Weiland Shakes Up Icemen To Aid Faltering Defense

Coach Cooney Weiland gave Harvard's heckey team a fairly thorough shaking up yesterday in preparation for tonight's 8 p.m. game against Dartmouth at Watson Rink, but according to captain Joe Cavanagh, the changes may be temporary.

Cavanagh will move back to defense to improve Harvard's clearing play and fill-in for injured Kevin Hampe. Harvard has had trouble getting the puck out of the defensive zone lately, and poor clearing contributed heavily to the Bruin loss last week. Hampe reaggravated shoulder and knee injuries over the weekend, leaving the faltering defense under-manned.

Cavanagh attributed the defensive problems to Harvard's forechecking system. Before Christmas, the Crimson changed from an aggressive forechecking game to a conservative style that has the forwards covering up their opposing wings instead of going after the defensemen behind the net. This system does not give Harvard's defensemen much experience with handling aggressive forechecking in practice, and their game play has suffered accordingly.

The forechecking system hasn't helped the offense a great deal either, at least against inferior opponents. "It's designed for good teams. We used it for the first time against Clarkson in the Garden over Christmas, and we gave a perfect demonstration of how to use it. But against teams like Vermont and Brown, it would have been better to forecheck aggressively and get our guys skating hard early in the game."

Consequentlly, Harvard will go back to the aggressive forechecking that carried it through the first seven games unbeaten. The Crimson will forecheck hard tonight against an inferior Dartmouth team, and, if all goes well, use the system again against Peun on Saturday.

"We'd like to be able to switch back and forth, even in a game if necessary." Cavanagh said. Harvard may go back to the conservative system against B.U. and Cornell and in the ECAC's.

Harvard will have to shake up the lines to accommodate Cavanagh's shift to defense. Dave Hynes will take Cavanagh's place on the first line. Tommy Paul will take Hynes' place on the second line, and Harry Reynolds will move into Paul's place on the third line.

If the defense improves when Hampe returns. Cavanagh will go back to forward and the lines may return to their previous groupings.