When they were good, they were very, very good. And when they were bad...they were still very, very good.

Last Friday night at Bright Center, the Harvard men's hockey team was on its best behavior, courteously cruising to a near-perfect 11-0 victory over Yale.

The following evening, in defenseman Kevan Melrose's final collegiate contest, the Crimson's conduct turned ugly in a bruising battle against Brown. Melrose rang up 24 of Harvard's 54 penalty minutes himself, 14 of them in a last-minute donnybrook reminiscent of Slapshot in which the brawling bad boy beat up three Bruins.

But when Harvard (8-7-1 overall, 8-5-1 ECAC) wasn't keeping the linesmen busy breaking up fights, it was keeping the goal judge busy busy turning on the red light in a 14-4 massacre of the Bruins (4-8-2, 4-5-2) that put the defending NCAA champions over the .500 mark for the first time all season.

The sweep gave the Crimson sole possession of second place in the ECAC, as well as the 10th slot in this week's NCAA poll.

"It gets pretty disappointing watching all those shots fly in," Yale Coach Tim Taylor said. "They scored goals in all kinds of situations."

They certainly did. During its 25-goal weekend, Harvard scored while skating 5-on-5, 5-on-4, 4-on-3, 3-on-3, 3-on-4 and 4-on-5. The Crimson didn't score during Yale's 5-on-3 late in the second period, but, of course, neither did Yale.

"They're one of the best teams in the country right now," said Brown Coach Bob Gaudet, whose squad tied the Crimson last November before suffering Harvard's most vicious offensive explosion since an 18-0 thrashing of Cornell in 1958. "Skillwise, they're the top team in the ECAC. They could challenge for the championship again."

Beauty

Harvard realized all of Ray Letourneau's worst nightmares Friday night. The junior netminder, who made 35 saves in the Elis' 6-2 victory over the Crimson last November, gave up nine goals in his two periods of action, many of them humiliating.

Captain C.J. Young, who was named ECAC Co-Player of the Week, opened the scoring by faking LeTorneau to the ice and sliding the puck past the prone netminder. Pete Ciavaglia then watched his wobbling knucklepuck handcuff Letourneau for the second goal.

The score was 3-0 after one period, but the second session proved even more disastrous for Letourneau. The Buckner-esque goalie gave up six second-period goals, three of them between his legs. During a two-minute Yale power play with Melrose in the box, Harvard scored twice.

"We didn't do very many things right today," Taylor said. "The game was over early. They were a very confident team, and we were very tentative."

Young and Ciavaglia led the Crimson with a hat trick apiece. Sophomore Chuckie Hughes, returning to action after goaltending for the U.S. junior team in Helsinki, recorded 25 saves for the second shutout of his career.

The Beast