The Harvard men's hockey team is off to a blistering start: a 4-0 win over Yale and a 7-1 whipping of Princeton. Calls for a celebration, don't you think?

Well, kind of. Instead of your average run-of-the-mill practice session, Monday afternoon brought with it a special scrimmage: forwards on defense, blue-liners up front, sophomore goalies Tripp Tracy and Aaron Israel skating and senior defenders Lou Body and Sean McCann mugging it up in goal.

The brainchild of such a plan is, as usual, Head Coach Ronn Tomassoni; he's used such outings in the past to give his skaters time to recuperate and have a little fun on the ice.

But this season, Tomassoni stresses that such a tool can hardly be overused.

"We've always had those types of practices in the past," he said, "but I don't think we've had enough. After analyzing it over the summer, it's a long season, and pretty much since the first week of practice we've used Monday as a sort of `fun day.'"

The highlight of the mock scrimmage was probably Tracy getting dumped over the bench boards, only his skates visible to his laughing teammates on the ice. Asked if he had any comment afterwards, he replied: "No."

A Little Enjoyment: Harvard should be enjoying itself; the Crimson stands alone in first place in the ECAC with an unbeaten 3-0-0 record.

Its two chief preseason rivals, Rensselaer and Clarkson, are each three points back with identical 1-1-1 marks in conference play.

It was a wild weekend in the soon-to-be Frozen North, as St. Lawrence upset favored RPI on Saturday night, 3-2, one night after the Engineers had themselves knocked off Clarkson 5-4.

"That score doesn't surprise me," Tomassoni responded. "[St. Lawrence] is a tough place to play, and they have a team that can knock off anybody."

Give some credit to Union, too. The Consensus pick for the cellar among ECAC prognosticators, the Skating Dutchmen proved they can compete by losing two one-goal games on the same trip that RPI split, even leading Clarkson 6-4 in the third before succumbing, 8-7.

"They are a much more improved team--they brought in a lot of kids, and they've got a couple of pretty good freshman forwards," Tomassoni said. "I'm glad for them--for the league to get stronger, we need a strong Union College."

Bad News: Junior winger Perry Cohagan separated his shoulder in Saturday's Princeton game and is out for at least two weeks.

"I'll be in a sling from 10 days to two weeks, and we'll take it from there," Cohagan said. "I've just got to wait and let the pain settle down. I'm aiming to be back for the RPI game [on December 4]."

For now, senior utility forward Ian Kennish will take his place, but Cohagan is naturally looking forward to getting back on the ice.