Big Green Teams

Grant Standbrook admits that December was probably the longest month of his life. Dartmouth's first- year hockey coach just couldn't get his team going. In a schedule punctuated by two-week breaks, the Indians dropped games to New Hampshire and Harvard, then went to Boston for the annual ECAC holiday tournament at Boston Garden.

There it was more of the same. First, the Indians fell to Boston College, 2-1, and then came an embarrassing 11-2 setback in a rematch with New Hamp-shire. It was not one of the high points in the history of Dartmouth hockey.

Then something happened.

The Indians were in Buffalo for the Nichols Invitational Tournament, a hockey event run by a prep school and this year including Yale, Michigan, and York University from Toronto along with Dartmouth.

The first games were scheduled for New Year's Day. On New Year's Eve, the Dartmouth alumni of Western New York held a reception for the Indian skaters. The agenda included a showing of the 1970 Dartmouth football highlights film and while Standbrook's players departed for bed, he remained to watch the film. He liked what he saw — a team playing with desire — and borrowed the film, hoping his players would get the message.

So the next day, with drapes drawn in the lobby of the Mohawk Motor Inn (because there was no bigger room at the inn), Dartmouth's hockey team watched Blackman's Follies of 1970. The message was received.

That afternoon, while Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl was looking like Dartmouth (wait until Ara Parseghian reads that), the Indian skaters were looking like the Boston Bruins against York University.

Now, you say, who is York? Well, York happened to be (at least at the time) the third best college hockey team in Canada, a team that had more than held its own against Clarkson a few days before (and Cornell barely got past Clarkson for the NCAA title last year).

Dartmouth was a decided underdog. In fact, the Indians were even money to battle Yale for fourth place in this tournament. Before the first period ended, Dave Kirkland, the senior wing from Edina, Minn., had whipped home a pair of goals, both assisted by Mike Turner, while sophomores Dana Johnson and Dave Walkom also scored for the Green.

It was 4-1 entering the second period and the inspired Indians were not about to let up. Steve Arndt, mainstay of Standbrook's rebuilt checking line, scored in 33 seconds. Dartmouth's dormant power play came to life moments later with goals by Ken Davidson and Jeff Kosak and Davidson's second goal of the period plus another by sophomore defenseman Jake Johnston made it 9-1 after two. Don Anderson, the junior defenseman who skates with Johnston, got another in the third period and the final score, 10-3, had to rank as one of the shockers of the season.

The feeling was so good after the York win that the Indians went out and did it again to Michigan, 6-5, knocking off one of the nation's top ten teams and coming away with top prize.

In the second period, Davidson came up with two power play goals that gave Dartmouth a 3-2 lead. Dave Hill, Turner and Johnston gave the Green three more in the third period and then Dartmouth withstood Michigan's last- minute pitch to come away with their first tournament championship ever.

The man for the Indians at the Nichols fray was Davidson, the fiery captain from Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., who has cooled his tempestuous temper this year and is proving himself to be a strong, aggressive leader who will warrant All-Ivy League consideration.

In addition to being Dartmouth's leading scorer, Davidson has been the center on Standbrook's senior line (along with Kosak and Hill) that has been dominating the Indians' scoring. Through ten games, this line had come up with 22 of Dartmouth's 42 goals and Davidson had half of the 22. Early in the season, Standbrook split the line in an attempt to distribute his experienced scorers throughout three lines. They've been reunited since the Nichols tourney.

Against Yale, in the Ivy game at New Haven four days after the Nichols action, Hill had a pair of goals and Kosak another in Dartmouth's 4-3 victory. It was Johnson's power play goal in the third period that broke a 3-3 tie.

In the first home game in more than a month, Princeton came to Davis Rink on January 9 and quickly felt Dartmouth's sting as Davidson scored two goals, Hill, Arndt, and Johnson added singles in a 5-2 win that gave the Green its best win streak in four years.

The streak ended when Boston College made a three-goal edge in the first period stand up in the stretch as the Eagles took a 5-4 win, but in spite of the loss it was apparent that the Indians were playing much better hockey than a month before when BC edged them 2-1 at Boston.

While the power play had been so successful in the four victories, it didn't produce in a key situation against Brown on January 16. The Indians had a two-man advantage on the Bruins midway in the third period and were unable to cut into Brown's 3-1 lead. Hill scored moments after on another power situation but it wasn't enough as Dartmouth's resurgence was blunted by successive one-goal losses.

Part of Standbrook's problems against BC and Brown was a rash of injuries. His second line of Kirkland- Turner-Johnson was decimated as Kirkland was lost in the Yale game with a fractured wrist. Johnson badly aggravated a year-old ankle injury against Boston College and Turner, the wispish junior from Melrose, Mass., played more than a week with a pinched shoulder nerve.

All in all, what had been shaping up as an unbearably long season seems to have turned around. Standbrook's forwards have recognized the need to back-check and help a defense that still is slow but not as questionable as it first appeared. The goalie, sophomore Peter Proulx, is one of the Ivy League's best and it seems only a matter of time before things round into consistent shape.