The freshman hockey team is not "in for any brilliant season," according to its new coach, young Johnny White.

Although equipped with five former leading prep school and high school captains, the team boasts no outstanding stars and is hardly expected to compare with its talented predecessors of recent years. Coach White is rightly pessimistic.

In their first game, the Yardlings were swamped by a far-superior Boston College sextet 8 to 0, despite 44 saves turned in by goalie Jimmy Bailey, ex-Noble and Greenough captain.

In their second try, the freshmen managed to save a 4 to 3 victory over Boston University with a blue-line goal in an overtime period. Next Wednesday the team meets Belmont Hill School, led by Bobby Cleary, brother of last year's freshman captain, Billy.

Although Coach White insists it is too early in the season to name any starting team, it appears from practices, scrimmages, and the two games that the first line center will be former St. Mark's captain and high-scorer Johnny Hamlen. Flanking him will be hefty Tom Worthen from Belmont Hill School, and tiny Teddy Hollander, last year's co-captain at Middlesex School. Hamlen, however, has resigned from the squad until exams are over. Meanwhile, White has been using Dave Holmes from Westwood High to replace him.

Two Captains on Second Line

Willy White, ex-captain of a strong Boston Latin team, centers the second line. On his right is Derick Nicolas, captain from St. Paul's, and on the other wing is Tom Crowley, two years ago the high scorer in the GBI League while playing for Belmont Hill.

The defense posts present a problem. Possible starters include former Noble and Greenough stars Bill Allen and husky Bob Hoffman. A recent candidate and also potential starter is Chuck Papalia, a guard on the '57 football team, who only scored one goal in this three year hockey career at Watertown High School because of a league rule which forbids defensemen to cross the red line. Also first-string in the recent games has been Dave Loring, from Hamden High School in Connecticut.

Jimmy Bailey, two-year all-tournament choice at the annual Lawrenceville Tourney, seems slated for the goalie position, but he is closely followed by quick-moving Charlie Steedman, sub goalie for St. Mark's School last season.

White Former Crimson Athlete

A third freshman line will probably include former Exeter players Ed Burlingame and Earl Silbert and hard-shooting Tim Herrick from St. Paul's.

Still battling for positions are defensemen Tom Walsh, a substitute from last year's Exeter squad, and Roger Corke, an ex-Reading high player, and forward Louie Newell, from Noble and Greenough, who is reputed to have the hardest shot on the squad.

As relatively untalented as the '57 squad may turn out to be, however, it still has the benefit of a coach who was a skilled Harvard athlete. White was a two-letter man in his senior year, but until that year White had never before played a minute of organized hockey. Yet, aided by Cooney Weiland's coaching, he was voted Pentagonal League defenseman and won a second-string berth on the All-New England Hockey squad of 1951.

White was even better known for his other athletic activities. After only a year of baseball, he was captain of a Crimson nine which toppled a favored Yale team, 13-8, and he later turned down offers from major league teams. At Weston High School he was an all-scholastic basketball center and football captain.