Though The Game starts at 1 p.m. on Saturday, The Party--the reason many fans make the trek to the Yale Bowl--will have started long before. Traditionally, beer and Bloody Mary's are as ubiquitious banners as blue and crimson.

However, Yale Bowl security disagrees. "Very simply, there will be no alcohol at The Game," according to a Yale Athletic Department official. Police will be on hand to search all spectators and seize any alcohol they find.

"We know we will not stop 100 percent of the (drinking) because people sneak alcohol in anyway," the official says.

Fans carrying containers of purportedly non-alcoholic beverages like orange juice, tomato juice, or cranberry juice, will enter through specially designated "package gates." Officials will search each picnic basket and thermos, dumping any alcoholic contents, says the athletic official. However, he adds, "It sure is hard to check Irish Coffee."

But where there's a will, there's a way. Yale junior Brad C. Corrodi says, "We're gonna disguise [a keg] as a drum and maybe waltz it in with the band."

Says one Harvard freshman, "If I don't carry any [liquor] into the game outside my body, I'll just have to carry it in on the inside."

For those who try to sneak booze into the stadium outside of their stomachs, the chances of getting caught will be much greater, says a Yale security official. "You always have your majority who tries to sneak alcohol in. They try to sneak it in this year, they are going to get caught."

If caught with anything, students will most likely have gin and tonics because they are easy to hide in hip flasks.

"Last year we took some beers and a few liters of G & T's into the game," Matthew A. White '86 says. His roommate Daniel G. Becker '86 adds that he took an extremely incoherent friend out of the game.

Brendon J. Barnicle '89 will drive to The Game Saturday afternoon, after he competes in the Tail of the Charles, the annual freshman crew regatta. "We're bringing down whatever intoxicates. We only drink to excess," says Barnicle, "I don't think we'll have any need to go to those smiddling little New Haven clubs."

One Harvard freshman, Paul, says he knows what to expect at his first game. "There is no game without drinking. What more is there to be said?"

For some students it's not how much you drink but what you drink. Yale freshman Katrina's mother is driving down from Worcester, Ma. to see The Game and The Daughter. "Mom's going to have to make lots of veal-stuffed French bread to go with the wine we plan to drink," says Katrina.

Others will bring even more exotic drinks to the game. "A few bottles of Peppermint Schnapps should just about do it," says another Yale freshman Caren.

Liquor consumers are not the only ones happy at the end of the day. New Haven and Cambridge liquor merchants look forward to every other year--when The Weekend will be in their town.

Some stores see increases of as much as 300 percent on the days preceeding The Game, according to Elliot S. Brause, owner of the Quality Wine Shop in New Haven. "The weekend of the Harvard/Yale game is one of our top three selling periods, We can always depend on The Game, Christmas, New Years, death and taxes."

But some things only come once, like the 100th Anniversary of the Harvard/Yale game two years ago. "That weekend was one of the singlest biggest selling weekends we've ever had in our history," recalls Brause.

Manager of the Yankee Spirit Shop in New Haven Edward L. Clark says, "It's going to be a big beer weekend. Schnapps and brandies are pretty popular drinks, too. It's the proof that keeps 'em (the spectators) warm, supposedly."

Harvard Square liquor stores are equaly successful when The Game is in Cambridge. According to Harvard Provision Company manager John Watrous, Pro sales go off the chart during the Harvard/Yale game when it is played at home.

Thanks to a harsher drinking policy recently instituted at Yale only Yalies 21 and older, who have a specially issued I.D. sticker can drink legally on campus. Even so, underage students say getting by the standard double I.D. requirement and obtaining alcohol is no problem.

"Half of Yale will be totally trashed. This year, they're carding all over," says Alan C. Lo, a Yale junior, but he adds, "Most people just use a fake I.D. and get by."

As one Harvard freshman says, looking forward to his first Yale game, "If God had meant us to be sober, he wouldn't have invented The Game!