hal@cornell.UUCP (10/26/83)
From: hal (Hal Perkins)
To: net-sport-hockey
(From the Ithaca [NY] Journal, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 1983. Ithaca is the
home of Cornell, which accounts for the Cornell emphasis here.)
Cornell to Enter New Eastern Divisional Format in Hockey
Ivy League teams will merge with Clarkson, St. Lawrence
and four other schools to form 12-team league
By Kenny van Sickle
Journal Sports Editor
A new format for Divsion I intercollegiate ice hockey in the East will be
in effect starting with the 1984-1985 season.
Cornell and five other Ivy Leaguers, Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth
and Brown, will be allied with natural rivals Colgate, Clarkson, St. Lawrence,
RPI, Vermont and Army.
In announcing the new division within the Eastern College Athletic Conference,
Cornell athletic director Laing Kennedy today commented, ``I strongly support
the new league. The Ivy restrictions will hold and the non-Ivy members have
indicated that they will adjust to Ivy philosophies in time.''
The division came into being only recently after Clarkson and St. Lawrence
swung over to it after first showing interest in another Eastern inter-
collegiate group currently known as the ``Super League.'' There are seven in
that one--Providence, Boston College, Boston University, New Hampshire, Maine,
Lowell and Northeastern.
Inasmuch as the non-Ivies in the new 12-team league currently are able to get
earlier practice starts and have earlier games Kennedy said he feels that until
they get around to having the same formats as the Ivies that the early season
schedules will call for matchups involving strictly Ivy League.
``We can play the Clarksons and the St. Lawrences later in the season and
compete equally,'' said Kennedy, ``but we certainly won't be able to start out
against them under the present circumstances.''
[Cornell] President Frank H.T. Rhodes has indicated to Kennedy, the league
director that he very definitely approves the new league and second-year coach
Lou Reycroft goes along wholeheartedly.
``I like the idea of playing our traditional opponents home and home each
season,'' Kennedy added.
As the schedule goes this year there is one matchup with all the ECAC
opponents except the Ivies, where there are two.
Thus Cornell will have 22 league matches and will need to schedule only four
others. Kennedy said he felt that meeting some of the teams of the Super
League in tournaments is a strong possibility and he suggested possible sites
as Lake Placid, Binghamton and Syracuse.
As for postseason NCAA play, the prospects are that the new league will have
an eight-team tournament in the East and that its champion will get home ice
automatically in the NCAA tourney. The Super League champion also would
qualify, then there would be two other Eastern at-large teams selected by an
Eastern committee.
The formation of the new league signifies the shared committment of the 12
institutions to a balance of competition within the group and the ECAC.
The plans are for Friday and Saturday games at all sites and the geographical
setup makes for less traveling. The scheduling should be better for student
athletes, keeping them on campus more often and closer to their studies.
``The new league preserves a strong division hockey progam, and members may
play the best,'' added Kennedy.
Hal Perkins UUCP: {decvax|vax135|...}!cornell!hal
Cornell Computer Science ARPA: hal@cornell BITNET: hal@crnlcs