"I've never seen one break yet," Stone says. "We did have a small problem when we first started using the masks--the part of the mask that anchors it to the helmet was cracking--but within a month they came out with a mask that had a stronger material in that part. The breaks have stopped."

Freshman forward Eddie Krayer notes the mask's only nagging problem: "It's really hot inside the shield. There's only a couple of holes to breathe through [near the bottom]. It's a big deal, because you're used to getting the air."

But most players insist this isn't a serious problem, so Itech needn't worry about designing an air conditioning system.

The pucksters did give up something, though--part of their ability to intimidate--when they put on the masks. The clear mask seems too honest.

Pawn to king bishop's five

Last year, the Crimson looked black and blue thanks to shoulder injuries. "About five or six guys went out with separated shoulders," Fusco says. "They all missed some action."

The problem, according to Trainer Dick Emerson, had a lot to do with the shoulder pads Harvard wore. "90 percent of the shoulder injuries were sprains [of a ligament between the humerus and the collarbone]," Emerson says. "Those usually result from falling on your shoulder or your shoulder hitting the boards."

You'd think shoulder pads would protect against that problem, but the pads Harvard wore last year had "floating" cushions over the oft-injured areas, cushions which tended to float away at the wrong moment.

To check the shoulder injury epidemic, the icemen are wearing a new shoulder pad this year--the "Checkmate." Stone calls the pad, "The thing of the future."

"Our trainer saw it at a convention and told me about it, " he says. "The kids wore it. Every kid liked it."

The Checkmate resembles a football shoulder pad: it has much more cushioning all around and its pads don't float. Instead, they're anchored right on the critical area.

Protection fit for a king--or at least a bishop.

Another revolutionary feature of the Checkmate is its ability to accomodate players of all shoulder structures. Conventional shoulder pads come in only one size, but the Checkmate comes in three sizes, so the smaller players don't find their pads down on their arms, and the bigger ones aren't choked.

So far, the pad is doing its job. "They don't seem to slide around as much as the old pads used to," Fusco says. "It's a lot better protection. Our problems used to come when guys got jammed into the boards. That hasn't been a problem so far."

So with new pads checkmating shoulder injuries and new clear masks guarding their faces, the members of the Harvard hockey squad are dressed to kill.

Their opponents, that is.