Hockey

Probably one of the most puzzling of the Dartmouth winter teams is Coach Eddie Jeremiah's hockey squad. Never a great team, the Indians of late have been playing a rather odd brand of hockey. After victories over Northeastern (8-5) and Boston University (7-2), the Big Green lost a hard-fought Carnival game to Boston College 4-2 and gave Harvard a scare before losing 6-4. One week later against Yale the Indians played one of the sloppiest games seen in Davis Rink to lose 3-2, then turned around the following night to edge Middlebury 3-2 in an overtime, while in their most recent game the Big Green skaters romped over Brown by a 13-2 score. The return of Dave Leary, a veteran wing who was ineligible the first semester, coupled with the return of Bruce Haertl who had been out with a muscle injury, provides hope that the Indians may rise above the current fourth-place berth in the Pentagonal League. Coach Jeremiah is still juggling his lines and shifting his defensemen in an effort to find better combinations, but most of Dartmouth's scoring punch is concentrated on the first line.

In the games to date wing John Titus leads the Dartmouth scorers with 34 points on 23 goals and 11 assists. He is followed closely by Dan McCarthy who replaced the injured Haertl on Dartmouth's first line. McCarthy has 18 goals and 15 assists, while Captain Seaver Peters, the first-line center and the team's top playmaker, has nine goals and 32 assists for 31 points. Despite their poor league standing Titus, McCarthy and Peters rank one-two-three in Pentagonal League scoring and their firstline totals are also high in the league. Ned Heydt, second-line center, ranks fourth in scoring with 22 points followed by Chet Gale, Bruce Haertl and Dana Hennigar.

One of the surprise moves of the season has been the shift of Dave Conlan from reserve goalie to defense. Conlan has been playing a steady brand of hockey at defense and showing constant improvement, although the brunt of the defensive role falls on veteran Irv Sherwood, one of the hardest working and scrappiest players on the team.

The Dartmouth hockey record thus far is already far better than that of last year and with three more Pentagonal League contests plus six other games remaining, the Indians may yet prove themselves a better club than most of the experts expected.