Puckish Pandas Bringing New Ice Age to Radcliffe

The Pembroke Pandas, Pembroke College's only all-girl hockey team--in fact the only all-girl hockey team in the country--wants to hand Radcliffe a piece of the action.

In a formal challenge issued through the CRIMSON, Cappy Cummings, co-captain of the Pandas, has demanded that the Cliffies field their own team of stick handlers--to defend their honor and, incidentally, give the Pandas their first game of the season.

"The Pandas are getting a little desperate," Cappy wrote in a letter to the CRIMSON. "We've got all kinds of equipment, enthusiasm, and well-wishers--but no one to play."

"This is a question of honor," one team member said yesterday. "We do take this seriously." Approximately 25 Pembroke girls practice at the Brown rink three times a week; in the off-season the girls dabble in soccer to keep in shape. They would like to play Radcliffe sometime this winter.

The Pandas' challenge quoted an old popular Pembroke song that goes:

We beat Wellesley,

We beat Smith,

And what is more,

We can beat Radcliffe.

While the team does get a chance to play the Brown varsity and freshmen squads every year (the boys use brooms for sticks and are cautioned to avoid heavy contact), in previous years they have gone to Canada to find real competitors.

Radcliffe is the first school to receive the Pandas' challenge this year; but the Cliffies are only a stepping stone. Next year, the Pandas mean to take on Yale.

"We challenged Radcliffe to a hockey game in the hopes that the defense of their honor would provide the necessary incentive to get them to form a team," Cappy wrote.

If honor is all there is at stake, the Pandas might be barking up the wrong tree.