As Captain C.J. Young is quick to point out, this season's edition of the Harvard hockey team will have to do what "no Harvard team has ever had to do before"--repeat a national championship.

It is the season after. Olympians Lane MacDonald and Allen Bourbeau are gone. The front is rebuilding, the back searching for depth. In Bright Center, the Crimson will be playing under the shadow of an NCAA Championship banner.

"It's another season. We're yesterday's news," Harvard Coach Bill Cleary says. "We only have a few more days to bask in our glory."

When the Crimson faces off against Yale in New Haven tonight, it will no longer be simply "NCAA champion." Add a "defending" to that title.

"As much as people always like to beat Harvard," Young says, "this year they're going to be trying a little harder."

As the Crimson found out last year, some of the stiffest competition will be right here in the ECAC. In the 1988-89 season, Harvard went 31-3-0--all three losses were to league opponents. And once again, the Crimson has been picked to finish ahead of the ECAC pack.

A big reason for that decision is Harvard's offensive firepower. Although the Crimson lost two of the best forwards in the nation in MacDonald and Bourbeau, it still has the strongest returning offense in the ECAC.

In fact, neither MacDonald or Bourbeau was the Crimson's top scorer last season. That man was Peter Ciavaglia. Ciavaglia tallied 63 points, netted a hat trick against Lake Superior State in the NCAA quarterfinals and lead the team in scoring for most of the season.

And he still hasn't made it onto Harvard's first line. Then again, Cleary doesn't arrange his lines by numbers, but by the color of practice jerseys instead--"I have four lines, all equal," he says.

Ciavaglia is the undisputed star of the line that wears blue jerseys and skates the second shift. Flanked by ex-roommate John Weisbrod and current roomie Mike Vukonich, Ciavaglia sees himself protected by a pair of "twin towers."

"I certainly have enough size and strength around me," Ciavaglia says. "With John and Vuk using their muscle in the corners, they should get the puck out to me a lot. If it works out that way, I won't be complaining."

Captain C.J. Young and junior Ted Donato line up next to rookie center Ted Drury for Harvard's starting trio. Young is the man of 47-second fame: he tallied three shorthanded goals in that span for a national record when the Crimson tromped Dartmouth, 10-0, last December. Donato played well enough in St. Paul to upstage soon-to-be-named Hobey Baker winner MacDonald and walk away with three goals and NCAA MVP honors.

When Drury first arrived at Harvard last September, his claim to fame was being selected in the second round of the NHL draft--a pick as high as any in Harvard history, and higher than third-round selection MacDonald. Since then, Ted has become known as the big brother of Chris Drury, ace pitcher for the Trumbull, Conn., team that captured the Little League World Series.

"Ted's a hard-working kid. He's not going to let himself get complacent," Young says. "We just have to get a sense of how we're going to play, find out where everyone is going to be. Chemistry on the line is very important."

Senior Tod Hartje has kept the green practice jersey that became the trademark of last year's crowd-favorite fourth-liners. Paul Howley and Ed Presz have graduated, but Hartje is carrying on the tradition--even if he is playing third-shift center this season. Hartje will skate with senior John Murphy, a fourth-year starter, and sophomore Timmy Burke, who saw limited action last season. The final line will boast the other two rookies to make this year's squad--Matt Mallgrave and Steve Flomenhoft--as well as JV call-up Craig Miskovich.