And therein lies the other key moment, and the other example of Harvard’s dogged determination. You have to set the scene: Harvard players streaming off the bench, Danis starting to skate out of his net and towards the Brown bench, Bears’ players left and right looking around dejectedly. But no red light and no whistle, at least until Hansen decided he should make a call. After a quick conference with the linesmen, the Crimson players were sent back to the bench and play was resumed, with the score still knotted at 2-2.

It would have been easy, perhaps, to come up with excuses. The Crimson had none. All it had was a reinvigorated effort that soon led to the overtime winner off the stick of junior Tom Cavanagh.

“I thought it was in—just give credit to our guys, no one quit,” Kolarik said. “We could have easily hung it up…but we just kept going. I think everyone just sensed we were going to win that game.”

There’s that cocksure swagger.

I certainly didn’t sense it, not really. I was nervous, nervous that Danis would stonewall the Crimson and force a Game 3, nervous that the call—it was the wrong one, by all accounts—would take the wind out of Harvard’s sails.

It didn’t.

It reinvigorated them and sent them, dogged determination and cocksure swagger intact, onto Albany and a chance for another run through the ECAC playoffs.

—Staff writer Timothy M. McDonald can be reached at tmcdonal@fas.harvard.edu.