Patience.

Oliver Jonas epitomizes that sentiment.

For the past three years, the senior goaltender has served as the official goaltending understudy to one of the better goaltenders in program history, J.R. Prestifilippo '00, last year's Ivy League Player of the Year. Now, Jonas finally gets his chance to emerge from "Presto's" shadow.

If past performance is any indication, Jonas is ready. In his limited action, Jonas has often performed on par and, at times, above the standards set by his predecessor. He sparkled in the Crimson's playoff run two years ago, delivering brilliant performances against offensive juggernaut RPI. In that same year, Jonas finished with better stats than Prestifilippo, securing a 3.22 GAA versus J.R.'s 3.56 GAA.

"There's a lot of things you can learn from watching a great goalie and from working together with one," Jonas says. "I think I learned a lot in the past three years just from watching [Prestifilippo] play."

If one had to design a goaltender to play for just one season, Jonas would provide the perfect model.

Born in Germany, Jonas's entry into hockey happened at a young age.

"My uncle was a pro hockey player at the time and he was the one who got me started [in the sport]," Jonas says. His uncle, Helmut de Raaf, starred on three German Olympic hockey teams.