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

In Harvard's ECAC quaterfinal against Providence on Saturday, the Crimson dominated the overtime, not allowing a single shot on goal. The Friars iced the puck nearly every time they gained possession.

In the end, the Friars failed to handle Harvard's constant pressure on the net.

"What's really impressive about Harvard is how they have so much stamina, and how much Botterill and Shewchuk play," said Providence Coach Bob Deraney. "They just get better and better as the game goes along."

Deraney hoped the Crimson would wear down as it continued to rotate just two lines throughout the later part of the third period and the overtime, but it never happened.

"I kept thinking that they're going to get tired, but they didn't," said Deraney, who played three lines throughout the afternoon.

Stone has never been afraid to shorten up to two lines if necessary, knowing that her team is among the best-conditioned in the nation.

Despite having only nine forwards and five defensemen on its roster, the Crimson has four third-period, come-from-behind victories this season--two against Northeastern and one each against Cornell and Dartmouth.

"We keep drawing on that, knowing how hard we've worked off the ice," Stone said last month.

The End of a Rivalry?

Barring any future realignment, Harvard and Providence will never again meet as conference foes. It was announced in October that the ECAC Division I women's ice hockey league would be splitting into two separate leagues.

One league mirrors the men's ECAC, consisting of Harvard, Dartmouth, Brown, St. Lawrence, Princeton, Yale, Cornell and newcomers Colgate and Vermont. The other league will be composed of Northeastern, New Hampshire, Providence, Niagara, Maine, Boston College and new members UConn and Quinnipiac. The two leagues have yet to be officially named.

Deraney would love to keep Harvard on his schedule, even though his team will now be playing its conference opponents three times per season.

"I think it's a great rivalry, and I hope it continues with the separation of the leagues next year," Deraney said. "I hope that Katey [Stone] wants to continue the rivalry because it's one of the best in college hockey."

Harvard went 0-1-1 against Providence last season, as the Friars were the only ECAC team, other than Dartmouth, that the Crimson failed to defeat. Harvard was 3-0 against the Friars this season.

According to Shewchuk, many of Harvard's players would prefer not to play Providence--a team whose physical style of play has been a source of frustration.

"I think any one of us on our team would rather play against a team with a lot of good skills rather than a lot of big goons," Shewchuk said. "It's a very good program, though, and I think if they relied a little bit more on their skills and a little less on their toughness, I think they'd go a little bit farther even."