Lannon may look for Reese on a breakout pass, but he can also look to Reese for muscle in the defensive zone.

“He more than holds his own,” Lannon says.

And with this year’s success—on both ends of the ice—has come an increasingly visible leadership role for Reese, who admits that he “would love to be the captain of Harvard hockey sometime.”

Crimson coach Ted Donato ’91 says that Reese plays “with a little boy’s enthusiasm, and he plays with a willingness to go into the lion’s den a little bit,” adding, “that’s a characteristic most great players have.”

It’s a characteristic equally evident in Welch, who established himself as a future captain early in his Harvard career.

The two are travel partners, roommates on the road, and Reese says that “it’s strange, the little things that we do the same, and how we get along.”

“I’ve just learned so much from him in two years,” Reese says. “He’s a guy that’s been through it, and he’s an unbelievable player—probably the best defenseman in the country.

“It’s good to have a guy like that that you can kind of mimic.”

On and off the ice.

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