"That's a strange name I like to throw out to people," he chuckles. Probert is a forward for the Detroit Red Wings--a true "goon," some would say.

"If you asked me if I'd like to fight him I'd say 'no' pretty quickly, but I do like to see a rough style of play in the NHL," Farrell says. "I think there's a million other people like me out there who enjoy watching guys like [Probert], and I think it's necessary for the game. If it was gone, a lot of the cheap stickwork would just get worse if there wasn't someone to enforce stuff out on the ice."

One gets the feeling that Farrell is truly plugged into the pro game. "You read the papers and hockey news magazines, follow pro games and people that you know...it's all part of the 'hockey world,' so to speak."

Not that Farrell is some Frankenstein's demonic creation--some rotisserie hockey freak who can actually play the game. In fact, one of his off-ice passions is about as far from "goon hockey" as you can get.

"I'm big into fishing--I spend all of my free time fishing," he says. "Just a freshwater kid that runs out to the local pond and drops a line, all hours of the night. I watch the fishing shows, buy all the tackle and equipment...I'm even known to sneak with my friends into illegal waters at two a.m."

Clearly, there is nothing "halfway" about Brian Farrell. And such is his resolve to continue his devotion to hockey after Harvard.

"I know that I'm going to play beyond Harvard," he says firmly, "I'm not thinking about it now, though I know I'll miss my Harvard days here. But I'm miss my Harvard days here. But I'm excited to move on and play as long as I can--as long as health permits, I'll be playing, in the minors or wherever."

Why? "When you get into a sport like this, when you spend to much time doing it at practice, it's a bug--if you lay off it for two days, you're dying to go back on the ice and shoot a puck. And if I go to a pro game at night, it drives me crazy--I want to go straight to the rink that night."

With that self-imposed approach to his sport, it is a tribute to his values and his upbringing that at the end of the practice day, he can still say the following.

"It's hard work, but at the bottom of it, sports are fun. That's one of the things you have to take into sports when you're playing them it's game, and when you stop having fun that's where you should stop, because that is no longer a sport."

American society has come to recognize that "child abuse" means more than physical violence. But in the sports world, where frustrated parents can vicariously live their fantasies through their children, our culture has come to accept the "Little League Parents Syndrome" as an unavoidable evil.

Which is too bad. Look at Jennifer Capriati, aperfect example of a highly-publicized life leftin tatters by athletic success.

Capriati was a phenom at age eight, on the WITAtour by the age of 13. Yes she can point totournaments won and past grand slam successes, butshe now points from afar--the strain ofcompetition demanded of her by her parents hasrobbed her of a life she is trying to put back inorder.

In Bright Hockey Center, the fathers are moreoften than not there at every game, too. But thesedads would tell stories like Farrell's, givingtheir love largely through sport and watchingtheir kids seize the gift on their own. That, andonly that, is how the passion can become theirs toshare.

Perhaps another example would be in order.Let's start in Bright's Section Eight, just to theleft of the Harvard band, where one could find LouBody's dad always lurking when the Crimson was onthe ice this year...