The No. 3 Harvard women's hockey team travels to Minnesota this weekend to take place in the inaugural Frozen Four NCAA Championship.

The Crimson (23-9-0, 20-4-0 ECAC) will face steep competition. Harvard starts its weekend against No. 2 Minnesota-Duluth Friday night at the University of Minnesota's spacious new 10,000 seat Mariucci Arena.

The Bulldogs (26-5-4, 15-5-4 WCHA) are the only representative of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association in the Frozen Four.

Led by a strong core of sophomores, the Bulldogs were able to win the WCHA tournament last weekend with a 3-0 shutout of Ohio State. Duluth have been very hot as of late, losing only once since December.

In only their second year as a Division I program, the Bulldogs have accomplished great feats thanks to their core of excellent second-year players.

The team's top scorers are sophomores Hannie Sikio, who is second in the WCHA in points, and Maria Rooth, who took home MVP honoirs in the WCHA tournamnet, scoring 6 goals in 3 games.

Meanwhile, sophomore goaltender Tuula Puputti--who played in the 1998 Olympics for Team Finland--has been among the best goalies in the WCHA this year, posting a .894 saves percentage and giving up just 2.37 goals per game.

In two meetings just before winter break this year, Harvard fell to Duluth in Minnesota by scores of 4-3 and 5-2.