HANOVER, N.H.--Some like it hot, but the Dartmouth man likes it cold and he almost got more than he bargained for at last weekend's 41st annual Winter Carnival. When the temperature skidded to a chilly 25-below on Friday night, even the rabid outdoorsmen (and women) in the huge crowd willingly ducked for shelter. Indeed, indoor sports are supposed to share top billing with the other variety, but after a couple of evenings on Fraternity Row, the casual visitor gets the idea that the snow and ice and stuff is only so much window dressing. Many a ski bunny got no closer to a snowy slope or slick pond than the front stoop of Zeta Psi.

But for the rugged, there were enough sports to go around and the hosts just managed to break even, competitively speaking. The Green ski team was beaten at its own game by Denver and Middlebury, and the basketball five dropped a close one to Princeton. On the credit side, the Indians registered, hockey and swimming victories, over Harvard and Princeton, respectively.

Crimson Looks Tired

The hockey victory was clearly a case of a team being "up" for a game before a hometown crowd. Cooney Weiland's squad, by contrast, seemed dead on its skates, quite likely the result of weariness from two previous games that week. Only defenseman Dusty Burke, who checked viciously, and center Walt Greeley, who tallied the Crimson's lone goal with a half-minute remaining in the game, showed the scrap which had characterized the team in pre-exam games. The final score (5 to 1) was not indicative of the relative strength of the two teams and the Crimson should fare much better in the return match at the Arena later this month.

Other sporty features of the weekend included a figure-skating exhibition by, Barbara Ann Scott, the crowning of a lovely young thing from Smith as Snow Queen, and a ski jump meet Saturday afternoon at a nearby golf course. Dartmouth's Don Trembley won that event and also turned in the longest jump, 141 feet. Not many of the large crowd which was there at the beginning stayed for the finish of the jump. The event was tedious under any conditions, and on Saturday only a battle-hardened North Korean could have stood the bitter cold for very long. The whole business of ski jumping is rather repetitious, give or take a few feet in distance, and those morbid thrill-seekers who waited in hopes of seeing a spectacular spill were disappointed, fortunately.

The Most Dangerous Game

"Bird-dogging,' an ancient and dishonorable sport not listed on the official program, drew the usual number of stags to the Carnival, but the grim tenacity and staying power of the hosts in most cases made it a fruitless enterprise. Dartmouth men are extremely generous, especially on party weekends, but few were disposed towards surrendering their dates without a battle, or at least a few sharp words. Some bird dogs won their letters over the weekend, but only by fighting a war of attrition in which whiskey and sweet words were the principal weapons.

Because of the college's isolated location, Dartmouth men have to enjoy their social lives in a series of short spurts. Since the Carnival is one of the biggest of the periodic jolly times, the college thoughtfully extends dorm parietal rules until midnight on Friday and Saturday, a liberal attitude which hasn't quite made it as far south as Cambridge yet. The curfew in the fraternity houses is 4 a.m. and any brother found in the house with his date past that hour is liable to a five-dollar fine, or so we were told.

But the relaxed rules don't necessarily lead to the type of misbehaviour which Dorothy Parker immortalized in her famous remark about the Carnival. As the bright young man with the big green sweater told us, "The Carnival isn't a sex weekend, it's too cold."

As a matter of fact . . .