The Harvard women's hockey team's home opener wasn't designed to be the cakewalk it was last year against Vermont.

If anything, if was supposed to be the reverse. Last year, Providence defeated the Crimson, 6-0.

But the Friars were up against a veteran Crimson team--which graduated only one member from last year's Ivy League championship squad.

No matter. Despite a spectacular performance by Harvard goalie Jennifer White, Providence proved itself divine, 8-3, in front of 50 people at Bright Center.

"I was proud of the way the kids played," Harvard Coach John Dooley said. "When you play a scholarship school, it gets hard."

Heather Linstad drew first blood in the game for the Friars halfway through the first stanza. But then, White began to weave her magic. She stoned a Providence two-on-zero break while the Friars were on the power play, as junior Julia Trotman was serving a tripping minor.

On the next Harvard rush up ice, sophomore Char Joslin took control of the puck at the blue line and flipped it to junior Brita Lind, who was cutting toward the slot. Lind beat Providence goaltender Claire Smith to the glove side to tie the score.

"It felt good," Lind said. "My brother always told me that you have a chance to score [shorthanded] because [the opposition] think offensively."

"We've got experienced people out there," Dooley said. "They played super."

The teams alternated three goals in the remainder of the first period and the second, as Lisa Brown and Kelly O'Leary scored for the Friars and Joslin canned a 55-foot slapshot on the power play.

Going into the third period, the Crimson was poised for a major upset.

"We thought that if we got up early that we could upend them," Lind said.

But in that third period, Providence began to take control. Linstad tapped in a goal from the doorstep after White made three point-blank saves; Heather LaDuke put a slapshot in the top shelf, and then Linstad banked her third goal off the top of White's shoulder to put the game out of reach.

"We just ran out of gas," Dooley said. "We had them scared for the first time ever."