be Kind to Huskies" night, as Harvard did all it could to oblige the perennial tournament losers. Tim McKenna was sent off the ice for playing with a broken stick at 4:26 and 20 seconds later Charlie Huck's power play shot rattled off Crimson skates and past Brian Petrovek for a 1-0 Northeastern lead.

George Hughes was the next Harvard player to enter the penalty box (at 14:27) and Jim Martel was the next Husky to score on the power play. Martel deflected a Mike Holmes shot from the point at 15:49 and it looked like Northeastern might win its first Beanpot consolation game over Harvard since 1965.

But between the first two periods, someone on the Harvard side figured out that the game does indeed count on the ECAC record, toward the race for one of the eight berths in the playoffs next month. Northeastern is all but eliminated from the playoffs, but the Crimson squad is still in contention, perhaps even for one of the top four home-ice seeds in the ECAC tourney.

With that thought for incentive, Harvard came alive for three goals in the second period to take the lead, while Petrovek deflected the six Husky shots that came his way. Dave Bell got things going at 1:42, winding up for one of his famous slappers at point blank range. The shot rang off the crossbar over goalie Jim Bowman's right shoulder.

The line of Kevin Carr, Kevin Burke and Gene Purdy, which had scored only 13 or Harvard's 73 goals this season, picked up the next two scores. Purdy tallied at 9:52 thanks to a great centering pass from Carr behind the net, and again at 13:27 for the game-winner, also assisted nicely by the team captain.

Back to Earth

As the game wore on, more and more fans (arriving early for the championship game which started at 9:00) began to fill up the grimy Garden and the first period spell wore off. Northeastern was suddenly back to earth, and losing by a goal.

But the Huskies, who have nothing left to salvage this season but some lost pride, could not salvage this game. Eleven Northeastern shots in the final period and some very good rushes went by the boards,

Bill Horton scored an unassisted goal on a stuff shot at 2:39 of the third period, only four seconds after Harvard's Jim Liston had returned to the ice from serving a tripping penalty. Horton and Bell are now tied with Paul Haley for the team lead in goals, with nine each.

The Crimson squad (6-4-2 in the ECAC) takes on Cornell tomorrow night in Ithaca in an effort to keep its playoff hopes alive and to improve on a 2-2-0 Ivy League record.