In other words, that makes them both talented and experienced.

Now, how many Princeton players have NCAA Tournament experience?

Zero.

And how many Princeton players have been drafted by NHL teams?

One.

On paper, this was a greater mismatch than South Bend Central facing Hickory High, with no Jimmy Chitwood in sight.

Wait. There are those two words again: On paper.

On paper, Harvard should be 5-0 right now. On paper, Harvard should be going for a third straight ECAC championship this year. On paper, this year’s senior class should have a Beanpot or two.

One could reasonably argue that the best team in the country—on paper, of course—is playing right on our campus...and it has yet to rise above the .500 mark this season.

On paper, on paper, on paper.

When is this team finally going to show that it’s sick of hearing those words? As soon as it can beat Cornell, Boston University and other NCAA Tournament teams—something it didn’t do all last year.

But that becomes awfully hard to do when you can’t beat Brown and Princeton.

Despite the fact that there were six students—yes, I counted them—in Section 11 during the national anthem, this campus does have an interest in hockey. After Friday’s game, people asked me, “What’s wrong with the hockey team?”

I didn’t have an answer for them. I don’t have one for you, either. I don’t have a stall in that dressing room that oozes with brains, character and millions of dollars in NHL potential. I am not one of their coaches, either.

All I have to offer are my eyes and my memory, which have seen a lot of Harvard hockey during the past four years. And judging from that, this team, right now, is not close to the team it was at the end of last season—or the beginning of last season, for that matter, when it began 4-1-0.