This year's Harvard men's hockey team (24-5-4 overall, 16-2-4 ECAC) was one squad that not only reached, but also well surpassed its goals, as it was only one bounce of the puck away from playing in the NCAA final.

"Our goal is to get to the NCAA tournament this year and go further than we did last year," outgoing captain Sean McCann said before the five month campaign began in early November.

Last year, the team had endured a painful 3-2 overtime loss to Northern Michigan in the NCAA East Regional, and nobody knew what to expect from Harvard going into the season, especially on the offensive side. The 1992-93 team had been led by US Olympian Ted Drury and had received most of its offense from Drury, Matt Mall-grave '93 and Steve Flomenhoft '93.

Yet this year's team never doubted that the offense would be there once the season got underway.

"I think our offense will surprise a lot of people," said sophomore goalie Tripp Tracy entering the campaign. "Last year we had a superstar in Drury, and may be looked up to him too much."

The "surprise" then was that the offense this year scored an ECAC-high 107 goals in 22 games (4.86 goals a game).

Junior Steve Martins remained healthy all season and danced around his opponents for 25 goals and 35 assists, while senior Chris Baird (6-38-44) and Brian Farrell (29-14-43) kept goal judges busy as well.

But perhaps the most unexpected source of offense was McCann, as he shattered the Harvard record for goals in a season by a defenseman with 22, 17 of them on the power play. His patented one-timer accounted for the majority of the tallies and left opposing goalies and coaches speeches.

What one could expect from Harvard before the season started was solid defense and goaltending. Sophomore netminders Aaron Israel and Tracy had played phenomenal freshman years, while each of the three defensive pairings was to be headed by a senior with three-years' experience--McCann, Derek Maguire and Lou Body.

And sure enough, there were was no surprise at this end of the ice, as the Crimson allowed an ECAC-low 60 goals against in 22 games (2.73 a game).

Season Summary

Harvard, who had won the previous two ECAC regular season championships, traveled to Providence, R.I. on November 6 for a season-opener against Brown, the team that had eliminated it in the ECAC tournament semifinals in 1993.

Harvard did not lead in the game until junior Cory Gustafson ripped a shot by Brown goalie GeoffFinch 2:49 into overtime.

The Crimson had rallied from a two-goal deficit in the third period to force the extra session, and that would be the first of four times this year that Harvard would come from behind to win in overtime, a record shared with the 1988-89 championship squad.

Harvard went on to win its first five games before it hit a mini-slump (2-3-1) from the end of November through mid-December.

However, the rest of the season was remarkable,with Harvard going 17-2-3. Both of its losses wereovertime heartbreakers--a 2-1 loss in the Beanpotfinal to Boston College and a 3-2 OT loss tonational champion Lake Superior State in an NCAAsemifinal.