It was a frustrating game to watch, both from the press box and from the bench. And while ECAC rules about commenting on officiating may have held Mazz’s tongue on that subject, the coach was less than shy about his team’s play, the quality win over UMass notwithstanding.

For the whole of last season, the Crimson went 1-5-1 against opponents outside the ECAC, and that lone victory—a 4-1 win over Northeastern in the Beanpot Consolation game—can hardly be counted as a ‘big’ win. This season, Harvard stands at 2-1 in non-conference play, and those two wins came against nationally-ranked Hockey East opponents.

That being said, this season has not begun as expected. Less than halfway through the season, the team stands at 6-5-1, and its record of 4-4-1 in conference play places Harvard tied with Dartmouth for fourth place.

“We haven’t gotten to where we should be this year,” Mazzoleni said after Saturday’s win.

“We’re not that talented,” he added. “I don’t know where the perception [comes from] that we’re talented. We have 12 kids that are drafted—a lot of them are drafted on size and potential.”

There is a certain degree of validity to Mazzoleni’s words. Harvard certainly was highly touted coming into the season; picked in both the coaches’ and the writers’ polls to win the ECAC and ranked in the preseason top 10, the team has not come close to fulfilling its (probably too great) expectations.

“[The team] has to take hold of this thing and understand what we can be if we decide we want to play and lay it on the line,” Mazzoleni said.

Saturday night against UMass was such a game, as Harvard came out strong in the first, firing as many shots—18—in the first period against the Minutemen as it did the entire game against Boston College.

“I thought we outworked them,” Mazzoleni said. “There wasn’t one guy out there that didn’t play hard, and we haven’t had that the whole damn year.”

“We’ve got to play with a lot of jam, and if we don’t bring jam, we’re a .500 team at best,” he added. “That’s the bottom line. If we bring jam, we can play with anyone—and probably beat anyone, too.”

Asked what he expected from his team during tomorrow’s game against Princeton in the post-game press conference, Mazzoleni turned the question around on this reporter.

Mazz: “What do you expect? I mean, you tell me. You cover us. What do you expect?”

This reporter, in a much lower voice: “I don’t know.”

Mazz, not really stopping to listen to my answer: “You don’t know, do you? Honest to God, you don’t know; I don’t know, I’m saying I should know, I don’t know.”

Pause.