Until this weekend, it looked as if the four berths to the first-ever NCAA women's hockey tournament would be handed to No. 1 Dartmouth, No. 2 Minnesota-Duluth, No. 3 Minnesota, and the winner of a potential ECAC semifinal between No. 4 Harvard and No. 5 St. Lawrence.

But Minnesota may have played itself out of a certain NCAA berth with a dismal fourth-place finish in the WCHA tournament this weekend. The struggling Gophers are now 0-3-1 in March and 3-5-1 in their last nine games. That could leave just enough room for both Harvard and St. Lawrence to make the four-team NCAA tournament.

Minnesota is the defending national champion, the WCHA regular season champion, the national leader in attendance, the Women's Frozen Four host, and the team which the committee would have to select in order to ensure equal East-West representation. Women's hockey selection committees have been accused of allowing such factors to influence its decisions in past years.

If the NCAA makes its selection based on its stated criteria--ratings percentage index, head-to-head results, record vs. common opponents, records vs. teams at or above .500, and record in the last 16 games--then the Harvard-St. Lawrence loser should be chosen over Minnesota.

If the NCAA considers athlete availability in the selection process, Minnesota's tournament chances look even bleaker. The Gophers' three most notable wins of the season--two against Minnesota-Duluth and one against Harvard--all came during the week of the Four Nations Cup when its opposition was severely shorthanded due to national team commitments.

Despite these facts, both Harvard and St. Lawrence will look at Saturday's ECAC semifinal as a must-win. Neither team wants to leave its NCAA tournament fate to the subjectivity of the selection committee--especially Harvard, who lost to Dartmouth in last year's ECAC semifinals and was stunned by its subsequent tournament exclusion.

"We can't back ourselves into the tournament and we're not going to," said Harvard Coach Katey Stone last month. "To get to this thing we're going to have to play great hockey, we're not going to sit around and wait for someone else to make a decision or for someone to beat somebody else. We're going to take care of our own destiny."

Conditioned to Win