DURHAM, N.H.--What a way to lose in your first non-conference game--in overtime while shorthanded.

Harvard found itself down a man twice over the final five minutes of regulation and overtime, and UNH had many great chances to score, Eventually it did.

Obviously, the Crimson would love to be facing several more non-ECAC teams come March and it still might; remember, the season is young, Unfortunately for the Crimson, UNH isn't winning many awards for a so-far mediocre season; the Wildcats are in seventh place in relatively strong Hockey East, having lost its previous two games to usual doormat Merrimack.

This loss won't kill Harvard come NCAA Tournament time, but it definitely wasn't a good start for a team trying to shake the weak image that the ECAC has nationally.

"Anytime you go out of conference, you're looking at NCAAs later on when they start making their selections," Harvard coach Ronn Tomassoni said. "[But] I don't want to get beyond and get too far ahead of ourselves right now. It's real early in the season."

The Crimson played two good periods last night. In the first, it went conservative and allowed almost no good scoring chances. The third period saw Harvard work hard, tie the game and almost go ahead again.

Distressingly for Harvard, which has been playing too many poor 20-minute segments this year, the second period was abominable. There was period one at Cornell and periods two and three against Yale. Period two last night was worse than those combined.

There is no doubt that UNH deserved at least a one-goal lead for the way it played in the second period--they sent 31 (yes, 31) total shots at the Crimson goal, 19 of which found goalie Tripp Tracy, the goalpost or the back of the net.

The Wildcats had the Crimson reeling over the final 15 minutes of that stanza. Yet, Harvard could have emerged in good shape had it gotten a break or two.

First loc Craigen was robbed twice by Caviccht front light in front of the net. The followings play a UNH goal. The a very quick whistle denied the Crimson a goal as captai Brad Konik found the loose puck in front of Cavicchi ad put it in the mesh. Two minutes later, it was 2-1 UNH.

Nonetheless, good teams have to overcome such things and Harvard didn't. Instead of building off the momentum it had gained off Tommy Holmes's ugly, ugly, goal (he had no idea what he was doing with the puck but somehow willed it in), Harvard went flat and played with as much life as the seafood that the fans threw on the ice following the tying tally.

It's something we'restruggling with--we're having letdowns," Konik said. "It's OK to have a letdown for a shift or two, but we're [letdowns] there 10, 15 [minutes], even for a period."

"We came out with a short handed goal and really should have gotten ourselves going instead, we started going into a shell," he added.

Harvard resurfaced in the third period, tying the contest ad it even had chances to win.

But the referees somehow started making the call they had let go all game and made a questionable one on Peter McLaughlin for holding with 17 second left in regulation.

Should it have been called? Probably not, since it did not deny a scoring chance and Harvard had been tripped up in its own zone only a couple minutes before, leading to a great UNH scoring chance.

The question now is will Harvard bounce back? UNH was a sun 500 team. The next two opponents. North eastern and Boston College, are several steps below the Wildcats.

With last night's loss then, those two games become must wins as far as the national picture goes.