In Defense of Hockey.

[We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest.]

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

By the action of the Athletic Committee, reported in your columns yesterday morning, there seems to be a move on foot to abolish all winter sports. Of all these sports, one of the most important is hockey. To abolish intercollegiate contests in this would be practically to do away with any interest in the sport, and would cut down the number of men playing, as there would be no call for a second team, and class teams would be made up of men now on the University squad. Hockey as a sport is one of the most exciting and probably the purest of all sports.

The argument in abolishing it,--that something must be done to appease the Faculty,--seems absurd. It is a poor policy to abolish hockey to preserve the schedules of the major teams intact, especially when the question at hand rose wholly from the major sports. It is urged that the hockey team plays too many games away from Cambridge. If this is so, it will be avoided next year by the erection of a new rink in Boston, where all games may be held, and which will greatly reduce the number of trips taken by the team at present.

It is a fallacy to imagine that, by a total abolition of intercollegiate contests for a period of five months, the standards of scholarship will be raised. It is an obvious fact that men playing on teams have more incentive to keep off probation than others.

The hockey season is short, covering but six or seven weeks, it takes few men away from Cambridge at any time, offers an excellent mode of outdoor exercise, has none of the abuses of other sports, employs no professional coaches, has few injuries, and gives the required amount of outside interest during a period when college life is extremely dull. We do not wish to see the baseball or football schedules cut down, but it would seem far wiser to take off some of their many games than make a total abolition of so excellent a sport as hockey. C. C. PELL '08.   J. P. WILLETTS '09.   K. S. CATE '09.