From the Bible of Sports Journalism, Chapter One, Verse One:

Thou shalt not root for the team thou coverest.

OK, so today I'm a sinner. Hey--Lent is over. For that matter, so is Harvard's hockey season.

And dammit, that fact distresses me.

You follow a team for four months. You go to all the home games, many of the away games. Players become people, even friends and you desperately want to see them through their entire season, even all the way to a national championship.

And instead, you're in a sports bar in Scottsdale, Arizona, searching on a satellite for a game transmission that cannot be found.

Well, at least that's how it was for me. Harvard hockey may be an all-consuming passion for one third of the year but the demands and pressures of life at Harvard last twice as long. And when you get the chance to relax, when the window of spring break opportunity opens, you have to jump through it.

You still care. But if you can't be there? You try to make do with what you have.

Unfortunately in Arizona, where "hockey" consists of the IHL's Phoenix Roadrunners, puck fans have less to munch on than Wil E. Coyote. On March 27, a half-hour search o the Tempe (Ariz.) Daily Tribune discovered a one-sentence note about Harvard's 7-1 win over UNH the day before, and it took a lucky glance at ESPN that night to confirm that it would be Lake Superior St. and not second-ranked Michigan that the Crimson would face in one of the national semifinals in St. Paul, Minn.

All good news to me, likewise to my fellow Harvard golf teammates. But we were in Arizona first and foremost to get ready for our spring season, and when we saw that the Lake State game had a 2:00 p.m. EST start time, we knew that rinks and the links couldn't mix.

At least not live.

Aha! we thought, the morning of the game. Daily TV listings in the Tribune mentioned a tape-delayed showing of the NCAA Div. I Men's Ice Hockey Semifinals" at 11:30 p.m. that night. Perfect! Nobody call home to find out the results, we'll all go watch the game then.

So half an hour before the broadcast, a sixsome of us duly departed for the Chicago Sports Bar and Grille. Part of the master plan was already ruined as freshman Alexis Boyle had received a message at the hotel's front desk from boyfriend (and Harvard forward) Marco Ferrari about the game's outcome earlier in the evening. But she didn't tell anyone, and although I subconsciously tried my darndest to figure out what it was she knew, I couldn't penetrate her chronically happy countenance.

We sat down Dan ordered drinks. Talk was of how Harvard should win, should face BU in the final, should cream them again and take the title home to Cambridge....such happy thoughts.

Then came 11:30 And no hockey game on the screen.