Skaters Mangle Northeastern, 9-1

Harvard's hockey powerhouse bombarded Northeastern, 9-1, at the Arena Saturday night in the Crimson's most impressive rout in years. Harvard scored three goals in each period and set up Wednesday night's contest with Boston University at Watson Rink as the first BIG game of the winter sports schedule.

The 9-1 score was not padded by breaks or augmented by momentum. The Crimson took 52 good shots, had a tenth goal called back, and on this particular night was eight beautiful goals better than the outclassed Huskies.

Kent Parrot and Pete Mueller each scored twice, but there were eleven forwards, four defensemen, and two goalies who contributed without exception to Harvard's consistently overpowering play.

The first line of Parrot-Garrity-Fredo accounted for the visitors' 3-0 first-period margin. Captain Jack took the puck on his own blue line, skated down left wing, turned the corner on the Huskies' sophomore defenseman, and hit the goal's lower right corner.

Five minutes later, at 11:40, Bob Fredo took a pass from Parrot, shot the puck off Northeastern goalie Ken Leu, and Parrot flipped in the rebound from 12 feet. With three minutes left in the period, Parrot backhanded home his second goal after a steal and perfect pass by Garrity.

Sophomore center Jack Turco scored his first varsity goal at 6:20 of the second period when his 20-foot shot deflected off a Husky defenseman into the goal.

Mueller got the first of his two scores at 15:06 when he pushed the puck in from the crease, where it lay following sophomore defenseman Terry Flaman's shot from the point.

Harvard's next two goals were the work of Flaman's brilliant partner, sophomore Chris Gurry. A minute after Mueller's counter, Gurry stickhandled the length of the ice, ignoring the Huskies' slashing, and dropped the puck at the crease for an easy shot by sophomore wing Ron Mark.

Four minutes into the third period, Gurry took off again from his own zone. At the blue line he hit wing Barry Johnson with a perfect lead, then used his great speed to catch up with Johnson's return pass and tip it past Leu.

At 7:07 senior defenseman Ben Smith skimmed a hard shot from the left point inside the right post, and 20 seconds later Mueller finished the Harvard barrage with an easy rebound off a similar shot by right defenseman Carr.

Somebody from Northeastern scored a couple of minutes later to spoil Billy Diercks's shutout bid and fire the Husky fans up for the ensuing late-game hostilities.

As overwhelming as was Harvard's offensive onslaught, it didn't hide other encouraging aspects. Foremost was the Crimson players' ability to coolly withstand Northeastern's rough physical play.

The Huskies wound up with 13 penalties, including a misconduct on their goalie, to only four for Harvard. Four of Harvard's goals came with Northeastern one man down, but only one was of the power play variety.

Northeastern drew its seventh third-period penalty with 90 seconds left in the game. Diercks, who played another impeccable game in the Harvard nets, came 35 feet out to clear a long pass and was knocked out by a charging Husky forward. Diercks eventually left the ice under his own power and should be all right for Wednesday's game.

Senior Bob Higgins came on to finish the game, and in his first varsity appearance the Melrose veteran made two spectacular saves.

Tickets for the B.U. game here go on salet at 60 Boylston Street this morning. A sell-out appears likely against the Terriers, who already have a 9-1 win over Yale and a 7-3 victory over New Hampshire to their credit. Coupon six can be exchanged for a student ticket and additional tickets can be bought.