New Arena Climaxes Three-year Campaign

November 16 marks the opening of Crimson hockey practice for the coming season. It also marks the climax, although not the conclusion, of a three-year campaign for a Harvard hockey rink.

For then, the new $150,000 arena now being completed adjacent to Dillon Field House, will be put to its first formal use. Then, over 1800 gallons of cooled brine will speed through ten miles of pipe every minute, and eight sets of 6000-watt light fixtures will illumine a 200-by-35-foot playing surface.

But, in spite of modern ice-making equipment and surface clearing tools, it is nevertheless an outdoor rink, and many problems are forecast.

Carroll F. Getchell, business manager of the HAA poses questions like "Can suitable ice be maintained until the end of the Crimson season next March?" Or "How much will various weather conditions affect the playing surface?"

And some of the men who helped climax the drive for the outdoor rink are already trying to find solutions to these problems by providing a conclusion to the campaign. Organized as "The Working Friends of Harvard Hockey," and headed by Alexander Bright '19, 55 alumni are now at work raising $350,000 for the erection of a structure around the rink.

It won't be just a roof, they note. It will be a building including sizeable seating capacity, probably about 2500, as well as dressing rooms. Thus, the high cost.

It won't be ready this year, they mourn. They have collected only $65,000 so far, and foresee concerted effort in order to build by next season. Bright estimates a minimum construction time of four months.

But if the task seems a difficult one, the campaign for the outdoor rink was not easy either.

It formally began in 1950, when ex-hockey coach John F. Chase donated $1000 toward construction of a Crimson rink. Then, in March, 1952, Bright added $20,000 just before a student group presented a petition bearing 1800 signatures to the Board of Overseers asking for an arena.

Their bid was turned down then, and it was not until last spring that the drive reopened with renewed vigor. For then, the Boston Arena, site of Harvard games and practices for 40 years, was sold to a New York business group which planned on reconverting the building for commercial purposes.

This prompted university action, and last March came the announcement that an outdoor rink would be built.

The rink is now almost completed, and covered or not, it gives the Crimson varsity a practice site (games will still be played on commercial ice.) It also allows the freshman sextet to play home games, and provides convenient free skating for all undergraduates.