Coming off a three-week layoff for exams, the Crimson faces Yale tomorrow and Brown Saturday before the first round of the Beanpot Tournament Monday night at Boston Garden.

Harvard will play Boston College--which it tied, 4-4, earlier in the year--in the second game of the Beanpot, following the Northeastern-Boston University clash.

"I'm excited about the Beanpot," Barakett says. "Every game we've ever played against B.C. has been really good. I'm anxious to beat them."

Although Barakett has won only one Beanpot game--in last year's consolation match against B.U.--he has played on more than his share of winning teams in his hockey career, which began 17 years ago.

"I started skating when I was three," Barakett says. "And I've played organized hockey since I was five."

Hockey for five-year-olds?

"The league was called Peanuts," Barakett says. "We played on half-ice. We had coaches, practices, the works. Montreal is hockey crazy."

Although an economics concentrator with his eye on law school, Barakett doesn't plan to let his hockey career end at Harvard.

"If I have a good year this year and a good year next year, I'd love to try and continue playing hockey," Barakett says. "I haven't thought about whom I'm going to play for or for how much money. I just want to play for as long as I can. Whether I'm good enough, I don't know yet."

Unlike Bourbeau, a fourth-round pick of the Philadelphia Flyers, Barakett was not drafted by a National Hockey League team. He is now a free agent and can be signed by any club.

If the NHL doesn't come calling, Barakett may take his skills to Europe.

"I just want to get hockey out of my system," Barakett says.

In the meantime, he will continue to push Harvard to the top. And like many Crimson watchers, Barakett thinks his team has a better than fair chance of bringing Harvard its first NCAA title since the golf team won one in 1906.

"If we don't make it to the Final Four, I'll be disappointed," Barakett says. "And if we don't make it that far it won't be because we were beaten by a better team but because we didn't play up to our potential."

With Barakett providing a new sting to the Crimson's offense, it seems unlikely that any team will repel the Cantabs' charge.

And the killer B's, the Firing Line and the rest of the icemen aren't about to impose the death penalty on themselves.