"You can't have penalties like that," said Cleary, whose team was whistled 10 times in the second period alone. "We would get power plays and practically the whole power-play [set] is in the penalty box."

No Plan

The Crimson got away from its game plan. Slapped and slashed a little too much, skated and scored a lot too little.

The bottom line, however, is that is was only one weekend. No one vacuumed up Harvard's talent over the summer. The Crimson was still, in the end, the best team on the ice.

"I don't want people to get all excited," Harvard Coach Bill Cleary said. "People got spoiled last year. We're not going to do that all the time."

And, as far as NCAA MVP Ted Donato is concerned, the past it past. Leave all comparisons to last year at the door.

"What we did last year was what we did last year," Donato said. "This is a different team. We have to make a name for ourselves."

And they'd rather not have that name be based on this weekend. File that away with the past as well.

"This is a lesson we have to learn and it's a tough one," Donato said. "We have to just grin and bear it."