Melrose served notice early in his farewell performance that the Bright crowd's pre-game standing ovation hadn't softened him up, cross-checking a Bruin forward who ventured near netminder Allain Roy.

With Melrose incarcerated for two minutes, Brown took the lead on a Joey Beck tap-in. But midway through the close-checking period, freshman forward Steve Flomenhoft flipped a backhander past Brown goalie Chris Harvey for the first of his three goals. Seconds later, Harvard defenseman Brian Popiel, who had tallied his first collegiate goal against Yale, received a Flomenhoft pass and sliced a slapshot over Harvey's shoulder to double his total.

The score was 2-1 at the end of one, but once again, the dam burst in the second period. This time, the Crimson scored seven times to bury the Bruins. Young scored the first two goals before Harvey left the fray with a concussion, the result of a run-in with Weisbrod. Ciavaglia then greeted Harvey's replacement, Dan Quinn, with a quick pair of goals Eventually, Weisbrod's power-play goal with seven seconds left in the period gave the Crimson a 9-3 advantage.

Melrose exited college hockey the same way he entered it--with fists flying. In the third period, he stuffed Quinn into the Bruin cage, instigating one melee. He body-slammed a linesman, who pushed him away when he tried to apologize. And on his last collegiate shift, Melrose battled a trio of Bruins before the striped shirts pulled him off the ice for the last time.

"Cleary should have kept Melrose off the ice at the end," Gaudet said. "The game got out of hand, and there's no reason that has to happen in college hockey. There was only one reason he was out there."

"Melrose was on the ice for one reason," Cleary said, "to get a goal There's nothing wrong with that."

Or anything else last weekend.