Pawloski played admirably and was a help to the squad. Not so helpful was the small Garden ice, which allowed Northeastern's slower defensemen to bottle-up the highflying Crimson forwards for much of the game.

"This is not our favorite place," Harvard Coach Bill Cleary said. "We'd like a bigger surface. But we can't use that as an excuse. If I had the answer [to Harvard's Beanpot woes], I'd be a millionaire."

Northeastern, which darted to leads of 1-0, 2-1 and 4-2 against Harvard, nearly ran out of gas in the last stages of the game. With a minute left in the contest, Huskie spectators were on their feet, chanting and cheering. The sounds of "Sieve, sieve" which the Harvard band howled at N.U. goalie Bruce Racine seemed hollow.

But then something almost magical happened.

With 46 second left in the game, Harvard goalie Dickie McEvoy was pulled for sixth-skater C.J. Young. Just as Young leapt onto the ice, Lane MacDonald maneuvered to the left of Racine and flipped a shot into the Huskie net to cut the N.U. lead to one.

The Northeastern celebration grew silent as Racine was comforted by his defensemen.

With 33 seconds left, the Crimson forced a face-off in the Northeastern end. Allen Bourbeau controlled the face-off and kicked the puck back to defenseman Mark Benning.

Benning wound up and shot. The puck rattled through the Northeastern defense and wound up on the stick of Crimson wing Tim Barakett, who punched a shot past Racine and set the Garden on fire.

Had the Crimson pulled off a victory in the waning seconds--which it nearly did when Barakett slapped a shot that flew just right of the Huskie net--or captured the game in overtime, this last minute effort would have been remembered as one of the greatest Crimson comebacks ever.

But Dowd's shot in front of the Harvard net with six minutes gone in overtime slipped past goalie Dickie McEvoy and the Huskies were on their way to the final for the fifth time in seven years.