For a while there at the beginning of the season, it almost appeared that Cornell might be out of the running for this year's Ivy League hockey crown. After just three contests with current cellar-dwellers Brown and Yale, the Big Red had won just one. Cornell suffered back-to-back 4-6 and 2-5 losses at Brown and Yale, and even conservative observers of the Eastern hocky scene admitted that this was not the Cornell team that had dominated the league for eight years.

Thick of Things

Since then, Cornell has won four of five league games, losing only to Princeton, 2-5, and once again the Big Red is in the thick of things in the Ivy League race. It seems there is absolutely no way of escaping the fact that every year Lynah Rink in Ithaca, N.Y., is the scene of the big Ivy League show downs.

Last year, the big contest came when Harvard traveled to the frigid northlands of upstate New York. A win would have put the Crimson in a first place tie with Cornell, and hopefully would have given it a share of the title. The Crimson icemen were crushed, however, and Cornell went merrilly along its way to its eighth title in as many years.

This season Dartmouth, as well as Harvard, is a pretender to the league crown. Cornell's Lynah Rink is the scene of a pair of key contests as Dartmouth had a shot at dethroning the champs last night and Harvard will be able to get its licks in tonight starting at 8 p.m.

The Crimson will be looking to revenge a 4-5 overtime loss to the Big Red in Watson Rink in January. Cornell seemed to pull rabbits out of its hat and goals out of thin air in that one, as it came from a three-goal deficit to win it while being thoroughly outplayed.

Tonight's game will also be crucial for both teams in this season's unpredictable ECAC Division One race. Harvard and Cornell are both vying for one of the top four spots and the accompanying home ice advantage for the playoffs. Harvard is currently in third in the division with a 10-5-0 slate going into last night's game with Colgate.

Cornell, 8-5-1 heading into last evening's clash with the Big Green, is struggling to break into the top four. Dartmouth currently holds that fourth spot.

So everything is on the line for the Big Red this weekend. If Cornell drops both games, the Ivy crown will most likely be decided in Hanover on February 27 in the contest between Harvard and Dartmouth. If Cornell manages to win both games, it will be in a three-way tie at the top with all three teams even in the loss column.

A split will do little good for the Big Red, so the squad really has its work cut out for it. Leading the team into the fray is center Dave Peace, the leading point getter with 28. Bob Murray and Doug Marrett are the leading goal scorers with ten apiece.

Seventh in the scoring parade is George Kuzmicz, who has five goals and 15 assists. Three of those goals, however, came in last Saturday's 6-5 overtime victory against Dartmouth. Kuzmicz also had two assists in that game making him the first player this season to earn five points in a single game. For this he earned Ivy player of the week honors.