Harvard Coach Ronn Tomassoni, not commonly known for his silver tongue, spun up some words of wisdom after last weekend's men's hockey games.

"If a tie is like kissing your sister, we must have a lot of sisters," Tomassoni said.

For everyone's sake, let's hope that Dartmouth (2-18-2 overall, 2-14-2 ECAC) and Vermont (15-9-2, 9-7-2) don't have incest in mind this weekend.

Harvard rests atop the ECAC with an 11-1-6 (12-3-6 overall) record and has already clinched a berth in the conference playoffs, but the Crimson has had a tough time as of late with even the weakest of opponents.

The Crimson tied Cornell at home and barely scraped by Colgate Saturday night.

"We've had chances to recover this week," Tomassoni said. "We gave the kids an extra day off. We were real pleased with practice on Tuesday. They had that extra hop in their step and looked a little refreshed."

One thing, Harvard needs to improve on this weekend is its power play performance, which failed to tally all last weekend.

"Obviously we've got to get a little sharper. Basically we lost some integral parts of our power play [to injuries]," Tommasoni said. "We just never had a chance to recover. That's certainly something we've been concentrating on and something we hope we'll improve on this weekend."

Needless to say, two wins would give Harvard the momentum it needs heading into its final contests against St. Lawrence and Clarkson.

"It's a very important weekend," freshman forward Ben Coughlin said. "We've been in first place a couple of times, and haven't been able to hold onto it. We want to make sure we don't have any ties and are in good position going into next weekend."

Friday night's game against Dartmouth might be the medicine for the Crimson's ills.

It's been a long time since Dartmouth has boasted a respectable hockey team, and this year is no exception. Dartmouth is trapped in the ECAC cellar (three points above Union), and there's no ladder in sight.

The Big Green's goalies let in an average of over five goals a game. The power play (if you can call it that) connects on 13.4 percent of its chances. And Dartmouth's only wins this season have been against lowly Union and Rensellaer.

Get the picture.

Of course, as any coach will say, the worst thing the Crimson can do is look past this game.