Not that Harvard escapes the whistles. In last weekend’s 2-2 tie with Brown, the Crimson accrued 13 minor infractions, four of which were Welch’s and one of which was taken by the Bears as a penalty shot.

“I thought it got a little ridiculous,” freshman Dave Watters said. “What I really didn’t like about it was that they were letting the major stuff go and then calling all the little insignificant stuff. It just kind of took a lot of flow away from the game.

“Hopefully they’ll let us play Friday night,” Welch said, “because that’s what the fans want to see.”

Though all eyes will be on the Crimson-Cornell contest tonight, tomorrow’s matchup with Colgate—last year’s ECAC regular season champion—should not be overlooked.

“If anything,” Welch said, “they’re just as big of a game. It just happens that we play Cornell first. If we played Colgate [on] Friday night, we wouldn’t even be talking about Cornell now.

“As soon as the [Cornell] game ends, our focus is on Colgate,” he added.

Old Raider coach Don Vaughn will return to Colgate, which won last year’s regular season ECAC title with a less than overwhelming campaign.

The Raiders’ netminder Steve Silverthorn—who was 18-9-4 last season with a 1.82 goals against average and a .927 save percentage—will challenge a Harvard offense that has yet to finish its plays with consistent authority.

The Crimson showed improvement in a US Under-18 exhibition and managed a 3-for-7 power play, though Donato noted, “I don’t think, by any means, we are where we want to be.”

Improvement is improvement, nonetheless, and this weekend provides the perfect opportunity to put all those practices to the test.

“I don’t want to go as far as [to say] I expect to win this weekend,” Welch said, “[but] as far as our team goes, beating Cornell and Colgate on the road—the two top teams in our league—will put us in really good position.”

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Seesel can be reached at seesel@fas.harvard.edu.