Crimson fans who trudged through ice and slush to witness the opening round of the E.C.A.C. tournament in Watson think last night were treated to some of the most horrendous hockey seen at Harvard in some time. The varsity skaters did manage to stop Colgate 5-3, but a more dismal winning performance would be hard to imagine.

Coach Cooney Welland's skaters punctuated their defensive lapses and sloppy passing with two quick goals early in the first period. Billy Lamarche, all by himself in front of the Raider nets, scored on Barry Treadwell's pass at 5:15.

A minute later, Billy Fryer put another puck past Colgate goalie Kurt Brown on a solo dash down the left side of the ice. Leading by two goals, the varsity's usually fine defensive play virtually collapsed.

Twice in a single minute varsity players dropped the puck right in front of the Crimson nets on clearing plays, and the Raiders started to control action along the boards. Heartened by Crimson mistakes. Colgate converted a loose puck in front of the Crimson nets into a garbage goal at the eight-minute mark.

The Red Raiders spent the remainder of the opening period ignoring the golden opportunities handed them by a careless Crimson secondary. The visitors muffed half a dozen chances to tie the score before the varsity added its third goal at 11:13. The tally came on a Gerry Jorgenson shot with assists from Gene Kinasewich and Dave Johnson.

For the first half of the second period the Crimson continued to have its troubles in clearing the puck and passing accurately. Varsity goalie Godfrey Wood stopped several Colgate drives all by himself and the Raiders, shooting atrociously, missed the goal altogether on several other attempts from close in.

Defenseman John Daly who also garnered two board-checking penalties, brought the Crimson its fourth goal on a long, hard shot from the point. The tally gave Weiland's skaters a three goal lead that it certainly didn't deserve.

Daly's marker ended the scoring for the second 20 minutes of play but the comedy and the errors continued. The period ended with two Cologate players colliding at mid-ice on a varsity clearing play.

Crimson efforts degenerated even further in the third and final period when the obviously inferior Raiders outscored the varsity two goals to one. Gene Kinasewich provided the varsity marker on a pass from Billy Fryer. The tally was the varsity's fifth goal and its fourth with the third line on the ice.

While the varsity toyed around with Colgate, other top-seeded E.C.A.C. teams advanced as expected. Boston College downed Army 3-1 and Clarkson beat Brown by the same score.

The Crimson will meet powerful Clarkson in the semi-finals at Boston Arena Friday night. Tickets for the final round of the E.C.A.C. tournament will go on sale at 60 Boylston St. at 2 p.m. today.