NEW HAVEN, Ct.--...I wasn't watching the game too much. What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of goodbye. --Holden Caulfield,   Catcher in the Rye

It was a difficult way to end the season. The Harvard hockey team outplayed Yale in two out of three periods, but still managed to lose, 6-5.

While Yale bounded into the ECAC playoffs by virtue of the win, the Crimson was left to absorb a 7-18-1 season and a last place finish in the Ivy League (1-8-1).

And it all came to pass in the New Haven Coliseum, the place where they filmed the movie "Slapshot." In a season where order and tradition had toppled, Saturday night's finale in front of 7460 partisan fans proved simultaneously fitting and cruel.

If you want it short and bittersweet, it was ultimately a five-goal Yale outburst in the second period which turned a 2-0 Harvard lead into a three-goal dencit. And though the Crimson would outscore the Bulldogs 3-1 in the final frame, this momentary collapse eventually took the form of a death blow.

With both teams skating four a side, Elice-idol Paul Castraberti notched the game-winner at 13:21 of the third. The sophomore rink dragster used his speed to create a breakaway for himself at the Harvard blue line, then beat Harvard goalie Giff Duffy with a wrist-shot from the right circle.

Castraberti's goal made it 6-4 and killed much of the momentum that had sparked strong play from the icemen in the final stanza. The Crimson came into the third not only trailing 5-2, but having to kill off penalties which left it two men down for 1:26 and a man shy for 34 seconds.

Harvard dispatched the penalties in frighteningly quick fashion before attempting to resume the lead it had enjoyed throughout the first period. Linemates Jon Garrity and Steve Andrews incorporated for two give-and-go tallies 1:04 apart to bring Harvard within one before Castraberti grabbed the baton.

The Crimson got goals from Paul Mangano (his first varsity tally) and John Dunderdale 47 seconds apart in the first to take a 2-0 lead.

It took the Elis the first 20 minutes to get their Tim Taylor-Russian hockey-type act together. Goals by Dan Poliziani and Danny Brugman at 4:06 and 5:23 of the second tied things up before Marshall Hamilton's powerplay beauty at 9:30 put Yale ahead for keeps.

The Yale powerplay, which had hit on 28 per cent of its chances during the season, made good only 39 ticks into a Mitch Olson hooking sentence. Outrageously efficient checkerboard passing from Castraberti to Jon Weber to Poliziani to Hamilton alone at the left post made practical application of a textbook play.

Anders Carlsson came through two minutes later to make it 4-2, and then Brugman's second, a pretty breakaway deke job, gave Yale its biggest lead and waved "goodbye" to those who didn't know what to feel.

THE NOTEBOOK: George Hughes sat out the last game of his Harvard career with a knee injury. George finished with 14-26-40 to lead the squad in scoring for the fourth straight season.