Fifty-one Minutes

THE men's hockey team stands on the sidewalk outside the Player's Corner Pub in Providence, having just been eliminated in the semi-final round of the national hockey tournament for the second year in a row. At the Civic Center across the street, public announcements have been made all evening that Dartmouth is to gather at the pub following the game. For nearly 51 minutes of gritty hockey, it promised to be a rousing affair, what with the Green holding on to a 1-0 lead over the heavily favored Fighting Sioux of North Dakota. Then it all went to hell as the Sioux scored four unanswered goals, and now the team stands quietly wondering where to go, suffering the final irony of not being able to enter the Player's Corner because too many Dartmouth people have packed the place.

That's okay though, because the hockey players do not necessarily feel like being saluted with the earnestly felt cheers awaiting inside. The cheers are occurring anyway, of course; the local daily paper will praise Dartmouth's spirit in defeat the next morning. But that good spirit seems small consolation now. Even the camaraderie of a large contingent of fans is not what the team needs. Like any group of athletes turned away from its final goal, the team has taken on, just for the moment, the unjust lack of pride that makes the group want to be alone. You see, this game against the Sioux was going to be the one that made this year different. First in the Ivies, top four in the East, finalists in the E.C.A.C., final four in the country: These were all things they accomplished last year. That they were able to take a club that opened at one-and-five and drive to these same mileposts again is a remarkable accomplishment. But the N.C.A.A. finals: that was going to be different.

Commandeering their Vermont Transit bus, they head across town to another pub, the Steeple Street Cafe. There's an upstairs room, they have heard, and perhaps it will be uncrowded. It is, and the team and a few of its friends file in quietly. They begin sipping beer and talking about the season past, trying to heed George Crowe's forced reminders that "we have another game to play." Yeah, we do. But that one's for third in the country, something we did last year. Crowe had seemed disappointed, standing on the sidewalk outside the Player's Corner, but he still felt his duty to direct this team, to tell them what they should or shouldn't do. This is how, in his five-year tenure as coach, he has changed the face, style, and performance of Dartmouth hockey. This is one of the primary factors in the two best finishes since the Eddie Jeremiah days. Crowe will be back next year, with a new Dartmouth team, and he'll try to get back to the final four again, and maybe then add something a little different.

As the team talks in that upstairs room at the Steeple Street and the talk is flowing more freely now, as the players relax and start smiling again this is what they seem to be lamenting: not so much the loss to North Dakota but the dissolution of this team. Last year, with few exceptions, the Dartmouth players beaten by the same Sioux team could look ahead 12 months and know they would still be together. That consolation no longer remains. The team's two most prolific scorers over the last two seasons, Brownridge and Murphy, will be gone, as will Mellum, Ryerson, O'Brien, and Ryan. Bob Gaudet, the goalie who is following Brownridge and Murphy into Dartmouth hockey lore and who played 51 minutes of superb hockey this night, knows he'll be back as co-captain, along with Mark Bedard, the high-scoring Wilsons, and others, but he knows, too, that it will be a different club.

The players shoot the breeze until it is time for the bar to close, then decide to head out because, after all, they have another game to play. That game, too, will remind them of last year. They will avenge their E.C.A.C. finals loss by beating Cornell, 8-4, much as they came back to gain some measure of revenge against New Hampshire, the 1979 champ, by winning that consolation game. Brownridge will score his last Dartmouth goal in that contest, but maybe there is a harbinger there as well: Sophomore Joe Jangro will score his first and second. Barry Ryan will score two as well, in saying goodbye.

These skaters are reasonable enough to realize there is always next year. Perhaps some will be able to return to the final four and proceed a bit differently. But they are also reasonable enough to know that they won't be back together.

The Records(through April 20) LACROSSE Men (1-4) Women (1-3) CREW Men's Heavyweight (0-0) Men's Lightweight (0-1) Women (0-3) BASEBALL Men (2-11) TENNIS Men (10-4) Women (3-2) GOLF Men (5-1-1) TRACK Men (1-3) Women (1-2) RUGBY Men's A Team (4-2) Women's A Team (0-1-2)