Few times this season have the Harvard hockey fans been as enthusiastic as they were during Saturday night's playoff game against Brown.

Adam's Ribbings

Rarely has the traditional "Hey (insert name of opposing goalie here) you're not a sieve, you're a funnel..." cheer been chanted louder. And most of the fans lingered in the stands for five minutes after the final buzzer in order to watch the Harvard band perform on the ice.

The Crimson had won yet again, and was on its way to the ECAC semifinals.

But while the celebration raged on outside, the atmosphere in the Harvard locker room was far more subdued.

The customary post-victory rock music wasblaring, but there was nothing to indicate thatthis contest was any more special than thepreceeding 11 home wins.

"This game was only a step on the way," TimBarakett said.

The Crimson has been in this position manytimes before. Taking the next step--winning thesemifinal game--hasn't always been easy. Few canforget last season's disappointment after theshocking upset loss to Clarkson.

And the Crimson realizes it can happen again.

"We're not playing at the top of our game,"Lane MacDonald warned. "We need to turn it up anotch if we want to advance."

The parallels to last season are striking. Inboth campaigns, the top seeded Crimson will haveentered the semis after coming of two homevictories in the quarterfinals. Again, Harvardwill face an opponent who gave it fits earlier inthe season.

But the players notice a few key differencesbetween this year's team and last year'sthird-place squad--differences which they feelwill enable them to capture the ECAC crown, whichhas eluded them before.

"Through the crunch this year, we've alwaysstuck together as a team," Randy Taylor said."Last year maybe we relied on certain individualstoo much. Not having to depend on any one personmay help this year."

Last year, the Crimson had a bad habit offalling behind in the first period--and nevercatching up. Five times last season the Crimsonwas trailing after two periods, and each time itwent on to lose.

This year's squad, by contrast, never has beenbehind after the second period, and only once hasit been losing after one. On that occasion,Harvard ended up victorious.

In the semis last year, the Crimson fell behindto Clarkson and was unable to fight back to win.This year's scrappy squad is less likely to allowitself to fall into a deep hole.

There's another reason the Crimson playerscan't be too enthusiastic about the Brownconquest: they expect more out of their seasonthan an ECAC quarterfinal victory.

"Coming in as a freshman," C.J. Young said,"all I heard about from [the older players] wasthe NCAAs. I've heard more about the loss toMichigan State than to Clarkson. They don't wantto let it happen again. They want to be right backwhere they were last year.