HOCKEY

Perhaps the only thing that is going to keep Ab Oakes's hockey team from maintaining pace with the rejuvenated basketball team is the schedule.

At this mid-January juncture, the Indians stand 5-6. What lies ahead includes the likes of Cornell, Boston University, Brown, and a rematch with Harvard. The word is that Cornell is a better team than the one that reached the NCAA final last year and it seems that every one of the East's major hockey teams is stronger than a year ago.

So is Dartmouth. The problem that Oakes is contending with is one that he really can't do much about. For the second year in a row, the Indians have been struck with a key injury to a firstline performer and also have been thinned by an assortment of lesser injuries.

A year ago, Kent Nyberg was lost for more than a month with a broken hand. This winter the victim is Dave Hill, the smooth junior from Don Mills, Ont., who seemed to be rounding into great form after surgery during the fall to correct a shoulder separation. It was midway in the second period at St. Lawrence that Hill speared himself during a pileup along the boards and suffered a ruptured spleen. Hill immediately underwent surgery and is lost for the season. In the seven games he played, he had scored three goals and had six assists. More important, however, was the hole it left in Dartmouth's versatile junior line that includes Jeff Kosak and Ken Davidson. The Hill-Davidson-Kosak line produced more than 90 points last year.

"We have an improved team but we don't have the depth to afford injuries," said Oakes. "We've been able to improve our checking but we still are thin defensively."

The progress of this team probably won't be shown in the record. With Hill idled, Oakes has moved sopho- more Don Anderson into the first line and has combined Nyberg, Turner, and senior Dave Hutton into the second line. The return of Pete Stone from first-term studies abroad gives the Dartmouth another frontliner to go with Dave Kirkland (who missed four games with a broken finger) and sophomores Steve Arndt and Mike Green and senior Tom Coffman.

Defensively, Captain Denis O'Neill and Vince Orchard have had their share of good outings and sophomore Dan Holland has probably been the best surprise of the season. In the goal, sophomore Dale Dunning has performed yeoman service. He was expected to do battle with senior Tom Schuster for the starting job this season but Schuster broke one finger in preseason practice and another on the day before the Jan. 2-3 trip to Clarkson and St. Lawrence. As a result, Schuster has one game - the 2-1 win over Bowdoin in the Cleveland Cup consolation - under his belt while Dunning has been shouldering the rest of the work - and doing a fine job.

Two victories in three games at Cleveland brought the Indians into the New Year with a 5-2 record. In the opening round, Davidson had a smooth hat trick that combined with goals by Kirkland, Kosak, and Nyberg to topple McGill University, 6-5. Nyberg's winning goal with 1:04 left in the game was reminiscent of his overtime goal that won the opener with Norwich.

Western Ontario, which won the tournament, came on with five goals in the third period after Anderson and Hill had put Dartmouth ahead, 2-0, in the first period, to score an 8-3 decision in the second round. In the consolation game, Kosak (an all-tournament selection) notched the deciding goal (Coffman had the other) as Bowdoin bowed, 2-1.

The word around the East is "you'll be lucky to come out with one win when you make the back-to-back trip to Clarkson and St. Lawrence." The opener on that swing was with Clarkson in Potsdam, N.Y., and it wasn't until four minutes from the end that Dartmouth's luck ran out. Dunning played his best game of the season, making 32 saves, and five men had a share in the scoring but it was a man-short goal by Clarkson that did the Green in, 6-5.

That was a tough blow to take and the next night St. Lawrence capitalized on the dazed Indians to score six times in the third period and coast to a 12-5 victory. Only Mike Turner, snapping out of a four-game slump with two goals and as many assists, gave the Indians much to talk about on the trip home from upstate New York.

Boston College extended its streak over Dartmouth to 15 games (dating to 1959) with a 5-2 win a week later and the Indians finally got untracked and loosed some scoring power the next night as they returned to Davis Rink for the first time in a month to smother Penn, 9-4.

"We needed that win," said Oakes. "We got some balanced scoring and did a good job defensively." Eight players had goals against the Quakers with Kosak collecting a pair. Five goals in the second period turned the game around for the Indians after Penn had skated to a 3-2 lead in the first period.

The six days of rest that preceded the intra-state confrontation with New Hampshire was invaluable to the Indians who would have had one of the East's major upsets if the game before a capacity crowd in Davis Rink had started three minutes later. Quicker than you can say "whim-wham," New Hampshire had a 3-0 lead. Unfortunately, that proved to be the margin of victory for the Wildcats but before it was done, Dartmouth had turned in better than 40 minutes of exciting hockey that had UNH fighting for its life.

By the end of the first period, Anderson and Kosak had shaved the UNH lead to 4-2. Hutton made it 4-3 midway in the second period and when the Wildcats pushed to an apparently comfortable 6-3 lead, Kosak and Nyberg retaliated with goals that brought the Green right back. The chants of "Go, Green, Go!" reverberated through the rink but the early deficit proved too much to overcome.

At the midway point in the season, the realistic view is toward a possible even break in the record. But, it's not going to happen overnight and the development of the Indians this season along with the assets that appear to be available from the freshman team lend definite promise.

The Dartmouth freshmen have proved to be a high-scoring array. They hold wins over Norwich (12-2 and 13-3), Middlebury (17-0) and the New Hampshire frosh (11-1). Their losses were to Harvard (8-3) and the Boston College frosh (3-1) and the overall feeling is that they will add much to the varsity.

George Remmer (I) and Capt. DeWittDavies have brightened track with theirrecord shotput and weight performances.