Hockey
The hockey team started off the season with a minimum of hopes. They surprised and pleased everybody concerned by their strong showing during the first half of the schedule. The pupils of Coach Jeremiah made up in hustle and aggressiveness what they lacked in high-level talent, and it looked for a while as though they would prove the surprise of the circuit. Then the team ran into an unprecedented series of injuries, which pretty effectively crippled it for the rest of the year. Perhaps the most devastating blow was the broken wrist suffered by the veteran Mike Choukas, who had been centering the second line and providing much of the punch and the generalship for this group. With his incapacitation, Coach Jeremiah had, in effect, only one line, with his additional forwards unable able to function smoothly as a scoring combination.
Serious eye injuries to Joe Scully and Billy Dow took both men out of combat briefly and undoubtedly hampered their efficiency in some of the later games. The most serious such mishap, however, was that suffered by Ted Haskell, who had been playing on the second and third lines. His eye was cut so badly that he was out for the rest of the year. The veteran defense man Bill Stout was also forced out for the year by a concussion, following upon a charley horse, and the team was thereby short-handed on the defense. Ace defense man John Grocott sprained his ankle.
As a result of these and other injuries, Coach Jeremiah was forced to go to unusual lengths to juggle his limited personnel. Captain Cliff Harrison was forced to double on defense, on the occasions when he was not centering the first line. Defense man John Brower was used on the second line when he was not playing at his customary spot. And so it went. Hockey is a contact sport and such things are always to be expected. But this year was out of the ordinary and the team suffered accordingly. Even in the great days of Dartmouth hockey, the team could not afford permanent injuries to key players. And there are, as has frequently been indicated, no Rileys in the house this year.
Dartmouth 5, Princeton 4—The week after Carnival, the boys looked as though they would continue to spreadeagle the League, when they won a close contest from Princeton on the home ice, scoring the winning goal with only a few minutes to play. At this stage in the season, the team was still playing with virtually full strength and they went to work to run up a 4-1 lead in the first two periods. Gene Teevens scored the first goal unassisted in the initial stanza, followed by Billy Dow on a pass from Cliff Harrison. Then Harrison came through with one on his own before the first period was ended. In the second period, John Brower made it 4-1, following a pass from Harrison again, before the Tigers could come to life. They did just that in the rest of the second period, and the teams went into the final period with the score tied 4-4. With only eight minutes to go, Billy Dow sent in the final and winning tally, after taking a pass from Harrison, who executed same from a prone position on the ice. Shortly after that, Dow received a bad cut in the eye, one of the series of injuries which were increasingly to hamper the team.
Brown 6, Dartmouth i—The last home game of the season was a wild-and-wooly affair with the League-leading Brown aggregation, wherein tempers flared, blows were exchanged, and 11 penalties were called altogether. This unhappy combination of circumstances was enlivened from the Dartmouth standpoint only by Billy Dow's goal, following a rebound of a shot by Hank Waters in the first period. Coach Jeremiah started a team of Captain Cliff Harrison centering the first line, with Hank Waters and Billy Dow on the wings. John Grocott and Howie Smith were at defense and Dick McMahon was in the nets. With Mike Choukas out of the second line, much of the punch and the finesse of this aggregation was gone, and the defense was equally short-handed. This was another example of the situation that unhappily marked the last half of the season.
Princeton 9, Dartmouth 3—The shattered forces of Coach Jeremiah suffered their fifth straight defeat, this time at the hands of a victorious Princeton team, playing on home ice. This reversal indicated a striking change in form from their previous winning encounter. With various operatives doubling up on offense and defense for the Green, the latter just did not have the manpower to withstand the attacks of the Princetons. The Orange and Black scored 5 goals in the first period, during which the Indians scored none at all. In the second period, Dartmouth came briefly to life, with Billy Dow scoring on a pass from Hank Waters, and with Princeton held scoreless. In the final period, however, the home forces rose up and poured four more goals through the net, with Dartmouth able to score only twice again. These ventures were made by Cliff Harrison, with an assist from Billy Dow, and Gene Teevens (who doubled on offense and defense along with Captain Harrison). The latter scored with assists from Hurley and Billy McFadden. That defeat brought the record for the season to eight wins, nine losses, and one tie, with one more to go.
