On the first Monday in February, the Boston Garden fills to the halfway mark for the early game of the 34th Beanpot Hockey Tournament--which matches the B.C., B.U., Harvard and Northeastern men's hockey teams in a battle for Boston bragging rights--and then empties and fills halfway again for the nightcap.

On the second Monday in February, the two first-round losers pit their second stringers against each other at 5:30 p.m. for the benefit of the 14,000 empty seats, six vendors and two bands on hand.

The first-round winners take to the ice after the opener is decided to the cheers and screams of the assembled throng of 15,000 fans--Terriers, Eagles, Huskies and a more somber contingent in Crimson--who have trekked to the Garden to watch them view for Hub hockey honors.

The last time the Harvard hockey team got to play for a full Garden was five years ago, when Crimson goalie Wade Lau shut out Boston College, 2-0, to give Harvard its first tournament crown since 1977.

In the last four years, however, the Crimson has nearly been shut out in Beanpot play, winning only once--in a 6-5 squeaker over the Eagles last year--while compiling a 1-7 tournament mark.

The 1-7 mark is discouraging, but the most significant aspect of the Crimson's failure to bring home the Pot is Harvard's failure to make it to the final game any of the last four years.

Playing those early games is frustrating not only because no one's there, but because the players have to suffer the ignominy of watching the Garden slowly fill up at the end of the second and through the third period.

The latecomers, all 10,000 of them, don't add any excitement to the consolation game, and actually make it all the worse by entirely ignoring the contest as they walk around discussing the upcoming battle for championship.

"Nobody wants to play the consolation game," Harvard Captain Scott Fusco said last year before he was relegated to his third. "Nobody wants to be there."

But those recent misfortunes may be reversed this year--in part because of last year's consolation game triumph.

Huh?

Well, the last three times Harvard has finished third in the Beanpot, it has come home victorious the next year.

The most recent third place Crimson finish was in 1980, when the Cantabs dropped the opening contest to B.C., 4-3, but came back to defeat B. U., 7-4, in the consolation match.

Lau's heroies the following year brought the Pot to Cambridge for the eighth time.

Harvard also finished third in 1973 and 1976--and captured the Pot in 1974 and 1977.