The women's hockey game at Bright Hockey Center tonight is not just any game. It's a showdown between one of the best teams in college hockey and one of the best teams in the world.

Harvard, which won last year's national championship and is currently ranked No. 2 in the country, will take on the U.S. Select Team, which won the gold medal at Nagano in the 1998 Olympics. Face-off is set for 7 p.m.

This marks the first time U.S.A. Hockey has had a full team train together in a non-Olympic year. In addition to the Three Nations Cup and the World Championships, the U.S. Select Team will play exhibition games against six ECAC teams. Team U.S.A. beat Princeton Wednesday, 6-1.

Tonight is an exhibition game, so it won't count in the standings. The Crimson (10-2-1, 8-2-1 ECAC) will go into winter break tied with No. 1 Northeastern (11-2-1, 8-1-1) for first place in the conference.

But the standings, the Beanpot and the postseason can all wait until the year 2000. For those of you looking for a little help making it through the last weekend before vacation, tonight's game should be a holiday treat, especially if fast-paced hockey is your thing.

"As a player, you always want a chance to go against a really good hockey team," said sophomore center Jen Botterill. "It just raises the caliber of the game and we're looking forward to it."

If anyone at Harvard knows how to play against Team U.S.A., it would be Botterill or her linemate, junior winger Tammy Shewchuk.

Both of them played for the Canadian National Team, which beat the Americans in the championship game of the Three Nations Cup in Montreal earlier this month. Team Canada was trailing 3-2 in the third period, but Shewchuk got the equalizer and sent the game to overtime. The Canadians eventually won in a shootout.