It all started as a passing whim.

Deerfield Coach Jim Lindsay was making out lines during practice before the 1998 season and forgot to assign his leading scorer--Tyler Kolarik--to a unit. Lindsay looked at his roster and saw only two available forwards, Chip Canner and a large, gangly kid named Robert Fried who had seen only spot minutes at the varsity level the previous season. Heck, Lindsay thought, Kolarik and Fried were roommates, maybe these wingers have some potential together?

Harvard Coach Mark Mazzoleni gets to ask the same question now, and is a lot more confident of the answer.

"Tyler and I were put together as a joke," Fried says. "We were all best friends and the only guys left, so coach threw us out there. On our first shift we bonded, and we realized that we could accomplish a lot."

Kolarik-Fried-Canner brought Deerfield to two New England Prep School championship games. Now a similar trio-- Kolarik-Fried- and a center to be determined later-- has the chance to bring success to Harvard. The tandem is the centerpiece of a stellar freshmen class, which hopefully will add much-needed speed and grit to the Crimson.

The NHL recognized their promise this off-season as the Florida Panthers took Fried in the third round of the draft while the Columbus Bluejackets selected Kolarik in the fifth. But that potential was only tapped because they were first friends.

"They were paired very much by accident," Lindsay says. "I knew that they had played together when they were younger and knew each other. They clicked right off the bat....They complement each other very well."

The Players

Kolarik and Fried are almost the perfect odd couple. Looking at them side-by-side, one wonders just how they clicked.

Kolarik stands at 5'10, 190 pounds compared to the 6'3, 200-pound Fried. Fried casts a perfect Southern golden boy look with close cropped, blonde hair whereas Kolarik's black mane flows all over the place. Fried hails from Georgia, the son of a doctor (and the co-owner of the Macon Whoopee of the East Coast Hockey League), and Kolarik was born into a blue-collar home in Pennsylvania.

The list goes on and on, but ask Fried the central difference between the pair and he'll answer:

"Tyler is a lot messier than I am."

Regardless of personal idiosyncrasies, this was a partnership many years in the making. The pair actually met before high school, playing on a select team for 13 and 14-year olds in Philadelphia. They didn't know that the other one was going to the same high school until they were reacquainted on campus.

"I had played with Robbie over the summer," Kolarik says. "That was nice. Our relationship evolved at Deerfield when we both had mutual friends and started to hang out. It just all came together."

If the two did share anything, it was hockey and that was enough.

"We both had the same goals, playing college hockey and pro hockey," Fried says. "We did all of our off-ice training together and spent a few summers together. During that time we became real close, enduring stressful situations and pushed each other harder and harder to achieve."