Suddenly the Harvard hockey team can do nothing right, and last night they combined bed breaks and sloppy play to lose to Dartmouth, 4-3, at Watson Rink. The loss was the third in five days, and it dropped the Crimson's Division I record to 12-4-1.

The Harvard forwards were missing passes and muffing scoring opportunities all night, but the deciding factor in the game was the outstanding performance of Dartmouth goalie Peter Proulx, who had 38 saves, 15 of them in the final period.

Harvard went ahead 2-0 in the first period on goals by Bobby McManama and Bobby Goodenow, but Proulx didn't have much to do with either one. At 1:36 McManama was all alone to collect the rebound of a Dave Hynes rocket that bounced off of the plexiglass out in front of the cage.

And at 11:49 Goodenow ended a four game scoring drought when a Dartmouth defenseman tipped in the rebound of a backhander from the face off circle.

Hynes had five shots on goal in the first period, and Proulx had to make some exceptional saves to keep the Crimson from breaking the game wide open. The Indians got back into the game with a goal at 14:40, and they went ahead when Harvard goalie Joe Bertagna let in two stoppable shots in the last minute of the period.

Proulx had 12 saves in the first period and 11 in the second, and that doesn't include the three post shots that got by him. If anything the caliber of hockey got worse in the second period, and Harvard was unable to build up any sustained momentum.

Dartmouth scored what proved to be the winning goal early in the third period when sophomore wing Bill Dunbar was left wide open at the corner of the crease to put in a rebound for his second goal.

With six minutes left in the game the Crimson finally got a break when defenseman Andy Burnes, who played his usual solid game, was tomahawked in the face by an Indian forward.

The major penalty was good for five minutes of badly needed power play time, and the first line cut the lead in half at 15:18 when captain Tommy Paul assisted Goodenow to his second goal in a scrambled in front of the cage.

The Crimson still had three minutes left with a man advantage, but Larry Desond went off for crosschecking at 16:12, and Hynes put Harvard a man short for thirty seconds with a tripping penalty a minute later.

Harvard managed a few parting shots on Proulx, but even when coach Bill Cleary pulled his goalie, the forwards were still unable to keep the play in the offensive zone.

The loss broke a fourteen game winning streak against Dartmouth, and put the team in bad shape for the showdown with Cornell on Saturday. The Crimson must break a three-game losing streak up at Cornell in order to win the Ivy League.

"We have nothing to be ashamed of," coach Cleary said after the game. "We were getting the bounces earlier in the season, but lately the puck just won't go in. We made some mistakes, but when you outshoot the other team, 36 to 18, and still lose, it has to be because of bad breaks."