The varsity hockey team takes to the road after Christmas for one of the most important series in the last five years of Harvard hockey. For the team, the four games in the Midwest during the vacation may decide whether the sextet will go on to national competition later in the season.

Local hockey followers feel that the real strength of the varsity has not yet been tested. After playing Minnesota and Colorado, the varsity will know how it rates against the usually highly regarded western teams.

The team flies to Minneapolis after Christmas for games against the University of Minnesota, Friday and Saturday, Dec. 29-30. Coached by John Mariucci, who believes in the "Eastern" approach to hockey, Minnesota still manages to win without recruiting Canadians. Mariucci's American-dominated sextet finished third in the NCAA tournament last spring and since then has maintained a winning record.

In two games last week, Minnesota walloped Colorado, the team the Crimson will meet in the second half of its trip.

This season, the Minnesota Gophers find themselves without their star, Oscar Mahle, who was declared ineligible after playing semi-pro hockey in Rochester, Minn.

The Crimson will be led by Gene Kinasewich, its flashy sophomore skater from Edmonton. The varsity, however, is far from a one-man team; coach Cooney Weiland has formed three balanced lines, headed by the Dave Morse-Jim Dwinell-Dave Grannis trio. Wing Tim Taylor and centers Bill LaMarche or Gerry Jorgenson skate with Kinasewich.

Several loyal Harvard rooters will be on hand to cheer the team away from home; at least 150 Crimson fans--headed by the Harvard Club of Minneapolis--have reserved a cheering section at each game.

After a tough weekend in Minnesota, the Crimson travels to Colorado Springs to meet Colorado College, another Midwestern school that has adopted what Eastern colleges consider to be the right approach to hockey. The teams will clash in the famous Broadmoor Rink, at the foot of Pikes Peak.

Meanwhile, the basketball team (four wins, two losses) enters the tournament of the University of Washington in St. Louis as the lone Eastern representative. The six-college invitational hoop tourney will be played Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, Dec 28-30.

Other teams in the field are from Washington University (the host), Valparaiso, DePaw, Wheaton, and Williams Jewell, all Midwestern schools. On its return trip to Cambridge, the quintet will meet Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh, Wednesday, Jan. 3.

Leading the team will be high scorer Pete Kelley, Denny Lynch, and senior Gary Bourchard After losing the first two games of the 1961-62 campaign, coach Floyd Wilson's team has defeated B.U., Northeastern, M.I.T., and Wesleyan.

All other teams are idle until the end of the holiday vacation.