In truth, Tracy's Harvard career to-date can only be understood through his relationship with Aaron Israel, his classmate in his freshman and sophomore years, before Israel bolted from school last May to join the Philadelphia Flyers' system.

Because the two shared the available minutes between the pipes with such monotonous regularity, Tracy is especially antsy to jump at whatever playing time there is to be had this year.

"This is the best opportunity I've ever had in my life," he says. "Last year, one of us would have a good game on Friday and we'd have a wait until the following week to see if we could continue the streak. This year, that won't happen as much, and it should help the team--especially the defense--to have just the one style to play around and not to have to change its style every other game."

Israel personifies none of Tracy's attributes on the ice save competitiveness, but the two managed to forge a valuable friendship, Tracy says, in spite of all public misperceptions to the contrary.

"Rumor spreads like wildfire," Tracy says, quoting one of the favorite sayings of former Crimson star Matt Mallgrave '93. "I can't tell you the number of people who have come up to me and said, I know you and Aaron don't get along, but that's not true at all. Ours was always a good, healthy relationship--of course, I think it will get better now that we aren't fighting for the same thing."

Tomassoni always has his netminders room together on the road, which both tightened the bond between Tracy and Israel and exacerbated an already competitive atmosphere.

"We were extremely competitive with each other, but in a positive way," he recalls.

Tracy was pushed in his freshman year to post a 2.27 goals-against average, fifth on the all-time single-season Harvard record; Israel responded with a 2.30 GAA of his own last year, as Tracy slumped early with a case of pneumonia and a three-losses-in-four-starts streak before Christmas. (Tracy has yet to lose a game in 1994.)

"I'd go so far as to say that when one of us was playing, as much as we might deny it, we were always thinking of the other in a sense, because our rotation was never set in stone," Tracy says. "We'd be thinking, well, if I play well, maybe I'll get to play another game and make this thing not an automatic rotation."

Not that Tracy's competitive nature is limited to goaltending. Aside from an being an devoted water skier and a fairly avid golfer (that he carries a 13 handicap and yet says "I stink at the game" indicates his toleration for failure), he attempts to tackle Harvard academics the same way he would a Jay Pandolfo slapshot--at full speed.

"I think I'm pretty much the same guy both on and off the ice, in that regard," he says. "I just took this midterm for the 'Shakespeare' class, and I'm the kind of guy who ran straight to the books when I got out of there to check and see if I got all the passages right."

Such a tendency was plain to see for Tracy at age seven in his home state of Michigan, having discovered goaltending to be his thing "by process of elimination--I pretty much stunk at forward and defenseman, and they threw me back in goal for lack of anywhere else to put me."

"First game ever, I used a baseball glove on my catching hand," he laughs. "I did pretty well, and I've played in goal ever since."

He had to win over the support of his parents even to get to play junior hockey at a level of any proficiency. But his effervescent enthusiasm (and the begrudging acceptance of his mother) got him around the first obstacle on the road to a hockey career.

"At first, my parents weren't really into hockey at all," he recalls. "I remember my dad didn't want me to play travel hockey--he thought it was too big of a commitment for a little kid, I guess. You ought to see him now, though: he got into sponsoring my teams, and now he's the biggest rink-rat you'll ever find."

If he stumbled on his current vocation somewhat by accident, equally haphazard is the way Tracy has acquired his netminding idols, some of whom seemingly have little in common with the Eliot House resident.