Icemen Take On Dartmouth Today

Harvard's hockey team begins its Ivy League competition at 7 p.m. tonight against Dartmouth at Hanover, but the contest should be no more than a warm-up for the Crimson's crucial games against B.U., Brown, and B.C. in the next week.

Dartmouth, which had a miserable 4-19 record last season, should be slightly stronger from the infusion of sophomore standouts from last year's 18-5 freshman team, but Dartmouth coach Abner Oakes admits that the team will be doing well to break even.

The skaters trounced Dartmouth in both contests last year, routing them, 7-2, in the first game, and whipping them 4-2 in the second game.

Harvard should not find the improved Dartmouth squad a difficult and pesky match. The Crimson is riding a two-game winning streak--over admittedly weak teams--but they have demonstrated an impressive depth of scorers and defenders.

Against Northeastern Thursday night, Steve Owen, the "weaker" member of Harvard's highly-touted sophomore line, had a hat trick and four assists. The other two members of the line, Joe Cavanagh and Dan DeMichele, added two and one goals respectively.

Coach Cooney Weiland plans to keep this line intact tonight, but he will juggle Bobby Bauer's and Jack Turco's line, using Pete Mueller, Chip Otness, and George Murphy.

Weiland said yesterday that he had not yet decided who would start in the goal. Senior Bill Diercks played against Northeastern, but sophomore Bruce Durno, who had an outstanding year as a freshman, has begun to press Diercks hard for the starting position.

George McManama will move back to defense with Chris Gurry, Weiland said, and sophomores Terry Driscoll and Dave Jones will play together on the second team.

Weiland will most likely follow a pattern of using McManama at defense against the better teams for his stick-handling ability, but he will try to let him play forward also, anticipating. Terry Flaman's return in February.

Dartmouth has a trio of lines returning which are fairly strong, but with the loss of their entire defensive corps, they will need a top-flight performance from goalie Tom Schuster to hold off Harvard's scoring powers.