One can usually tell how the varsity hockey team is playing in a game by watching whether Coach Cooney Weiland is standing or sitting. If he stays on the bench--as he did for 50 minutes of the Yale match last Saturday--then the Crimson has control of the game.

It might seem strange, however, that Weiland should not worry during a game which the varsity did not really win until Dave Vietze scored the clinching fourth goal at 16:02 of the last period. But the explanation is simple: Eli goalie Gerry Jones made 51 saves against the Crimson and most of them were unbelievable.

The sextet's inevitable 4-2 victory over the Bulldogs assured the Crimson of at least a time in its attempt to gain a fourth straight Ivy League title and extended its current win streak to ten games.

Whether the victory impressed Yale coach Murray Murdoch as a member of the N.C.A.A. Selection Committee is not determinable. But at least he could see that the close 4-2 score was not the story of the game.

Yale's two goals, although good ones, were not particularly normal. It's first, at 4:13 of the second period, made the score 2-1. The goal was an unusual screen shot from the corner of the blue line which just nicked the upper left hand corner of the cage. It was the kind of shot which the varsity, particularly Bob Cleary and John Copeland, had been missing by inches all night.

The second Eli goal, which opened the third stanza scoring at 1:36 and tied the score at 2-2, was a one-man breakaway.

Outside of these scores, however, Yale was never on the offensive. Captain Jim Bailey totaled only 13 saves in the Crimson goal and although some of these were outstanding, none came as the result of Eli playmaking.

Just as important to the varsity's N.C.A.A. hopes as the win over Yale was a surprise upset in the R.P.I.-St. Lawrence match last Saturday. R.P.I. edged the Larries 6-5 to make St. Lawrence's record 13-3 with only the Clarkson game left on its schedule.

Despite Yale's awkward skating and lack of playmaking, the game in the Garden Saturday delighted the record crowd of an estimated 10,000 because of its roughness and 11 penalties, seven on Yale.

Penalties Miscalled

The Elis' defensive strategy of covering the Crimson players closely all the time resulted in several uncalled and miscalled penalties by two very-confused referees who spent a lot of their time picking up broken glass and beer cans off the ice.

The Crimson went right into its fast offensive play in the first period without taking any time to warm up. Jones totalled 16 saves in this stanza before Bob McVey scored at first at 19:04 after a blue-line shot from Bob Owen.

Cleary added a fast goal just 26 seconds later, slapping in another blue-line rebound, this one from Dan Ullyot.

The second period was most disappointing to the Crimson scorers. Jones had only 15 saves in this stanza, but all were spectacular ones. Once, the first line of Cleary, Lyle Guttu, and Paul Kelley set up a play that included seven straight passes and worked the puck right into the crease without scoring. Guttu came in so close on this play that he knocked the cage loose.

Another time, Dan Ullyot's terrific slap shot, probably the best in the East, broke the tip off Jones' goalie stick without scoring.