On top of the inherently nerve-racking nature of playoff hockey, where wayward puck bounces end careers, this Crimson team remained unfazed and unwavering in confronting its demons.

As the No. 6 seed, Harvard was not the favorite on paper. But the locker room reached a different conclusion. “We had this quiet confidence,” Welch said.

Maybe that was why, as crazed as the celebration scene was—gloves, sticks and helmets littering the Harvard zone like a yard sale—you knew these guys had done this all before. The veterans’ demeanor conveyed a realization that they won’t have many more chances in life to hug their best buddies and roommates with the knowledge that they just did something an entire university can take pride in.

They say, ‘It takes one to know one.’ That’s true of champions, too. And these guys, an experienced, battle-tested bunch, celebrated like they knew they had done something special, from the disappointing season-opener against Brown to Saturday’s title-clincher.

“I wouldn’t change a thing, even though we underachieved,” Welch said. “What we went through, the way we rose above it, we’re better men for it.”

Stories like these are what keep us coming back to sports, at Harvard or anywhere else. Not to mention the fact that these are our peers. Guys we see in classes. Guys we see at parties. Guys who like to hang out at the Kong.

But they did something on Saturday that 6,489 people—including several dozen Harvard students—paid to watch. They made memories for a lot of people, themselves included, and did so not because they put their struggles behind them, but because they embraced them—every injury, every loss, every miscue—as part of the their identity.

As Tyler Kolarik recalled afterward, in the words of his best friend, fellow senior forward Rob Fried: “It’s about the process.” This year’s “process” wasn’t always easy—not for Mazzoleni, not for Smith, not for Fried or Kolarik or anyone else. But now, as Welch pointed out, they’re all “better men for it.”

Not everything went according to plan this season for the Harvard men’s hockey team. Not by a long shot. Then again, things didn’t exactly go according to plan before Kenny Smith saw the puck on his stick late Saturday night.

But that didn’t turn out too badly now, did it?

—Staff writer Jon Paul Morosi can be reachd at morosi@fas.harvard.edu.