MONTREAL-Harvard's hockey team, attempting to rebound from two consecutive one-goal losses in mid-December, won three of four games at two holiday tournaments, but a series of discouraging occurrences may have left the Crimson little better off than it was before.

Jonior Dan DeMichele, the hard-hitting left wing who led Harvard in scoring at the beginning of the ECAC tournament at Boston Garden, fractured an ankle in the 4-3 victory over Clarkson in the final, and will be lost to the squad until mid-February. Ron Mark, who skated left-wing on the Crimson's first unit, separated his right shoulder in the opener with McGill at Montreal in the Loyola Tournament and is sidelined for a month.

What was even more-frustrating, and might eventually be most damaging to Harvard's chances of a berth in the East's top three, was the recurrence on three occasions of the third period defensive collapse that cost Harvard an apparent victory at Boston College two weeks ago.

In two of the four tournament games, Harvard squandered sizeable leads in the final period but held on to win. In the third, however, the semifinals at Montreal against Toronto, it lost an early 2-0 lead, entered the third period tied, yielded three more goals, and lost 7-5.

The elimination ended a three-game winning streak, and cut Harvard's record to 6-3, but it may have saved the Crimson from a disastrous fate in yesterday's final. Exhausted, and missing three regulars, Toronto was slaughtered by powerful Loyola, 10-4, for the championship.

There were several encouraging aspects for Harvard's holiday performance, however. When the Crimson played well, it played very well, and in Montreal it was playing by Canadian rules, which prohibit two-line passing, and permit checking in any zone. Moreover, the Crimson's success with rough, physically-oriented squads had been limited this winter, and the loss of DeMichele deprived Harvard of badly needed size.

In addition, the Crimson's most glaring weakness had been its inability to clear the puck consistently, and it seemed that Canadian rules would only further hamper Harvard.

But for four of the six periods during which it played in Montreal, Harvard was brilliant. Only the third period slump kept it from a more convincing victory over McGill and a triumph over Toronto.

McGill, perhaps one of the weakest Canadian college teams this winter, caused Harvard little trouble for two periods. Senior Jack Turco, center of Harvard's third line, and sophomore Leif Rosenberger, his left-wing, each tallied a first period goal to get the Crimson off the ground, and within the first three minutes of the second period Dave Cavanagh and Turco added two more to increase the lead to 4-0.

With 6:33 left in the period, sophomore Tom Paul scored, and Harvard, apparently, was home free. But at 2:25 of the final period McGill scored on a power play. Fourteen seconds later Mike Stacy put the pack through the legs of Harvard goalie Bruce Durno for another. It was not evident then but the collapse was imminent.

Messy

With 8:38 left, McGill's Dave Roxburgh added a third goal and teammate Pete Burgess scored directly off the next face-off to cut the Crimson lead to 5-4, Harvard, lapsing offensively and careless on defense, was suddenly in a hockey game again.

But McGill had been overextended and Harvard, brought to life by the Redmen's rally, put the game away eight minutes later on Cavanagh's second goal. Rosenberger added the seventh with 28 seconds remaining in the game, and Harvard had a 7-4 triumph and a berth in the semi-finals with the Toronto Blues, the defending Canadian college champions.

The Blues were hurting; starting center, Paul Laurent, was sidelined as was regular defenseman Bill L' Heureux, goaltender Rick Johston and five others. But Toronto had plenty of size and skating ability, and impressive depth. It was quite possibly the most talented squad the Crimson has faced this season, and playing by Canadian rules, one of the most brutal.

Pucks

But Harvard outplayed the Blues for the first period and held them even for another. The Crimson's puck clearance was the best it had been all season, and flying Harvard forwards peppered two Toronto goalies with 25 shots.

Then Toronto's Bill Buba scored on the power play less than a minute into the second period, and teammate Len Burman tied the score at 6:13. But Harvard. even without DeMichele and Mark was skating and hitting evenly with the Blues. and for the remainder of the period matched them goal for goal.

George McManama scored on the power play at 8:20, and after Toronto's Terry Peterham tied the game again three minutes later. Crimson reserve Red Jahncke scored his first varsity goal at 13:29 to put Harvard ahead 4-3. But Mike Boland beat Durno at the 18-minute mark to tie the contest after two periods, and now it became a question of whether or not Harvard could hold on.

For a while it appeared that they would. After Boland scored again at 4:02 of the final period to push the Blues ahead, Paul beat Toronto goalie Adrian Watson 29 seconds later to bring Harvard even. But then, slowly but gradually, the tide began to turn.

The Crimson, beginning to tire from the rough Canadian style, was experiencing unusual trouble clearing, and Toronto forwards, who managed only 15 shots on Durno in the first 40 minutes, bombarded him with 17 in the final period.

At the eight-minutes, Toronto stormed the Harvard zone, and in less than ten seconds put six point-blank shots on the net. Durno stopped five, but the sixth, which gave Boland the hat-trick, beat Harvard. The Crimson pulled Durno with a minute remaining, but Toronto's Brian St. John stole the puck at his own blue-line, outraced the Harvard defense, and flipped a shot into the open net for the second goal.

Harvard was eliminated. but the loss, which will not hurt the Crimson in the ECAC ranking, may have been valuable. Next Wednesday Harvard plays a grudge match at Brown, which hits like Toronto, but doesn't skate as well. Harvard should be sufficiently prepared for it.

And the victory in the ECAC tournament two weeks ago added two wins to the Crimson's Eastern record, including an encouraging 4-3 triumph over Clarkson. to establish the Crimson fairly securely in third place, at least until this weekend.

Drubbing

One of the victories, a 9-3 drubbing of Army, was expected. The Clarkson triumph was not, especially in light of Harvard's sub-par efforts of the previous week. Ma ched against a squad that had nearly everyone returning from the team that gave Harvard fits at Potsdam, and later, in the ECAC semifinals last winter, Harvard scored two early tallies on Clarkson goaler Bruce Bullock, one of the East's best, and added two more in the first two minutes of the second period, to coast to 4-1 into the final session.

Then came the slump. Clarkson slipped a second goal past Durno at 1:21 and a third at 8:26, but Harvard held on. even in the face of a last-minute penalty.

So Harvard is 5-2 in ECAC play, and has valuable experience from Montreal under its belt. With games at Brown and against Cornell, the Crimson may need it.