DULUTH. Minn -- The difference is Duluth.

Two extremely similar teams play each other here tonight in the first contest of an NCAA two-game, total goals quarterfinal series.

The Harvard men's hockey team is led by a former coach of the year, a junior forward who is the team's leading scorer and a highly touted Hobey Baker finalist as well as the central figure on the highly successful first line and power play, a junior defenseman whose crisp passing keys the power play, a freshman sensation, who is the son of a former NHI star, and a hot goalie whose services are sought by the NHI's Calgary Flames.

The University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) boasts last year's coach of the year, a junior forward, who is a leading candidate for the Hobey Baker Award and at the center of the success of a potent first line and power play unit, a junior defenseman whose crisp passing sets up the power play attack, a freshman sensation, who is the son of a former NHI star, and a goalie who the Flames are chasing.

Those are only some of the more obvious parallels between these two squads.

Others abound Both teams are enjoying a renaissance in the last four years, both are the skating scourge of their respective conferences, both rely on their first-line led potent power plays to defeat the clutch and grab tactics of their opponents and both have seen their programs benefit from an All-American who has won the Hobey Baker Award in the last two years.

Harvard, however, will be facing off in an unfamiliar Duluth Arena today and the Bulldogs will be playing in a rink in which they've won 22 of their 26 games this year.

The City of Duluth has been thinking of little besides the UMD hockey team as the Bulldogs skated to their second consecutive WCHA Championship Saturday night, rebounding from a 6-4 loss the night before to top the Gophers of Minnesota 6-2, and claim the series on total goals.

That was the third straight home series for the Bulldogs, who will play in front of a sold out Arena for the 23rd and 24th straight times this weekend.

Little maroon and yellow "UMD I" signs are plastered all over town

The only guarantee for tickets to this weekend's contests was to hop into the following the Minnesota games and wait until Monday morning when the previous 5639 seats went on sale.

The crowd is not traditionally a particularly lively one and even the appearance of the hated Gophers could not evoke much of a response from those assembled

"Most of the folks around here are Norwegian, Swedish, Danish or Finnish and are very conservative," season-ticket holder Peter Jacobson explains. "They are all Lutherans, and Lutherans don't display their emotions."

Out on the ice, in front of the staid folk in the stands, two skaters will be displaying everything they have to offer.

Hobey Baker candidates Scott Fusco of Harvard and Bill Watson of UMD lead their teams in scoring with 100 and 80 points, respectively Fusco ranks slightly ahead of Watson in points per game and sits in second place--a spot ahead of Watson on the national scoring chart.