Part One of Two

Harvard men's hockey goalie Grant Blair has set almost every conceivable Crimson record en route to a four-year record of 68-31-5.

Not bad for someone who says he doesn't even like hockey very much.

"My favorite sport has always been baseball," Blair says. "I never watch hockey on t.v., and I never really go to any hockey games, but I always go to baseball games and watch baseball on t.v.

"I always wanted to be a baseball player."

While Blair may get a chance to earn his living with a quick glove and rapid reflexes, he'll have a stick, not a bat in his hand. He'll be wearing a flashy Calgary Flames jersey, not demure Yankee pinstripes. And he'll be towing ice, not sod.

"I quit playing baseball when I was 17," Blair recalls. "We got to the provincial championships in hockey, got beat in the finals and I got hurt the next winter. I went to the doctor and he pretty well said you have to make a decision--your back won't really handle it. And I chose hockey."

Although he was a pitcher and shortstop ("because I always like to be involved in the game like the goalie") for a powerful local baseball entry, Blair laid down his fielder's mitt and bat forever.

"I never really thought of becoming a baseball player," Blair says. "You can't be a great baseball player coming from Canada. I just played the sport because I liked it so much and I played hockey because I thought I had a chance of going somewhere."

His father thinks that troubles in the batter's box, in addition to the growing prowess at hockey, had a hand in the decision. "His weakness was hitting; he wasn't a power hitter," Matthew Blair says. "He was a crummy hitter."

But the younger Blair's determination to concentrate on hockey for the future didn't mean his devotion to that sport grew any greater--or his devotion to baseball any smaller. "He was always busy....I wished he would sit down and watch hockey with me," Matthew Blair says.

Ever since he started playing hockey at the age of five, Blair had been giving it his all. After putting in two years as a defenseman on the community all-star team, he decided to switch to playing goal.

"I just like it more or less because it was the most important part of the team," Blair says. "You're always involved. You're always on the ice, and when you're a little kid, you always want to be on the ice."

When he tried to move to playing net, the coach told him he couldn't make the team at that position. But Blair stuck out a year in the house (regular) league--and a year later he was the new all-star goalie.

"I was just looking at those funny old pictures," Matthew Blair, who works in commercial real estate, remembers. "He's there with glasses and the big pads. He was always so serious. He got the key to the rink and he'd get me up early about 5 a.m. and go to the rink and I would take shots on him until the other kids got there. One time he got me up at 4:30 and that was it."