As a unit, the freshman hockey squad was a faster team than any of its opponents, except Colby. This speed resulted because a group of particularly good individual skaters had that saving grace of being able to work well together. Unfortunately, however, because of playing so many teams which didn't really care in the earlier part of the season, the freshmen never learned to play under pressure, as evidenced in its 4-3 overtime loss to Yale.

The Yardlings wound up their season with an unprecedented number of eight men who had more than thirty points. High-scorer was center Dave Grannis with 20 goals and 24 assists; and Bruce Thomas, a wing, was high goal man with 23 goals and 18 assists. Jim Dwinell, Chris Norris, Tom Heintzman, Dean Alpine, Dave Morse, and Bill Beckett filled out the honor role with 30 or more points apiece.

Except for the goalies, the defense was the Crimson weak-spot, as its members were less experienced than those of the line. It improved gradually, however, throughout the season. Defensemen Dean Alpine and Dave Conner, for instance, were probably the players who improved most during the course of the year.

Captain Bob Bland and his reserve mate Phil Doherty performed brilliantly in front of the cage, allowing the freshmen to come up with four shut-outs and six one-goal games.

Not Much Passing

With the strong individuals on the team, there was not as much passing by the Yardlings as there was on the part of the opponents; since the freshmen did not carry this style to an extreme, it was considered by most to be a virtue of the squad. It may well have been the deciding factor in some of the close games.

The Yardlings racked up a total of 172 goals in 21 games while allowing 42 goals, thus giving themselves a per-game average of 8.2 goals and their opponents a 2.0 record. The Crimson had 200 assists for a season figure of 372 points; the squad's season record was 18-3.

For all its success, this team has been the second-worst one in the last five years, a period of phenomenal success for freshman hockey. Last year, the least spectacular one, the record was 17-5. The year before, the Yardlings had a 17-2 record, and of the two preceeding seasons, one was undefeated, the other marred by one loss. Also in this period, the freshmen have lost only two games with Ivy League competitors, one of which was the recent loss to Yale on March 7, which gave Yale the unofficial Ivy League championship by virtue of its untarnished 3-0 record.

Three Alternate Front Lines

Another factor in the team's success was depth. The Crimson had three complete front lines, which were almost of exactly the same quality and could thus be used interchangeably. Most of the opposing teams had only two lines.

The team has also been quite fortunate in the matter of injuries, with no major and only a few minor ones. A little difficulty arose because of sickness, primarily the flu; but the effect of this was minimized by the great depth.

On Feb. 27, the Yardlings soundly trounced B.U.'s freshmen by a score of 13 to 1. Harvard's J.V. also succumbed to the Yardlings on March 3 by a score of 5 to 0. The extraordinary ability of the freshmen can be seen in the fact that the J.V.'s have never beaten the freshmen in the past five years, and this J.V. team is considered to be the best in recent years.