The scenarios are exactly the same every night, frozen nightmares that thaw out at the thought of the Harvard icemen in the NCAA tournament:

It is March 19, 1971. A rocking crowd in the Onondaga County War Memorial jumps to its feet as the Crimson's Cooch Owen with mercurial strides outraces the Minnesota defense to a loose puck along the boards. Owen shoots and beats Golden Gopher goalie Dennis Erickson. Midway through the third period of the NCAA championship semifinals, Harvard leads 5-4.

But alas, the dream does not end there. The Gophers, who fought back from a 1-1 deficit, weren't about to let-up. With Minnesota's All-American Wally Olds off for hooking at 17:56, Harvard seemingly stops skating. The nightmare begins.

As a mist-shrouded clock shows a mere 9 seconds remaining in the Minnesota penalty, suddenly, visions of a ghostly gopher--freshman John Matchsky--appear. The puck comes out from behind the Crimson net, on to Matchsky's stick, and quickly disappears behind Harvard's netminder Bruce Curno to tie the game with just 11 seconds left.

I awake from an uneasy sleep as Minnesota's unknown Ron Peltier (with five goals to his credit all season) lies sprawled on his stomach at 1:45 of overtime, frantically waving his stick along the ice in front of Durno and sweeping the black disc into the far recesses of the net...

Sleep overtakes once again, but the nightmares begin anew. This time the scene is the hot, steamy, grimy, grotto of Boston Garden. The date is March 15, 1974 and the images are horribly clear and familiar.

It is the final period of the NCAA championships and the Crimson icemen hold a comfortable 5-3 lead over a favored Michigan Tech squad. But the all-too sweet dream is soon shattered by a pair of slumbering slappers. The puck takes a seemingly endless time to reach the Crimson goal as it travels from the stick blades of Tech's Lorne Stamler and then Steve Jensen. A bewildered Jim Murray looks behind him and suddenly it's 5-5.

I awake in a cold sweat as the icy-blue figure of Bill Steele flips the puck past Murray 31 seconds into overtime while a small band of brown-and-yellow-overalled gnomes, with funny caps, play The Copper Country national anthem...

The crystal Rock keeps on rolling. It predicted five out of seven ECAC tournament winners (refraining from hazarding a guess at the outcome of the consolation round) and now moves on to the dangerous job of trying to foresee the future of the NCAA tourney semifinals this evening:

BOSTON UNIVERSITY MICHIGAN TECH--The Terriers are good, there's no doubt about-it. But if the Huskies' weirdo goaltender Jim Warden has the hot glove, B.U. will be in trouble. Tech 5, B.U. 3 (with the Huskies scoring into the empty net).

HARVARD MINNESOTA--The nightmares have gone on long enough. It's about time the Crimson get a break in the nationals and make it to the finals for the first time in six appearances since 1955. And Harvard should be spared the agony of playing the Terriers in the consolation round. This one will be an upset with the Crimson squad taking a 6-5 victory over Minnesota in over-time.