Hockey and Skiing Lead the Dartmouth Winter Sports Parade as Basketball and Track Run into Difficulty
OPERATING UPON the sound principle, currently being demonstrated by General Patton on the Bastogne Bulge, that a brisk attack is a sound defense, the Dartmouth hockey team started the season in auspicious fashion by overwhelming Yale, 13-8, on January 6 in the New Haven Arena. In pouring 13 tallies into the nets while sustaining only 8 adverse counts themselves, the Big Green went through its 42nd consecutive contest without a defeat, a record unmatched in college hockey—or in many other college sports, for that matter. The score also indicated that, at this stage in the season and with only eight practice sessions on the ice, the team had offensive strength to burn, but was still not unduly polished on the defense. This discrepancy, incidentally, was remedied the next week against Army, of which more anon.
The scoring for the Yale encounter was led by Bruce Cunliffe, with four goals to his credit, closely followed by Bruce Mather with three goals and a similar number of assists. The general all-around alents of the latter made him the outstanding man on the ice for the evening and his loss the following week to the armed forces was a body blow to Coach Arthur. Charlie Holt shared second scoring honors with Mather with three goals, while Paul McGuinnis and Paul Warburton hit the nets for a pair and a single respectively. (A hurried recount indicates that all 13 points have been accounted for, which leaves us much relieved). The Indian pressure was increasingly heavy throughout the contest, with five points pushed over in the final period, which landslide provided the winning margin. In spite of the admitted defensive weakness, it was a most gratifying inauguration of what, with largely untried performers, looked originally like a somewhat uninspiring season.
This pleasant experience was repeated the following Saturday when Dartmouth defeated a big, experienced, and aggressive Army team by the decisive margin of 5-1. Handicapped by the induction of Bruce Mather the day before the game, Coach "Hafey" Arthur was forced to do some fast shifting of personnel to fill the gap left by his stellar operative. His first line was composed of Acting Captain Holt at center, McCaleb at right wing, and McGuinnis at left wing. Al McAllister opened at right defense and Betts at left, with Manny Benero in the nets. This defense trio played the entire game and Coach Arthur was loud in his praises of their sterling work in holding a rugged Army team to a single tally. The two defense men, it seems, are both 17-year-olds who have never played college hockey before. On this occasion, however, they performed with skill and dash throughout a grueling contest.
The scoring was done by Charlie Holt, with one goal; McCaleb with two, and Warburton and Cunliffe of the second line with one apiece. The presence of Mather, whom Coach Arthur characterized with slight but pardonable overstatement as "a six-goal man in almost any game," would very probably have further swelled the point total, although it could hardly have restricted the Army scoring on the other side of the ledger. Without gainsaying the fact that at least a minimum of tallying is necessary to win any game, the glory for this encounter went, in considerable measure, to the youthful defense men, who were in there when the going was toughest and roughest against an older and more experienced aggregation. We may or may not be able to give you a flash on the results of the Cornell game, which is scheduled for January 20, when this column has sedately gone to press. But at this writing, the boys on skates are doing very well, thank you.
Editor's Note: Dartmouth ran its streakto 44 games by taking Cornell, 10-I, atIthaca.