It was a strange scene last night at Bright Center when the final buzzer sounded.

Michigan State had just defeated Harvard, 6-5, in the first game of its NCAA first-round series with the Crimson.

But when the game ended, the Spartans crowded around goalie Jason Muzzatti. Some of their heads were bowed. All of them looked dejected.

Guys, pick your heads up, you won the game. Remember that 6-5 game two years ago in Providence for the NCAA Championship? You weren't bowing your heads then.

The Harvard players crowded around goalie Mike Francis and were celebrating. They were giving highfives and whooping it up.

Excuse me guys, you're not supposed to do that. Look at the scoreboard.

It would have been a strange scene if this game counted as one game. But according to the NCAA's playoff format, this game was only part of a bigger game--the total-goals game. The game where the winner scores the most goals in 120 minutes of hockey.

The Spartans looked dejected because they could have entered tonight's game with a four-goal lead. Instead, the Crimson came back and is now only one goal behind with three periods of hockey left. Three periods of hockey at Bright Center.

"We don't seem to handle prosperity well," Michigan State Captain Tom Tilley said. "It's kind of disappointing for us."

The Spartans saw prosperity sink in the Charles River. The Crimson just didn't come back in this game. It came back with authority. It came back like a team that was slapped in the face from a bad dream. And it needed only three skaters on the ice.

"That's when we had the big advantage," Peter Ciavaglia said. "We wanted to really put it out."

After a scuffle occurred late in the final period that sold out the penalty box for the rest of the game, Harvard and Michigan State started to play a game of pick-up hockey.

You got your three skaters and we got ours. Let's choose to see who gets the puck.

The rink looked very white. But the Crimson managed to light up the red twice.

First, defenseman Jerry Palwoski did hockey's version of a Dominique Wilkins 360-spin and backhanded the puck into the net.