"We came out a little slow," captain Ashlin Halfnight said. "Blame that on the plane legs or something, but I thought that we played very well and I think that we deserved to win."

Whatever was said in the Harvard locker room after the first period should be bronzed, because just a minute into the second stanza, the Crimson netted the equalizer.

Collecting the puck at the left point, Halfnight faked a shot and drew the Minnesota defender to the ice.

Gliding around the body, Halfnight ripped a clean blast into the left corner past a stunned Minnesota goaltender Brant Nicklin.

"We got our legs towards the end of the first period, and I thought that we played real well in the second," Tomassoni said. "We went in alone on [Nicklin] a few times and he really came up big with some good saves."

Despite the continuing pressure in the period, Nicklin stymied the offense and Harvard would tickle the twine no more.

"We came off a couple of good wins and a stretch where we've been playing real well," Halfnight said. "I think that these two games are important to continue that and to go home for Christmas feeling satisfied that we've done our job in 1996."

Harvard 2, Minnesota-Duluth 4

The one good thing about a two-game series is that there is another chance for a win the next night. Unfortunately for the Crimson, the second game was merely a carbon copy of the night before--except this time it was even uglier.

"That third period was just some awful hockey," Tomassoni said. "Just the way everything was happening, it was really frustrating."

Skating onto the ice for the third period, the teams once again found themselves tied at one.

Minnesota had dominated the first period action, and netted its first tally with five ticks remaining in the period.

"I thought that we were standing around in the first period," Tomassoni said. "We weren't moving our feet and they outplayed and outworked us."

Harvard, like the night before, rebounded strongly in the second period, scoring two-and-a-half minutes into the second stanza. Sophomore Craig Adams led the charge, notching his second goal of the season after finding himself all alone in front of the net.

Just four feet from Nicklin, Adams whipped his body around to the left and whisked the puck into the lower left corner, bringing a sense of hope to the Crimson bench.