For many of us, the holiday season is a time of renewal, a period when we step back from the daily grind and wonder how we can improve ourselves.

The Harvard men's hockey team faces a similar task this year, as it uses an eleven-day respite to regain its focus and correct the problems that have produced a somewhat inconsistent season.

Although the Crimson (5-5-1, 5-3-1 ECAC) has looked impressive at times, such as in a dramatic 3-2 win at Colgate on December 10, for the most part it has not shown the form of last year's ECAC championship squad.

But, according to junior forward Brad Konik, the Crimson's early problems are more mental than physical in origin.

"Our reaction to other teams' goals has not been good," he says. "We tend to get really down rather than pumped up. We also don't seem to have that killer instinct that lets us blow the score of games wide open."

The team's weaknesses all seemed to surface in what both Konik and senior captain Ben Coughlin term the season's low point, a 6-1 humiliation November 22 at the hands of then-number-one-ranked Boston University.

Coughlin feels the loss was especially painful, "not because the score was 6-1, but because mentally we completely collapsed and lost any intensity."

Konik concurs. "We came into the game really fired up and excited, but we just did not react well to them scoring goals," he says.

But it appears that the B.U. game served as something of a slap in the face to most Crimson players, a game that "we knew we could learn something from," says Coughlin.

Since that loss, Harvard has played some of its best hockey of the season, recording tough wins over Union, Brown and Colgate and playing fairly well in losses to RPI and New Hampshire.

Coughlin attributes the team's improvement to renewed defensive and mental efforts.

"Our defense has done a great job recently," he says. "They need to continue to play strong--it's a big area for our team.

"We also just need to maintain our positive attitude. I think we lost our confidence early in the season, and now that we have it back we have to keep it."

The Colgate game exemplified all the characteristics the Crimson would love to display on a daily basis. Harvard trailed by scores of 1-0 and 2-1, but tied the game each time on a goal by Konik and got the game-winner in the third period from junior forward Jason Karmanos.

And all this was done without the services of Steve Martins, kicked out of the game early in the second period after committing seven minutes worth of penalties in addition to a game misconduct.