Saturday night, Cornell's hockey team went to Providence, beat tough Brown. 5-4, in overtime and, for yet another year, established itself as the team to beat in the Ivy League.

The Big Red has lost only four league contests in the last six years, while racking up six consecutive Ivy titles.

Going into last weekend's game. Brown was rated as the prime obstacle in Cornell's path to a seventh consecutive league crown.

Although Cornell, under sophomore coach Dick Bertrand, lost three stars from its 1970-71 team--All-American wing Kevin Pettit. All-Ivy forward Brian McCutcheon and All-Ivy goalie Brian Cropper--the Big Red is still loaded with its usual stock of Canadian talent.

Brown lost only three men off last year's second-place team and returns its outstanding goalie. Lou Reycroft.

Last season. Bruno got by the Big Red in the first game of the campaign and raised the title hopes of the league contenders. But Cornell went on to win 11 straight in breezing to the Ivy championship.

In Saturday's game. Cornell jumped off to a 3-1 lead in the first period, only to see Brown tie the score 3-3 after two stanzas.

"That auditorium was jammed with people, the Brown band was so loud, and the fans kept giving us all of that Aggie nonsense. With all of the inexperienced sophomores I have playing, it made a big difference," said Bertrand yesterday.

Whatever the reason. Bruno jumped out to a 4-3 lead early in the last period. The Big Red finally managed to score with but 53 seconds left on the clock and the game went into overtime.

Momentum

"Our tying goal gave us the momentum." Bertrand said. "They never got the puck out of their end during the overtime." Cornell scored the winning goal a little over two minutes into the overtime.

Reycroft had an outstanding evening, turning away 49 shots. His teammates managed only 17 shots on goal.

Incalculable

While Cornell and Brown were playing the feature game Saturday night, the Crimson icemen were establishing themselves as the incalculable entity in the league race with an impressive 11-3 victory over Penn.

Harvard finished deadlocked with Brown for second place last year, but the Crimson lost to graduation its potent first line of Joe Cavanagh. Cooch Owen and Dan DeMichele. The Crimson's ability to make up for that loss is of course key to its performance this year.

If Saturday's display against the Quakers is any indication. Harvard may just have loud two good lines once more. Penn was supposed have been a challenger, returning seven of its ten top scorers and three regular defense-men from a fourth-place squad.

In other action involving an Ivy team. Clarkson scored a goal with six seconds remaining in the game to edge Dartmouth, 4-3.