Big Green Teams

When we last filled this space with a first glimpse of the winter scene things were like this:

Dartmouth's hockey team had a 1-2 record, both defeats coming from teams ranked among the nation's best (Boston University and Clarkson).

The basketball team had a 2-1 record and the loss was to North Carolina, one of the nation's top ten teams.

That was the first week of December. Now, as we write, it's mid-January and the winter season is about to reach the halfway stage. Those early records have been most deceiving and hardly a valid measure of what has transpired.

In hockey, the road has been up, up, up. In basketball things have been miserable.

The skaters, not expected to be a particularly imposing offensive team, have bombed their way to an 8-4 record.

Tom O'Connor's basketball team is still looking for success that hasn't been tasted since December 2 when Holy Cross was victimized in Alumni Gym. The Green has lost eight straight and the prospects for a significant turnaround are slim.

On the night of January 13, in the after-math of a tough 7-5 loss to Harvard, rated the nation's best team at the moment, Grant Standbrook found an explosive scoring combination the likes of which hasn't been seen around Davis Rink in Lord knows how long.

By the time the turnaway crowd had finished watching a 10-2 decimation of Brown (Dartmouth's biggest win over the Bruins in a decade), you couldn't be sure if the smile on Standbrook's face was prompted by the impressive win or the news that had filtered out of the Alumni Council conclave that the long-awaited ice arena to replace antiquated Davis Rink is about to become a reality.

"The Brown game was the first time we've really played the way I've felt we could," said Standbrook. "We did a lot of things right."

Dartmouth began doing things right in mid-December, taking a 4-1 win at Bowdoin and then stamping itself as a team to be reckoned with by dumping New Hampshire (5-4) and Boston College (8-5) en route to the ECAC's Christmas tournament title in Boston Garden.

The Green then cruised through New Brunswick (7-4) but stumbled at Yale, 6-2. From there, Standbrook's team visited Princeton and produced a win, 2-1, that was unimpressive but, nevertheless, a win.

Then the Harvard game at Davis Rink. It took on the appearances of a nightmare as the Crimson methodically built a 4-0 lead early in the second period.

It was the first time that Standbrook had put on the ice a modified first line of seniors Fred Riggall and Bill Berry along with sophomore Peter Quinn, and as rapidly as Harvard had built its lead, this trio brought the Green back to a 4-4 tie.

Riggall blasted home two goals and Berry zipped another past Joe Bertagna, the Crimson goalie. Two minutes into the third period, Riggall got his hat trick. It was tied and while Harvard regained its composure in the face of the screaming mob and scrambled to a 7-5 win, it was still a good performance for the Green and particularly the first line.

Quinn, who hadn't played since the Bowdoin game when he injured a shoulder, hadn't scored a goal all season up to the Brown game (he was the top scorer with the frosh last year). The left wing from Chateauguay, Quebec, remedied that with his first varsity hat trick. Combined with a pair of goals apiece from Riggall and Berry, Quinn's performance was more than enough to bury Brown and even Dartmouth's Ivy League record at 2-2.

While the win over Brown was obviously important for its therapeutic value after the disappointing loss to Harvard, the ECAC tourney wins in December may hold the keys to the success that seems to be the destiny of this team.

Last year, Dartmouth finished fast, winning eight of its last 11 games (and tying Brown in the process). After the initial losses to Boston University and Clarkson this season, the Green needed early success against tough ECAC Division One teams.

That's what Standbrook got in Boston. The Green had lost six straight times to New Hampshire. They built a 2-0 lead that was almost too easy and UNH bounced back to lead, 4-3.

Then a couple of defensemen, Paul Dixon and Jake Johnston, got the goals that produced the win over the cross-state rivals.

The next . night Dartmouth frittered away a 4-0 lead against Boston College but every time the Eagles closed to within a goal, the Green came back. Berry's shorthanded goal clinched the game.

The hero of the tournament, however, was Peter Proulx, the senior goalie who made 79 saves in the two games and was voted by everyone except the selection committee as the most valuable player.

If there's been a disappointment since this surge began it was at Yale where Ken MacKenzie (an Eli sophomore who went to high school with Proulx) made 38 saves in an impressive display.

It was a scoreless game until the final minutes of the second period when Yale scored twice. It was 3-0 before Dana Johnson and Dave Walkom scored for Dartmouth but the Elis bounced right back and put it out of reach.

At Princeton, Riggall got both goals and his seven goals against Harvard, Brown and Norwich (an 8-2 victim) give him 15 as the season approaches the midway turn.

What's really the only problem facing Standbrook and his team is how to overcome the immense hurdle of playing five of the last six games of the season on the road—at Harvard, Penn, Northeastern, Brown, and New Hampshire. If the Green can survive these games in reasonable fashion, they'll most likely have their first crack at the ECAC tournament since 1965.

Goalie Peter Proulx'73, who had 79 saves in the ECAC Christmas Tourney, clearing thepuck in the 8-5 win over Boston College. (Boston Globe photo.)