Hockey at Dartmouth

The Editor, Dartmouth ALUMNI MAGAZINE, Dear Sir:

Among other things, Dartmouth College has been noted for its outdoor activities, and particularly, in this field, for its winter sports. The Winter Carnival held each year at Dartmouth is without a rival, unsurpassed in winter sports, unparalleled in its enjoyment of nature's outdoors. Ski-jumpers of the first intercollegiate order are to found on its program, America's premier speed skaters whiz by thousands of nature's devotees, tobogganing and pung rides are free for the asking. Dartmouth's hockey team is to .be found among the clubs which finish at the top.

The crime of the matter is that Dartmouth's hockey club does not finish at the top every year. With such advantages as Hanover offers to its hockey players, Dartmouth College is forced to be satisfied with a place near the top, not at the peak. Why not be satisfied with such a finish, you may well ask. However, why be satisfied with anything when something better is to be had ? Dartmouth is happy to be ranked among the first in intercollegiate hockey, but disappointed to realize that with adequate facilities it could have ended on the roof rather than in the eaves; Dartmouth has nearly everything that a college could wish for which believes in educating a man's physical self as well as his mental. The Alumni Gymnasium is one of the largest and most efficiently equipped gyms in the college world. Her athletic fields are perfect in every detail, the gridiron and diamoifd challenges the gridirons and diamonds of any educational institution. The view of the athletic fields at Dartmouth from the rear windows of the gym is sufficient stimulus for a man to don a track suit and feel the thrill of youth again. Some thirty tennis courts flank the gymnasium on either side, and the eighteen-hole golf club is a beautiful but difficult 72. Dartmouth's major sport teams are never found at the tail of the race, and her minor sport teams are worthy of the Big Green. Each athletic team is coached by the best of athletic instructors, equipped by tlhe foremost sporting goods houses, cared for by the most efficient trainers, and followed by a spirit known for its deeprooted sincerity all over the world.

To subject a hockey team to such unfavorable conditions as the present Dartmouth team has to labor under, is a blot on the Green's athletic policy of giving its teams adequate preparation. Winter with its snow1 and ice strikes Hanover about as soon as it arrives at any college town. The hockey team gets the jump on its rivals for ice honors with a two weeks' start. The team practices on Faculty pond, a short distance beyond the center of the town under the protection of Occom Ridge. A few days after taking the ice, snow arrives. The hockey manager calls out his squad of assistants and with brooms, shovels, and improvised plows after an hour of work a space is cleared off for practice. During the practice it snows again and the coach calls it a day, while Princeton, Harvard, and .Yale, Dartmouth's principal rivals for the hockey crown, continue to work under the protection of a covered rink on artificial ice. So Dartmouth's alumni and friends of the college attend the games at the Arena in Boston during the Christmas recess and see the Green go down in an ironical defeat.

If it was for want of good hockey players that Dartmouth suffered defeat, the argument for an adequate rink might be ignored with justification. Nobody would say that Red Hall, Dave Perry, Frank S'heehy, Ted Learnard, Doug Everett, Johnnie Manser, Sew Mills, Sykes Hardy, Myles Lane, Cuddy Gardner, and Honie Westhaver were such mediocre hockey players. Red Hall has gone with the Minneapolis Club, Frank Sheehy and Dave Perry are playing with Boston hockey clubs, and are no longer available for Dartmouth, However, Johnnie Manser, ex-Melrose High star and one of the headiest of present-day college hockey men, Captain Doug Everett of the present Dartmouth hockey team, one of the fastest and cleverest of hockey stars, Sew Mills, aggressive defence man, Bill Fryberger, Duluth boy who played a great game against McGill during the holidays, and Sykes Hardy, Arlington boy and running mate of Mills at defense, all are at present with the Dartmouth varsity team. Myles Lane, Cuddy Gardner, and Honie Westhaver are all exMelrose High stars and members of the freshman class at Dartmouth waiting for a chance to give the varsity men a rub for their positions. Clever, fast, heady hockey players who will be forced to wait until the snow can be swept from the ice to practice, who will probably taste a humiliating defeat next year, and who will have to accept a place among the also-rans. It seems strange that with everything in favor of an excellent team, favorable climate, good men, and coaches like Leon Tuck and Harry Denisha, Dartmouth should not finish the hockey season consistently on the top.

If you happen to get up to the Winter Carnival this year drop around at the Yale-Dartmouth hockey game and give the rink the now and then. The ice is rough on the wings and it would take another Hobey Baker to cage the puck from either side. The boards look like old men with canes bent and tired of functioning. The ice is frozen naturally,, which fact is not one the team worries over believing that natural ice is faster than manufactured ice. Nevertheless, the rink is open to the ravages of nature and snow storms have spoiled many games at Hanover. With a covered rink without artificial ice Dartmouth's chances of ending the year at the top would be increased SO percent. Artificial ice would be the ideal panacea, but a covered rink with natural ice would be cheaper and adequate enough. However, with neither, the situation is pathetic.

The Campus Skating Rink