Penn wants in- Wouldn't it be great...

To give THEM an @$$kicking for a change? Check these links in the Daily Pennsylvanian.

Check these two stories:

[www.dailypennsylvanian.com]

[www.dailypennsylvanian.com]

there are plenty of coaches available . . . Take, for instance, 1997 NHL Coach of the Year Ted Nolan, who has been looking for a job since he left the Buffalo Sabres after winning that award.

While I think another Ivy hockey team would be great, is this guy serious? Maybe Scotty Bowman is tired of the Red Wings. . .

Penn-Princeton, of course, makes sense.

Do you then pair Yale and Brown and try to pick up a Boston school for Harvard's partner? Or do leave Harvard-Brown alone and try to pick up a Connecticut or downstate NY team to be Yale's partner, like Quinnipiac or the USMA?

Or do you encourage UVM to leave for HEA, stay with 12 teams and pair Yale with Brown and Dartmouth with Harvard?

I like the fact that the author thinks a hockey program can be funded by a 50/50 raffle©©©© throw in a few bake sales and maybe they can build a 15,000 seat arena to play in©

This is an interesting question that the Penn author didn't think about. Quinnipiac looks like it is trying to increase its profile in a lot of ways. Their basketball team made the NCAAs last year and their political surveys are nationally recognized. I also heard (when I paid a lot more attention to these things) that the law school was making a pitch to "steal" faculty from higher profile schools. They might welcome an invitation into the ECAC if the league wanted to go to 14.

It's an interesting thought, but the ECAC is just about to move to their "everybody gets a shot" playoff format and probably doesn't want to ruin that right now.

They pretty much already said no to the idea of a Niagra/Canisius bid on the philosphy of "12 is enough." Of course, Penn has the extra 'in' being an Ivy.

My opinion? The only way they have a chance is if they bring another nearby team with them. Like Columbia? (Penn/Princeton, Columbia/Yale) or someone in that general vacinity.

But for now it's really just a pipe dream of one student who writes for the Penn paper, and not a particularly well thought out one at that (Teddy Nolan coaching a Club --> D-I team? No mention of traveling partners, which he probably doesn't even know about. And of course the concept of a 50/50 raffle supporting a team). He's free to dream, but don't get too excited yet .

Well, I played club hockey at NYU (grads were allowed to play) and I can say that Penn was quite good by club standards and Columbia was absolutely horrible. We actually used a mercy rule against Columbia and the score keeper would stop scoring once our lead was 10 goals (which would happen by the middle of the 2nd period if not earlier, and we were a decent team at best). So, unless Columbia has turned it around in the past couple of years, there's no foundation there for a varsity team at any division level.

I'm not too excited (I don't think it will ever happen), but it could be ok. One move would be to readmit Army (yet again) and have Yale-Army, Princeton-Penn.

Of course, this will reopen the perpetual "UVM / RPI about to bolt to HE" silliness, since that would preserve the 12 team league.

A 2*n team league is difficult to schedule for odd n. You'd need some travel-pair magic to preserve the elegance of the current balanced schedule.

A 26 game RS league schedule would be a nice excuse to cajole the Ivies into bumping up +4 GP, however. There are so few quality opponents willing to come east that it wouldn't hurt to increase the ratio of conference-to-non-conference games either -- one fewer UAH game wouldn't hurt...

Of course, bringing Penn back into the fold and the problems of scheduling a 14-team league might inspire the ECAC to let Niagara and Canisius in after all to get an easier-to-schedule 16-team league. The natural thing would then be to have the Ivies plus Colgate in one division ('cause, you know, Colgate was invited to join the Ivies and turned them down ) and everybody else in the other, with, say, Quinnipiac as UVM's travel partner. Then 2 games against each divisional opponent and 1 game against everyone in the other division would still be a 22-game schedule.

Considering the work and time it takes to bring a program up to D-I from D-III (and the defunct D-II), I can't imagine what it would take to bring a club team straight to D-I.

I can think of many teams who made the move from DII/DIII (such as most of the CHA, Vermont, Union, UNO) And it took most of those teams several years at least to gain any sort of respectability. I can't off the top of my head think of any club team that entered the NCAA with D-I status. (UConn perhaps?)

But *if* it were to be considered, my solution would be to let Vermont go to Hockey East, and admit Penn. Pair Dartmouth and Harvard, Brown and Yale, Penn and Princeton. ECAC keeps 12 team setup, Hockey East goes from 9 to 10, which IMO would be a more preferable scheduling situation for them at least...an odd number of teams never made sense to me.

I'm a little confused, is the ECAC somehow holding Vermont and RPI back from defecting to Hockey East? Would HE want either of them?

HE wanted RPI on a couple of occasions in the past. I don't know if they would want RPI now, but I am almost positive that the RPI admin wouldn't like the idea. I am sad to say that they probably wouldn't mind if the "RPI to D-III" rumors surfaced again.

As to UVM -- they're HE's type of team with the scandal from a couple of years ago. Seriously, I suspect that HE would like to add a team, as 9 is an odd number to work with unless they invent a way to play hockey on a triangular rink. Either UVM or UConn are probably the most likely candidates if UConn starts to offer scholarships.

As to schools going from club to D-I -- that's how Penn did it in the 1960's with a short stop (one year?) in ECAC D-II.Jason N '95 wrote:

I'm a little confused, is the ECAC somehow holding Vermont and RPI back from defecting to Hockey East? Would HE want either of them?

I can state pretty confidently, without jeopardizing my role as an officer of Columbia University, that there won't be a varsity men's hockey team here anytime in the next couple of decades.

Beeeej

what about the chances of a varsity's men lacrosse team at Columbia?

a couple of years ago i noticed that we don't play them either...

anybody remember why Penn ever left the ecac in the first place (funding, lack of interest, title ix)?

thanks
m

Not to open a big can of Title IX worms, but.... is it even an option for Penn to add a men's DI hockey team? Or is their club team already considered a men's sport and so bumping up it's status doesn't matter for Title IX?

There won't be a men's lacrosse team at Columbia, either - at least not until we reach something resembling Title IX equity.

Beeeej

No, only varsity teams are considered part of the Title IX gender equity "equation." And unless Penn is already at or near gender equity, adding both teams at once probably won't help, either - Title IX requires schools to be moving toward equity.

Beeeej

Interesting...I didn't know that part of Title IX.

So basically, I'll chalk this "rumor" up to just being wishful thinking on the part of a writer at the Daily Pennsylvanian rather than actual thoughts in the Penn Athletic dept.

Jeffrey "Beeeej" Anbinder '94 wrote:

There won't be a men's lacrosse team at Columbia, either - at least not until we reach something resembling Title IX equity.

"we"? I don't like the sound of that, Beeeej.

Hey, I am posting from work, I might as well at least pretend I'm working.

Beeeej

> anybody remember why Penn ever left the ecac in the first place (funding, lack of interest, title ix)?

I don't remember Penn, but I do remember a letter to hockey-l 5-6 years ago from the rink manager at Penn's old rink. Apparently, that barn still existed and was top notch, but it had been too expensive to maintain and Penn had sold it to the city.

Hockey is expensive (facility, travel, equipment, insurance). The jury is still out on whether any of the MAAC and CHA D-1 programs will survive more than a few more years (especially if those are years of recession). I don't think too many more schools are clamoring for the privilege of hemorraging money.