For the Harvard men's hockey team, Santa Claus won't be the only man dressed in red coming to town this Christmas.

That's because a team from Russia will be visiting Cambridge as well.

The Soviet Union's Spartak Hockey Club will visit Harvard from December 22-28 to play in an exhibition tournament at Bright Center.

The Soviets will compete against teams from Harvard, Boston College and Brown University. The Crimson and the Soviets will square off on December 27.

The Chinese National "B" team will also compete in the tournament, but is not scheduled to play the Crimson.

Freshening Up the Ice: A couple of freshmen tallied the first points of their Harvard careers over the weekend. Third line center Tod Hartje assisted on four Peter Chiarelli goals, while first line right wing C.J. Young got the assist on Lane MacDonald's second goal of the Army game.

MacDonald, with two goals in each contest, moved into a tie with Tim Barakett for the team's scoring lead with eight points in four games. The pair are tied for fifth place in the ECAC scoring race, three points behind Clarkson's Luciano Borsato. MacDonald has notched a team-leading seven goals, while Barakett has four.

It was also a successful weekend for the Crimson's third line, which picked up its first points of the year. Chiarelli was assisted by Hartje and Nick Carone on each goal of his hat trick on Friday night, and the trio hooked up once more in the Army game.

Harvard's fourth line of Craig Taucher, John Murphy, and Andy Janfaza has yet to tally a point for the Crimson, while Butch Cutone, Scott McCormack and Gerald Green also remain scoreless.

First-line center Allen Bourbeau didn't score against Princeton, but he plucked home a power-play goal against Army--for the Crimson's first tally of the night.

"It's nice to get up by a couple of goals on the road," Bourbeau said. "There's not as much pressure then. I got one to start us off, but we've been doing well on all four lines."

Bourbeau has two goals on the season.

Tending the Twines: Goalies from opposing teams have a large advantage over their Crimson counterparts in saves this season: 132-80. But that deficit is more indicative of the strength of the Crimson blueliners than of any failings by Harvard goalies Dickie McEvoy and John Devin. The flip side of this equation is that the Crimson offense gets off more shots than its opponents.

Last season, opponents out-saved Harvard goalies 1082-902, but Harvard held a 2.77-5.45 advantage in the most important netminding statistic, goals-against average.

Last weekend, Devin injured his knee in warm-ups before the Princeton game and was unable to play against either the Tigers or the Cadets. McEvoy got the call both nights and surrendered a meager five goals.