Lynah it isn’t, but the Bright Hockey Center is scary nonetheless.

Even when there is an official sellout, and the attendance reads the rink’s legal capacity of 2,776, there are plenty of red seats that remain glaringly empty.

Yet the Crimson is now 11-1-0 at home this season, and the lone loss came at the hands of then-No. 13 Colgate after 15 days of Christmas break.

“We wanted to establish, as a team, this being a tough place to play,” said Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91.

A .917 win percentage in Bright will do just that, as will four victories over top-15 squads. As will the 41-18 margin by which the Crimson has outscored its visiting opponents.

Fans or no fans, Harvard has managed to turn its home ice into one of the more hostile environments for traveling teams.

“It can get away from you in here,” St. Lawrence coach Joe Marsh admitted after Harvard dropped his team 5-2. “I’ve been in here where it really can get away from you, and you just want to go out and wait in the parking lot.”

Of course, Marsh was referencing previous years—ones which didn’t always see such a barren Bright.

Marsh has coached the Saints since 1985, and Harvard won a national championship in 1989. The late 1990s, however, saw no such success.

“Some of [the emptiness] has to do with the way the program has struggled lately, in recent years,” assistant captain Tom Cavanagh said. “I’ve heard from other people that when [the Crimson] was really good, the Bright Center did sell out all the time.”

Well, now Harvard is 11-1 at the Bright, with one more regular season game and then a home playoff series on the horizon.

“Having a lot of people there gives everyone a little extra boost,” Cavanagh said. “If you’re a little tired and you have the crowd roaring, it gives you that little extra energy that you need.”

TAKING SHOTS

For the first time since an 8-1 blowout victory over Union on Feb. 1, Harvard managed both to outshoot its opponent and come away with the win.

The Crimson fired an impressive 42 shots on goal against St. Lawrence and 42 against Clarkson, the highest totals for Harvard since the Crimson’s 47-shot performance in a 3-1 November win over Yale.