Harvard Stickmen Seek Revenge In Beanpot Showdown with B.U.

The Harvard hockey team has played in a lot of big games already, but nothing that can match tonight's showdown with Boston University in the Beanpot Tournament.

Coach Cooney Weiland, who is sticking with the lineup he used against St. Nicholas Saturday night, thinks his team is set to knock off the top-ranked Terriers, and the players intensely agree.

Tickets for the 9 p.m. game, which will follow a 7 p.m. Northeastern-Boston College contest, are available only at the Boston Garden box office.

Weiland, especially pleased by the performance of Dennis Clark on defense Saturday, is keeping Ben Smith at wing for his scoring ability. Weiland feels Smith's passing makes the first line more potent, as Pete Mueller's speed does the second, and Barry Johnson's strength does the third.

In a minor surprise, Weiland will start Bill Fitzsimmons in the nets instead of sophomore Bill Diercks. The senior's legend as a Beanpot star is some what bigger than his last two performances. But Weiland, nothing that Diercks was in the goal for the team's first meeting, is counting on a clutch effort from his veteran.

The prestige of the Beanpot and the excitement of playing on the Garden ice in front of a screaming crowd lifts the games above any regular season meeting B.U. coach Jack Kelley had said that for these two games, players perform 10-15 per cent above their ability.

It this figure is true in general, then the Harvard players have reason to operate 20-30 per cent above the peak which they've seldom reached. B.U. is the too-oft-chanted number one, undefeated in ECAC play. Giving the Terriers their premiere Eastern loss would be the big win the Crimson needs, the one that has been missing since it slipped away December 28.

On that evening, at the Boston Arena, Harvard held a 5-4 lead midway through the third period. Tenants of the press box had begun working on descriptions of the stunning upset.

Then with little more than six minutes to play, Herb Wakabayashi scored from an impossible angle to tie game. Fred Bassi connected with ninety seconds to go to give B.U. a 6-5 lead, and Serge Boily hit an open net to finish the crushing comeback.

The Arena loss shares its place in Harvard memories with the 1966 Beanpot Final with B.U. The Crimson was a heavy underdog into that one, too, but few were expecting the 9-2 humiliation that resulted.

Matters were made worse by a series of incidents and fights that led to the expulsions of Ben Smith, Bob Carr, Tag Demment, and three Terriers. The event received extensive and not necessarily complimentary coverage in the Boston press and to this day remains a stain that the Harvard players would like very much to remove.

It won't be easy. B.U. is not number one by any coincidence. Goalie Wayne Ryan was co-winner of the most valuable player award at the Arena Tournament.

Kelley claims that seniors Brian Gilmour and Pete McLachlan are the two best defensemen in the East. That may be disputable, but there is no one more dangerous with the puck. Gilmour's three assists Saturday gave him a career total of 69, a new Terrier record. With 29 and 23 points, defensemen Gilmour and McLachlan both are ahead of center Kent Parrot, the Crimson's top scorer.

The senior first line has credentials as impressive. Right wing Fred Bassi is B.U.'s third leading scorer of all-time, center Jim Quinn seventh, and left wing Mike Sobeski is four shy of the 100-point club, but all five of these seniors will be members by season's end.

Behind the veterans is a sophomore trio which is bidding to take Eastern scoring honors. Mickey Gray has 33 points, Serge Boily 34, and Wakabayashi 40, including 30 assists, three away from a school mark.

When the Terriers last week dropped 7-1 and 3-1 decisions on a rugged weekend trip to Denver then barely held on fror a 7-6 win over Brown, it appeared that the heavily worked Terriers might be hockeyed out. But they shattered Yale's five-game winning streak, 8-3, at New Haven Saturday to serve notice that they are in top shape to defend the trophy they won last year for only the second time in the 14 years of competition.