Mike Vukonich took the puck. Breakaway. Nothing between him and goaltender Robbie Stauber--except ice.

He fired a wrist shot. It flew high in the net.

Almost.

At the last second, Stauber gloved the puck.

This was years ago when Vukonich and Stauber were "squirts," skating in the youth hockey leagues of Duluth, Minn. Every night, Vukonich would stay at the outdoor rink until after dark and then run home, stick poised against intruders from the night.

Today, Vukonich and Stauber play two different brands of hockey, on two different teams, thousands of miles away. Vukonich is a sophomore center on the East's second-ranked Harvard hockey team. Stauber--last year's Hobey Baker winner--is the All-America goaltender for the number-two team from the West, Minnesota.

Stauber is still known for his brilliant saves and near-perfect goaltending.

And Vukonich is still known for his shot.

"Mike has one of the hardest shots in the game," Harvard Coach Bill Cleary says. "He has a wrist shot, and he has a slapshot that can be very intimidating to goaltenders."

Vukonich's strong shot carried him in high school. All he had to do was skate and score. He left as the number-one scorer on his Duluth Denfeld team.

But Vukonich entered Harvard with arguably the best recruiting class in years. With classmates like Peter Ciavaglia, Ted Donato and John Weisbrod--all top forwards on the Harvard team--it would be easy for Vukonich to feel lost in the crowd. But he doesn't look at it that way.

"I was looking down the road, thinking that by the time we were seniors, we'd have a good squad, good leadership and maybe a national championship..." Vukonich says.

In Bull Durham style, Ciavaglia--supposedly the class media pro after his star freshman season--interrupts to teach Vukonich how to deal with the press.

"You're supposed to say, `I'm a team player and I just want to win. It doesn't matter to me if I'm the star. I just want to contribute," Ciavaglia explains. "That's how you handle those questions."

Vukonich rooms with Ciavaglia and Weisbrod, and all three claim that there is no competition among the group.