Hockey

The hockey team to date has blown hot and cold. In the preliminary games, they were cold as a landlord's heart against Northeastern and (later) against Yale. Against Clarkson and the American Olympic team, on the other hand, they looked very good indeed. Northeastern took the measure of the Green by the score of 7-1, but the home forces beat Clarkson, coached by Bill Harrison, by 4-2. Against the American Olympic team, powered by the erstwhile Dartmouth greats Dick Desmond, Cliff Harrison, and Arnie Oss, the current Jeremiah aggregation performed most creditably, losing by 4-2, but putting up a stiff fight in the process.

As noted in our last communication, Coach Jeremiah has a few veteran performers and a host of promising sophomores from last year's undefeated freshman team. The jump from the yearlings to the varsity, however, is more than a routine matter and many of these boys, although promising, are still a year or so away. Coach Jeremiah has therefore been forced to experiment continuously with his forwards, in an attempt to put a couple of winning lines on the ice in a single evening. The defense looks pretty well set, with veteran Dick McMahon in the nets, Captain John Grocutt at one defense post and sophomore Irv Sherwood at the other. But at that point, the situation becomes very fluid, with men going up and down the three lines with considerable rapidity. A couple of those who played on one of the key lines early in the season did not even make the Yale trip. Things are, therefore, definitely in the building stage.

Yale 11, Dartmouth 2. On January 12, the team opened the league season at New Haven by absorbing a sound shellacking at the hands of an inspired Blue aggregation, playing on their home ice. This was a game when the winners had inspiration and luck at the same time, which is a very satisfactory combination in any form of endeavor, athletic or otherwise. For the first period, indeed, Dartmouth was ahead by a 2-1 margin, with goals scored by sophomores Dan McCarthy and Dick Leary, and with the Yales able to muster only a single tally. In the second period came the break of the game. With the puck in front of the Dartmouth net and a face-off clearly called for, one of the Yales tapped it in, thereby tying the count. At that juncture, or shortly thereafter, this roof fell in. Yale scored a total of six goals in this period and four more in the final period, to give them their final tally of 11-2.

The personnel of the Dartmouth team was considerably different from that enumerated in our preliminary discussion last month. At defense, as noted, Dick McMahon was in the nets, backed by Freddy Hitt. Captain Grocutt and Irv Sherwood started at defense, with John Brower and Howie Smith behind them. It might be noted in this connection that the Dartmouth defense was something less than great against Yale, with McMahon having 47 saves (in addition to the 11 goals), whereas the Yale goalie had only 19 saves. The lines in this game were composed of: (a) sophomores Towle, Peters, and Titus; (b) seniors Dunlap and Haskel, and sophomore McCarthy; and (c) seniors Brower and Waters, and sophomore Leary. With all those sophomores on the scene, things should look good sometime in the future. But that time has not, as we write, quite arrived.

THREE FORMER BIG GREEN HOCKEY STARS who are now members of the U. S. Olympic Team returned to Hanover on January 7 for the game with the Dartmouth varsity, won by the Olympics, 4-2. Shown with Coach Eddie Jeremiah are (I to r) Dick Desmond '49, Arnie Oss '50 and Cliff Harrison '51.