Last week, #6 Boston University crushed the #42 Harvard Men’s Hockey team 7-1 in the first round of the Beanpot. On Monday, BU became this year’s tournament champions. It was an embarrassing performance by Harvard—no way to sugarcoat it. Walking into TD Garden Monday night, I expected a similarly catastrophic result against defending Beanpot Champion, #32 Northeastern, for the consolation match. Instead, I, and everyone in the media room, were fist-pumping and cheering when the final horn rang. Harvard had won.
Things were looking dicey in the first period. Northeastern took the lead quickly thanks to an early goal, and it seemed like we were in for yet another brutal showing. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result; this night threatened to leave every Harvard fan questioning their sanity. To their credit, Harvard never lost faith. A power play goal from Mick Thompson ’28 equalized the contest late in the first period. This was the first of four power play goals for Harvard last Monday. After his goal Monday night, Thompson has eight goals and nine assists in 23 appearances this season, a promising start for hopefully a stellar Harvard career.
After that, it was all Crimson. Six ridiculous penalties from the Huskies led to three power-play goals, including two absolute lasers from Mason Langenbrunner ’26. This is Langenbrunner’s best season with no signs of slowing down; he only recorded one point in 34 games his freshman year and five points in 32 games his sophomore year. So far in the 2024-2025 season, Langenbrunner has five goals and three assists in 23 games. As a New Yorker, I hate that he’s going to the Bruins, but we should all be proud to see a Crimson player take this kind of jump.
When I say that these penalties from Northeastern were ridiculous, I don’t mean they were bad calls by the referees. They were 100% the right calls. It is ridiculous that a college team would, at best, play this undisciplined and, at worst, this blatantly vicious. I love that hockey is a physical sport—as a Rangers fan, I got to watch Jacob Trouba demolish people for four years and cheered every time. That’s the NHL, though. There is no excuse for cross-checking to the face in the NCAA.
Northeastern was hooking and tripping players so aggressively that they were crashing into their own goalie. Firing the puck blindly and hitting the head of a linesman, while an accident, should never happen. There are a lot of conversations in the hockey world around tightening the game up and making it safer; this could range from implementing mandatory wrist and neck guards to full-face shields instead of cages and more. An easy way to help that process is for players to hold themselves accountable, walking the line between tough and reckless.
Harvard’s victory would not have been possible without Joe Miller ’26 and Michael Callow ’27, who each recorded two assists each in the game. They each assisted on a different set of goals, so the two of them contributed to 100% of the team’s offense. Undeniably, Miller had a standout performance; he was on the ice for at least three of Harvard’s goals as part of the power play unit.
The defense deserves their flowers as well. Harvard had a particularly impressive penalty kill that nullified all three of Northeastern’s power plays throughout the game; Harvard held them to just four shots with the man advantage. In total, goaltender Ben Charette ’28 faced 26 shots, the fourth lowest of the season. I would’ve liked to have seen a bit more blocking from Harvard, but it was certainly better than last week’s performance.
Ultimately, that is the story of this game. Harvard had negligible 5-on-5 play but were bailed out by a killer power play and an undisciplined Northeastern team. Had they been a little more tempered, this might have turned out differently. Harvard will need to improve their 5-on-5 offense as they enter into playoff territory, but for now, everyone on the ice should feel good about how the tournament wrapped up. This year’s Beanpot showed how to lose a hockey game, and how to win one. Let’s hope Harvard takes lessons from both, and we see a lot more games played like Monday night.Jordan Wasserberger ’27 (jwasserberger@college.harvard.edu) doesn’t want to go to any more consolation games for the rest of his time at Harvard.