Thinking Red.

That's what the Harvard men's hockey team has been doing lately in preparation for its second-to-last road trip of the regular season this weekend.

The Crimson (16-2-2 overall, 13-1-2 ECAC) faces off against Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y., tonight and makes the short trip to Hamilton, N.Y., the next night to do battle against Colgate.

Neither the Big Red (5-14-1 overall, 4-11-1 ECAC) nor the Red Raiders (8-13-3 overall, 6-10-0 ECAC) come close to matching up to Harvard in terms of speed, skill, and offensive power. The Crimson should notch two victories with little difficulty.

(Of course, last weekend's match against Princeton was supposed to be a piece of cake too, and Harvard barely escaped Bright Hockey Center with a tie. Sometimes cake doesn't go down to well.)

Against the Tigers, the Crimson suffered from a lack of intensity which allowed an inferior Princeton team to keep the game close and actually threaten to pull off a major upset.

"We didn't start working until the third period [against Princeton]," sophomore Cory Gustafson said. "We were just sitting back and letting things happen, instead of making them happen."

If the passive play returns to haunt Harvard, the Crimson could find itself staring at the upset ghost again.

Red Raiding

Especially against Colgate. In his first year as head coach, Don Vaughan has led the Red Raiders to some impressive victories.

Although Colgate started this season the same way it ended last year's (losses, losses and more losses), the Red Raiders have won four of their last six games, including last weekend's 5-2 triumph over Clarkson, one of the hottest teams in the ECAC right now.

In Hamilton, N.Y., Colgate snapped the Golden Knights' five-game winning streak and improved its home record to 4-6-2.

Clearly the Red Raiders are no Boston University, but they are still dangerous. They showed the Crimson how dangerous they are when they gave Harvard a scare in Bright back in December (when the Crimson eked out a 5-4 win).

"Colgate has some really talented forwards," Gustafson said. "And they'll be pumped up for us. Every team gets pumped up when they play us."

The Red Raiders are led by leading scorer Captain Andrew Dickson, who has tallied 10 goals and dished out 20 assists in 24 games.