An ECAC men's hockey tournament without a Harvard/Rensselaer match-up is like an NFC championship game that isn't Dallas/San Francisco.

For the fifth straight season, the Crimson and Engineers will be squaring off against each other in the ECAC tournament, which starts tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Bright Hockey Center.

"It's only fitting--we always play them," Harvard coach Ronn Tomassoni said.

Tomorrow's second game of the best-of-three quarterfinals will start at 7 p.m., and Sunday's third game (if necessary) will also begin at 7 p.m.

The first team to accumulate three points (two wins or a win and a tie) will head out to Lake Placid, N.Y. for the semifinals next Friday. There is no overtime tonight or tomorrow, but sudden-death overtime will be played Sunday if the score is tied after regulation.

When people talk about Harvard in the ECAC tournament, it's hard not to mention some of the games against RPI. Two of them especially stand out in the minds of this year's team.

There was last year's ECAC tournament final, which the Crimson won, 3-0, at Lake Placid. That game was perhaps the top highlight in Harvard's 24-5 season.

Then there was the big disappointment three years ago. RPI--a big underdog--came into Bright Hockey Center and shocked ECAC regular-season champion Harvard in a 4-3 overtime quarterfinal thriller. Because of that game, the ECAC changed to its current best-of-three format.

"That was my freshman year, and we don't want to see a repeat of that," captain Ben Coughlin said. "At least it's two out of three; no more onegame series."

Consistently Inconsistent

Both Harvard and RPI have had inconsistent season. Neither team has won more than three games in a row all year, but neither team has lost more than three in a row.

Harvard struggled early, got hot in December and January, went ice cold (no pun intended) in February and looked to be back in top form last weekend against St. Lawrence and Clarkson.

RPI, on the other hand, started 7-3 but has gone 2-5-3 over its last 10 games.

One of those five losses occurred two weeks ago at Houston Field House in Troy, N.Y. Harvard delivered the home team a 5-3 loss in one of its best performances of the season.

The Crimson played disciplined hockey and got the overly-aggressive Engineers to wear out a path to the penalty box. Harvard's power play clicked three times in the opening 20 minutes--the first two goal by senior sparkplug Steve Martins--and Harvard would never look back.