Crimson Icemen to Host Upset-Minded Indians

The Harvard hockey team will try to regain its winning ways tonight after back-to-back losses to Penn and B.U. when it takes on Dartmouth at Watson Rink at 8 p.m.

Harvard coasted to a 7-4 victory over Dartmouth after a five-goal first period up in Hanover in January. But the Indians are a lot stronger than their 3-5 Ivy League record suggests, and they proved it on February 5, when they upset Cornell, 3-2, in overtime.

The hero of that game was goalie Peter Proul, who came up with 41 saves. In the past few weeks the Indians have been winning close games with good defense, and they topped Boston College, 4-2, two days after the Eagles had lost to B.U. by the same score.

The Indians have had trouble scoring all season, and captain Mike Turner is the only player with over 30 points. Other forwards to watch are junior wing Bill Berry and Fred Riggal.

Apart from cracking Dartmouth's defense, the Crimson's biggest problem will be to regain its early season momentum before traveling to Ithaca to face Cornell on Saturday.

"People forget that B.U. is one of the best teams in the country," Crimson coach Bill Cleary said after Monday night's disappointing performance at the Garden. "We outplayed them in the first period, but after that we just stopped skating, and they were all over us," he added.

Harvard's power play failed to take advantage of eight man-up situations, and the team was further handicapped by eight penalties of its own. But in this year of upsets, Cleary feels that the solution will have to be primarily psychological.

All the top contenders in the ECAC have lost several times; and Harvard, with a 12-3-1 record, is still ranked second. "The ECAC will be won by the team that can bounce back after a couple of setbacks. It will depend on a lot of intangibles, but I think we can do it," Cleary said.