Dartmouth 4, Brown 3—The injury-ridden cohorts of Coach Jeremiah ended their regular season (see below) in a blaze of glory by doing the seemingly impossible and beating the League-leading Brown aggregation by the narrow margin of a single goal. This feat was accomplished in Providence and bore out the prophecy made at the beginning of the season that, if nothing else, this team would be a fighting one. One of the chief architects of this heady triumph was goalie Dick McMahon, who made no less than 50 saves during the evening, as compared to a mere 18 for his Brown counterpart.
The first tally for Dartmouth was made by Pete Stien, moved up to the second line, who scored in the first period on a pass from Whitey Dunlap. Hank Waters also scored in this period, with an assist by Harrison. In the second period, Harrison scored his final goal for Dartmouth in the regular season, with Hank Waters obliging in this case. The final period saw the teams all tied up and both making desperate efforts to score. Whitey Dunlap turned in the deciding tally, with only a little over a minute to go. This was a pleasant way to conclude the scheduled contests for a season which has been marked by unprecedented injuries and equally impressive combative skill.
Alumni 8, Varsity 5—In a gaudy event that is rapidly becoming traditional at the end of the season, a star-studded alumni aggregation of former Dartmouth greats defeated what was left of the 1950-51 varsity by the score of 8-5 on March 10. The Alumni presented what was undoubtedly the greatest array of former college hockey talent ever seen on this or any other rink at the same time. Starting an all-Riley line, with brothers Jack, Bill, and Joe in one group, the oldtimers were able to field a "second" line composed of such immortals as Bill Harrison, Arnie Oss, and Dannie Sullivan (now somewhat portly), plus such younger luminaries as Charlie Holt, Walt Crowley, Tom Warner, and Paul Guibord Starting at defense for the Alumni was a doddering old gaffer named Jeremiah, who showed the boys how the man who wrote the book does things on both offense and defense. The rest of the defense comprised such rock-and-sock operatives as George Pulliam (The Cranston Crusher), Soupy Campbell, Stan Priddy, John Krol, Mike Thayer, and Bob Gray. Bruce Magoon was in the nets for this dazzling array of offensive and defensive titans who, collectively, had brought glory to Dartmouth on the ice over the past two decades.
To get around to the game, the Varsity scored first, with Hank Waters taking a pass from Cliff Harrison and getting it past goalie Bruce Magoon. Harrison made it 20 in favor of the youngsters, in this his final game for Dartmouth, by scoring unassisted in the first period. The All-Stars counted their first tally on a combination of Jeremiah and Guibord, with the latter making the score.
The second period saw the famed Riley line catch fire, with Bill scoring first on a pass from Jack, followed by Jack doing same on an assist from Bill. Arnie Oss (who had come all the way from Minneapolis for this one) then scored for the Alumni, with the rotund Danny Sullivan craftily feeding him the puck. Walt Crowley then scored for the oldtimers, on a pass from Charlie Holt, and Bill Riley got his second goal of the evening with an assist from Jack.
During these second period goings-on, the Varsity managed to score a couple, with Whitey Dunlap getting one and Howie Smith another to keep the youngsters in the game. The final period saw Arnie Oss score his second goal of the evening, again with an assist by Sullivan. Brother Joe Riley finally got into the act in this period, scoring on assists by both his older brothers. The evening was concluded with an unassisted scoring dash by Billy Dow for the Varsity. After that, everybody went home happy.
DARTMOUTH'S VERSATILE MILE-RELAY TEAM, which has done well this winter as a quartet and in indi- vidual events, has lots of Dartmouth relatives. Left to right: Captain Dave Krivitsky '5l, nephew of Sid Krivitsky '35; Pete McCreary '52, who doubles as star hurdler; Sam Daniell '52, son of Warren F. Daniell '22 and brother of Warren F. Daniell Jr. '4B; and Reggie Pierson '52, son of Joseph R. Pierson '25 Med.
