“Huge.” That is the only word Harvard men’s hockey coach Ted Donato ’91 could use to describe the importance of this weekend’s road games. Given its competition, “difficult” may also be appropriate.

The planets have aligned, and the four top-ranked teams of the ECAC—travel partners No. 6 Cornell and Colgate and partners Harvard and Dartmouth—will gather in a shootout that will have postseason implications. The Crimson will face the Raiders in Hamilton, N.Y. tonight, while the Big Green takes on the Big Red in Ithaca. Tomorrow, Harvard and Dartmouth will swap locations.

“You’ve got the top four teams playing head-to-head,” Donato said, adding, “rivalry games are never void of energy or passion.”

Only two weeks of regular-season play remain, and Harvard is currently tied for fourth in the league with St. Lawrence with 21 points. Cornell leads the league with 25, and Colgate and Dartmouth are knotted in second place with 24.

Come March, the top four seeds earn coveted first-round byes, so this weekend’s games could prove crucial.

While the Crimson (14-9-2, 10-7-1) and the Big Green (13-10-2, 11-5-2) butt heads with their upstate New York rivals, the Saints host Yale and Brown, both bottom-tier teams that have combined for one win in the last three weeks.

Any unanswered victory for St. Lawrence will put the squad in strong position to defend an outright fourth seed when it arrives in Cambridge next week.

Last time Harvard met Cornell—in Cambridge, on Nov. 11—the Big Red staged a devastating third-period comeback.

Although the Crimson split the weekend with a 6-4 win over the Raiders the following night, this weekend’s contests will not take place on the friendly ice of Harvard’s Bright Hockey Center.

Instead, the Crimson traveled 300 miles west yesterday to Colgate’s unwelcoming Starr Rink, and tomorrow night it will enter Cornell’s infamously hostile Lynah Rink, which has boasted 77 consecutive sellouts. The fact that the game coincides with the Big Red’s senior night celebration will only further electrify the crowd.

The game will be nationally broadcast by CSTV, but it remains to be seen whether the traditional fish toss at Harvard—for which fans are subject to ejection and Cornell possibly penalized—can be curbed.

Laughed Donato, “I don’t think there are any good scenarios when you go to Cornell.”

And there is a lot to motivate the Big Red (16-5-4, 11-4-3). With a win and a tie this weekend, Cornell will clinch the first-round bye. Though Harvard is riding three wins in its last four contests—all of which saw the Crimson take more than 40 shots on goal—the Big Red has only lost two of its last 18 games. Since the beginning of 2000-2001 season, Cornell has lost just once when leading after 40 minutes—however, the Big Red has mounted only three third-frame comebacks, including this November’s in the Bright Center.

Colgate (15-9-6, 11-5-2), meanwhile, hopes to break a current four-game winless streak, though the Harvard goalie it will try to solve tonight has not yet been named.

John Daigneau, who has been the Crimson’s starter for the majority of the season, didn’t play in Monday’s Beanpot consolation win because he was “a little banged up,” Donato said, and because backup Justin Tobe had played well in practice. Tobe earned the 5-0 win in TD Banknorth Garden.

“I’ll probably just hold my cards close to my vest on that one,” Donato said when asked who would start tonight.

Donato also mentioned that sophomore forward Mike Taylor, out with a knee injury, is “day to day.”

The Crimson meets the Raiders tonight at 7 and the Big Red tomorrow at 5:30pm.