For the first half of last night's Harvard-Princeton hockey game at Bright, it appeared that Tiger goalie Ron Dennis had covered the entrance to his goal cage with bulletproof glass so that no matter how hard they shot, the icemen would never score.

But even bulletproof glass can shatter, and last night the first crack sent the whole thing tumbling down as the Crimson tallied two goals in five seconds and added another two minutes later on their way to 5-1 romp over the Ivy League--leading Tigers in perhaps their best performance to date.

Until the last minute of play it looked as if the Crimson would notch its first shutout since Brian Petrovek blanked St. Lawrence 10-0 on January 6, 1977--netminder Wade Lau kicked aside everything that came near all night.

But a Mark Fusco high-stick at 18:31 put the icemen down a man and Ray Casey capitalized with the spoiler with only 39 seconds left in the game.

"I'm a little bit disappointed about not getting the shutout, but we won the game, and we're a step closer to the playoffs," Lau said after the game.

Actually, they're several steps closer--the win puts the Crimson in a tie with Colgate for the eighth and final playoff spot with seven ECAC games remaining. Only two of those games are at home, however, so the icemen are still a long jump away.

The scoring began at 16:00 of the second when Tom Murray scooped up a loose puck in his own zone and raced the length of the ice, flicking the puck past a sprawling Dennis.

Before rink announcer John Phillips could wet his lips, the red light shone again as Dave Burke took a Murray pass and converted it into his seventh goal of the season a mere five seconds later.

You're Dead

The bang-bang goals tamed the charging Tigers, and for the remainder of the game they were unable to control play for more than a few moments at a time.

Meanwhile, the Crimson calmly added three more goals: Mike Watson from Greg Olson and Jim Turner at 18:30, Pete Evans from Murray and Graham Carter at 4:21 of the third, and Fusco's 11th from Carter and Bobby McDonald with 14:58 remaining.

The icemen controlled play during the last 30 minutes with crisp passes and tenacious forechecking. Although Harvard played without defensemen Mitch Olson (flu) and Scott Sangster (leg injury), the blueliners managed to avoid the jam-ups in front of the cage that had plagued past outings.

The Crimson opened the game with spirited, if sloppy, play, using a dump-and-run offense instead of patterned passing.

"The dump-and-run was not by design," coach Billy Clearly said after the game. 'The guys were a little leery of stickhandling at first, so they just dumped it in; but when we got going we played much better hockey. The passing game is our game," he added.

Harvard's best opportunity to score in the opening frame came when Tigers Todd Hewitt and Grant Hansen slunk to the penalty box together at 16:50 to serve two minutes each for slashing and hooking, respectively.

Unlike their first power play opportunity minutes earlier, the icemen came out firing, peppering Dennis with four shots within 40 seconds. But the freshman netminder, setting up perfectly for every shot, limited his acrobatics but increased his efficiency to the point of excellence, repulsing every one. The Tigers slipped away unscathed.