In looking over the records made by the Yale and Princeton hockey teams during the first half of their schedules, the former sextet appears at first sight to be incomparably superior. This assumption is based partly on the fact that the Elis have won five and lost four of their regular scheduled matches, while the Tigers in a short seven-game series, have gained victories only twice and gone down to defeat four times; partly on the fact that Columbia, overwhelmingly defeated by the Elis, managed to none out the Orange and Black players to the tune of 4-3, and partly on the comparison of the two teams when Yale won from Princeton in the first match of the Yale-Harvard-Princeton double triangular series.

In spite of this latter result, however, there are several items to be taken into account while weighing the respective merits of the two teams. The Eli-Tiger clash was, in the first place, and extremely close affair, Yale barely snatching the decision at the close of two hotly-contested over-time periods. Then again the contest was staged in New Haven, which fact, in the case of two evenly balanced aggregations, is always of considerable importance. The coming match between the rival sextets, which will be the deciding issue, may prove an entirely different story.

Yale's Record Not Brilliant

Yale's record on the ice to date is not especially brilliant. Of eleven games played, five have been victories while opposing teams have chalked up six defeats against the Eli sextet. The Blue, however, has been tremendously handicapped by the loss of O'Hearn, star quarter-back on the 1921 football team, about whom Yale supporters were building their hopes for a successful hockey team. The former yearling star was forced to leave the squad after the Columbia game, due to an injury to his right leg, and it is extremely doubtful if he will be in the line-up again this season.

The New Haven sextet opened its schedule at an early date, when the St. Nicholas Club of New York journeyed to the new Yale Arena on December 10. The visitors proved too much for the inexperienced Eli stick-men, and won the verdict by the decisive margin of 5-1.

Not until December 14, however, did Yale stage its first intercollegiate match, when Columbia was smothered under a 10-2 score. The annual Christmas trip was a failure as regards results, Pennsylvania and the Quaker City sextet both inflicting decisive defeats, but the experience gained proved invaluable to the Eli players on January 4 when they routed the New Haven Amateurs in a hard match, 4-2.

M. I. T. Defeats Yale 1-0

Then followed a lapse, when M. I. T. Chalked up another defeat on the Eli record, the Engineers winning 1-0 by a brilliant offensive in the final period. Pennsylvania was crushed in a return game on January 11, the final score resting 8-3 in favor of the Blue, and on January 14 Yale of Princeton clashed in the first game of the double triangular series between the evenly matched, and only after two hotly-contested over-time perfects was Reid able to push across the winning Yale tally, making the score 4-3 in favor of the New Haven team.

M. A. C. gained a close decision over the Eli stick-men on January 18 by a 3-2 score, and Yale was overwhelmed the following week when Boston College ran up the crushing total of seven points. The climax of the schedule to date however, came on January 28, when the Blue combination staged a sensational rally in the closing minutes of play, winning from Baioe, 5-3.

Princeton's season has been even less impressive than has Yale's for out of seven games played to date only two have developed into Tiger victories with one tie and four defeats.

The Orange and Black sextet opened their season during Christmas when they games at Lake Placid, but the first intercollegiate contest did not come till January 6. On this date the New Jersey players inflicted a decisive defeat on the Pennsylvania aggregation, 4-0, and journeyed to New Haven on the 14th fully expecting to give the Elis a hard battle. Such proved to be the case, but Yale possessed the greater stamina and aggressiveness and won, 4-3.

Two defeats followed close upon each other after the New Haven disaster. Columbia nosed out the Tiger team on January 18 in two extra periods, 4-3, and on the 21st, the Orange and Black players were put into the discard by the superior team-work of the University sextet. Princeton possessed the greater brilliancy, but these individual flashes were of-set by the steady offensive power of the Crimson machine and the Tigers went back with the short end of a 3-0 score. The last game to date came on January 27 when Princeton again humbled Pennsylvania, this time by a 2-0 count