Twenty-eight names fill the roster in the 1984-85 Harvard men's hockey press guide. Nick Carone isn't on the list.

While five of the players listed on the pre-season roster have yet to take the ice for the varsity. Carone has pushed his way into the lineup for nine games, including he Crimson's last seven outings.

Carone got off to a slow start because of disciplanary probation, the result of a fighting incident early in the first semester.

As a result, his name stayed off the roster, and he practiced with the j.v. while the varsity roared to its best start since the 1936-37 season. When Carone debuted against Vermont January 5, the icemen were already almost halfway through their season.

"At the beginning it was hard to sit in the stands and watch," says the Checktawaga, N.Y., native, adding that when he finally started playing it took a while to get up to speed.

"He's a little behind as far as the system goes," says Coach Bill Cleary. "He didn't really start until the first of the year."

Nonetheless, the 5-ft., 11-in., 185-1b, wing started contributing right away. He notched an assist in his first outing. Nice way to break the ice, huh?

"A goal would have been a lot nicer," Carone says.

Although the Pennypacker resident is still looking for that elusive first goal, he says his line is doing its job.

"We've had our chances," he says. "Sooner or later they're going to start going in. As long as we don't let up the pressure, the coach is happy. Against Vermont [last week] every other line scored. We hit the pest three or four times."

Carone started playing hockey at age six, with his father's blessing. "He played football and he hurt his knees real bad," Carone says. "He tried to steer me away from that."

Carone's mother, a figure skater, made her contribution long before, when she put her son on skates at an early age. By the time he began playing hockey, he could already skate well, backwards as well as forwards.

Flashy skating is no longer his trademark, however, and the line of Carone, Rob Ohno and Andy Janfaza plays a chippier brand of hockey than other Harvard alignments. "Our line's more a physical line," Carone says. "We bottle the other team up in their zone."

The prospective Engineering concentrator has played at both forward and defense in the past, so he's familiar with a variety of styles. "If they want to check I can do it. If they want to skate I can do that, too," Carone says.

He got his flexibility playing for the Buffalo Junior Sabres, a club team with 60-game seasons. And that's also where he got his introduction to Harvard hockey, because future teammate Jerry Pawloski played for a club team in Detroit.

"We beat them a lot when we played them," Carone recalls.

Now Pawloski and Carone skate for the same team, and along with their classmates, have something to prove. "They say when you have a lot of freshmen playing you can't win," Carone says.

"We're proving them wrong."