It's all about to be over.

And they don't know, can't know, what will come next.

They are the seniors of Harvard hockey, and even if the Crimson plays its way into college hockey's national championship game, they only have until April 2 to enjoy a way of life in which some of them have spent the entirety of their intelligent lives.

To what can you compare the object of their loss? A wonderful marriage, perhaps, but that only ends in death, and you can never predict death--old age sets to arbitrary limits of eligibility.

For that matter, define "hockey"--what does that mean? It is not just a game, anymore--maybe it once was, in a simpler phase of childhood, but somewhere between pond hockey and the Boston Garden, the game develops complicated emotional ties that are not so easily severed.

But here they are, the six of them. Kennish at center, Baird to his right, Farrell on the left, and a defense of Body, Maguire and McCann. The goaltender would have to be pulled to get these six on the ice at once, but once sense that if the Crimson was trailing late, they have all the qualities of a team you'd expect to get the job done.

Come to think of it, one of them em already has...

With what looked like four seconds to play in Harvard's regulation season, Brian Farrell suddenly added another five minutes to the clock, scoring a game-tying goal at St. Lawrence which might looked back upon weeks from now as a season-saver.

It's shame that his goal came off of a lucky bounce and not on something more like a topcorner slapshot, for otherwise it could function it could function as one of the perfectly symbolic moments of his Harvard career.

See, Farrell is the type who stays after practice, lines up 10 or 20 pucks in row and methodically buries them into one corner of the net. Or has someone feed him point shots in the crease while he practices tip-ins. Or serves as the Harvard's official skate-sharpener, being the player who demands the most perfect specification from his equipment.

"That's how I was raised in all sports," Farrell says. "My father was a perfectionist in his sport of baseball, and that's how he always taught me to practice, telling me how he always did it. And it was a way of getting to enjoy the game--the more you practice, the better you are, and for me personal satisfaction comes from success."

John Farrell was a draftee of the Boston Red Sox and the U.S. Army unfortunately, the Korean Conflict took precedence, and the bad timing fouled up his baseball career. But the love of baseball he gave his kids led to Brian's passion for sports, and the street hockey of his youth developed into his primary athletic interest.

"They threw me in goal--hey, we need a goalie, they'd say," Farrell recalls of his childhood friends. "But I started to really enjoy it. I started watching it on TV, and I learned how to skate on our pool at home--Dad would take half the water out of it in the winter, it would freeze and I had ready-made boards for my miniature rink."

Ten hours a day he would stay out there. "We had lights..my parents would yank me in for dinner, and afterwards I would run right back out until bedtime."

Of course, those boards soon became speedbumps to the maturing Farrell, and as he filled out to the 6-0, 200-pound frame he occupies today, his world of hockey expanded to include role models like...Bob Probert?