With its hopes for a share of the Ivy title dwindling, and its position among the ECAC's top three becoming increasingly more precarious, Harvard's skidding hockey team travels to Princeton tonight for a match that has suddenly taken on far more importance than it had just two weeks ago.

Four consecutive losses--three of them to Ivy squads--have dropped the Crimson to third place in the Division I standings, and second behind Cornell in the Ivy. It is unlikely, unless Cornell and Boston University suffer complete collapses within the next week and a half, that Harvard will move higher.

Home-Ice Advantage

It is absolutely essential that the Crimson win all of its remaining games--Princeton. Brown and Yale--to ensure the home-ice advantage for the ECAC playoffs that Harvard supporters have, with apparent justification, been taking for granted.

On a strict percentage basis. New Hampshire actually ranks above the Crimson, with a 10-4 record as compared to Harvard's 12-5-1. RPI, at 8-5-1, is also within striking distance if Harvard is upset tonight or next week.

So, there is much at stake tonight at Hobart A.H. Baker Rink, and a much improved Princeton team is waiting there. When the Tigers played in Cambridge last December, there was little to indicate that they were any better than the outfit that had staggered to an abysmal 1-22 record last winter. Harvard won easily, 7-2, and Princeton continued, until early this month, to play in similar fashion.

Almost unaccountably, the Tigers' quality of play has improved since they broke for exams. They forced Brown and Cornell into overtime, lost narrowly at Yale, and finally, after a 21-game Ivy game drought, defeated the Eli, 6-4, last weekend. Goalie Ed Swift has been playing superbly, and Ithaca native Walt Snickenberger has led the forwards in a decidedly more aggressive style.

Although Princeton cannot hope for a playoff spot (their best possible final record would be 9-15), they could be a dangerous spoiler. Cornell must play at Baker Rink on Saturday, and a Tiger victory would assure Harvard of a share of the Ivy title, provided the Crimson wins the remainder of its games.

Decisive Upset

Still, it would be a decisive upset if Princeton defeats Harvard tonight. Though the thought of four straight losses is at the least unsettling, two of them were at the hands of the East's top two teams, and another was primarily brought about by an extraordinary performance by the Dartmouth goaltender.

Nothing has happened--injuries or dissension, for example--that makes the Crimson any less powerful a squad than the one that whipped Cornell a month ago. The Crimson's slump may be attributable to the mere fact that they have temporarily lost the touch around the net. At any rate, tonight's match offers a crucial opportunity for Harvard to prove that it still belongs among the ECAC leaders, and is still alive in the Ivy race.