Sports cliches never die. They just get better with age.

Perhaps the oldest cliche--and, sure enough, one of the truest--is that playoff series have nothing to do with regular season standings. What counts is the present. Forget the past.

Tonight at Bright Hockey Center, the Harvard men's hockey team opens up the ECAC quarter-finals against Rensselaer. And both teams--which have faced each other in the playoffs four out of the last five years--are eager to cast off the cloak of the regular-season.

RPI (13-14-4 overall, 6-12-4 ECAC) is just awaking from a four-month nightmare.

After losing most of its key players to graduation last year (including super-thug Bruce Coles and recently-signed Boston Bruin Joe Juneau), the Engineers plunged into the depths of Division I mediocrity, closing the season in 10th place and barely scraping into the playoffs.

But the Engineers seem more than ready to shake off the bitter memories of the season. Last Tuesday, RPI handily downed a talented (seventh-ranked) Vermont team, 5-1, in Burlington, Vt., in the playoff-preliminaries, earning the right to come to Cambridge.

The Other Side

Which brings us to the opposite of the spectrum: Harvard. By all rights, the Crimson should be reveling in its surprise first-place ECAC finish.

Nevertheless, Harvard is still haunted by a dark memory of how the season ended.

Last weekend, Harvard entered the North Country, expecting to win at least one of its games and therby secure the regular-season championship. The Crimson did manage to come away with the title (after Brown upset Clarkson, 4-3, in Potsdam, N.Y.), but only after succumbing 4-2 to Clarkson Friday and 4-0 to St. Lawrence Saturday.

Needless to say, that wasn't the way a championship season was supposed to end.

"Saturday night we came out flat," Harvard Coach Ronn Tomassoni said. "Friday night took a lot out of us. But that's yesterday's news. It's a whole new season."

That may be true, but the Crimson still has to explain its erratic play as of late.

The Crimson played a strong game against Clarkson Friday, but couldn't do a thing the next night.

A week earlier, Harvard suffered from the same schizophrenia. The Crimson struggled to get past a pitiful Dartmouth squad during its Friday night game, but effortlessly deep-freezed a hot Vermont team, 4-1, the next evening.

Such inconsistency is excusable during the regular-season, especially during the grueling month of February. In the playoffs, however, it can be deadly.

If Harvard comes out on flat Saturday night, the team could spend Spring Break watching the NCAA tournament on cable.

RPI's biggest threat, much like the Crimson, is its youth. The Engineers have been getting good production from a crop of wily forwards, including freshman center Craig Hamelin (20-19-39), sophomore center Xavier Majic (13-19-32) and sophomore winger Ron Pasco (11-21-32).

In the past two meetings, Harvard, however, has had no trouble shutting down the Engineers. The Crimson outscored RPI 11-1 over the regular-season.

Harvard looks ready to repeat such a performance this weekend.

Key Players Return

Though freshman forward Ben Coughlin and freshman forward/defender Bryan Lonsinger are both questionable for this weekend, two key players will return to the lineup.

Freshman forward Steve Martins, sidelined three weeks ago with a shoulder injury, and sophomore defender Derek Maguire, who sat out last week with a pulled abdominal muscle, will both suit up tonight.

With Martins' blistering speed and fine stickwork and Maguire's potent slapshot, Harvard will undoubtedly get a boost where it most needs it: the power play.

"One of the reasons [the power play] hasn't been clicking is injury. Hopefully the return of those key guys will be enough," Tomassoni said.