Elis and Tigers Competing For Last Place in Hockey

Last Wednesday, after Yale's hockey team had been upset at Pennsylvania. 4-1, a disillusioned Dally News staffer. Alan Beller, ended his story with a note of optimism.

"From Cherry Hill," he wrote, "the Elis have nowhere to go but up."

But after the Bulldogs' performances during the past week, it seems that even Beller's conservative comment may have been overly hopeful. After losing to Dartmouth, 10-6, at New Haven last Saturday, the Elis mired themselves even more deeply in the Ivy League's sixth place, and a loss to weak Princeton this week-which is not unlikely at this point-would dump Yale into the cellar.

The Bulldogs' unexpected slump, along with Penn's continued rebellion, helped to jumble already confused league standings even further last week, and although Cornell seems to have wrapped up the Ivy crown without dispute, the runnerup position is open to any one of four squads.

Big Red on Top

Cornell's second victory over Brown, 5-1, at Ithaca last Saturday, put the Big Red four points ahead of second-place Dartmouth. Although triumphs over Harvard and Brown this week would give the Indians a tie for the league lead, their standing at the top would be quite tenuous. Dartmouth has yet to play Cornell.

Penn's victory over Yale and a subsequent 8-2 triumph over Princeton last weekend vaulted the Quakers into a third-place tie with Harvard, which returned to Ivy contention with a 6-3 win at Princeton last Saturday afternoon.

If Brown defeated Dartmouth at Hanover last night, and if the Crimson does the same next Saturday morning, then the Red and Blue will be able to join both Harvard and Dartmouth in a triple deadlock for second place by winning at Brown this weekend.

Meanwhile, it is left to Yale and Princeton to struggle for the Ivy cellar-a location unfamiliar to both in recent seasons.

But self-delusion, at least as far as hockey goes, seems to be a habit at New Haven. Even after an 8-1 walloping at Cornell in December, a release came out of the Yale sports information office saying that "the one-sided defeat now doesn't look so bad and could mean that the Elis can look forward to a better than average year."

Since Christmas the Elis have yet to win a game. A 3-2 overtime loss at Army two nights ago increased their losing streak to nine.