RIT to go D-I

[Josh '99]

According to the USCHO front page, RIT is going D-I and joining Atlantic Hockey in 2006-07.  Is it too late to rescind the offer to Quinnipiac and take RIT instead?  

Edit:  Better yet, maybe give Union the boot, poach Niagara, pair them with RIT and RPI with Dartmouth?

[ithacat]

Good for the Tigers & Rochester (which doesn't have any D1 sports programs). I'd much rather have RIT than Quinny in the ECAC -- oh well.

A couple of other notes: David Wrisley is a backup goalie at RIT (he was the goalie on Ithaca High's last State Championship team, which featured Dustin Brown).  Last year RIT outdrew Quinny, and that was with a D3 team.

[Robb]

Yes, a D-3 team outdrew Q.  But it was a D-3 team that was WINNING.  It'll be interesting to see how their attendance fares if they struggle through their first few D-1 seasons.  People like rooting for winners, whether it's pee-wee, D-3, or D-1.

[Jason L]

I use to goto RIT (Transferred to Cornell in 03), and while hockey isnt as big as it is at Cornell, it is still the largest sport by far there.  Tickets are easy to come by, only the big games sell out, and you can usually buy them at the gate up till the start of the game.  There is no assigned seating, it is all first come first serve.  

The cheers are actually pretty similar to all of Cornell's...except whenever RIT shoots on goal, the entire student section yells "OH SH*T"

[Greg Berge]

I'm sure if the ECACHL (or whatever its 2006 incarnation will be -- ECHA, Union of Eastern College Hockey Socialist Republics, whatever...) would boot UC, revoke QU, and bring in Niagara and RIT in a minute if they could manage it, but since that isn't going to happen, hopefully we'll at least have ECAC teams scheduling RIT over the next few years, to keep the door open.

[Will]

[Q]Greg Berge Wrote:

ECHA, Union of Eastern College Hockey Socialist Republics, whatever...[/q]

There already is an ECHA.  It's a club league that includes schools like Rutgers, Navy, and URI.  So the ECACHL will likely not be renamed that.  But I would vote for the UECHSR name. :-D

[billhoward]

Is RIT playing in the original circa 1970 rink (Ritter?) built on the then-new campus? Capacity about 2,000?

Still, this is good for Rochester and perhaps good for RIT, which would dearly love to be thought of in the same breath as RPI (and you can expect some name confusion) if not MIT. Obviously the printing/graphic arts and photgraphy programs are world-class.

RIT is lucky that silly all-D1 or no-D1 sports provision didn't pass.

Sometimes a school or community can through sports expand its visibility, although one could argue whether spending the better part of $1 billion for a football stadium near Javits Center will expand NYC's visibility. That plus all the people falling or being rightsized out of Kodak and Xerox and doing startups could turn Rochester into a higher precipitation mini-Silicon Valley.

[billhoward]

Sheesh. The ECACHL needs to go back to a shorter acronym. Four letters is enough. I think it should just be ECAC and the heck with confusion between the two groups. Not that they'd fall for it.

You could also have a nested acronym, EHL, where E stands for ECAC, except EHL is already taken.

[Jason L]

yup...still in Ritter arena.  Its pretty similar to Lynah in the sense that there are no seats, but benches instead.  Its a little smaller but the place still gets pretty loud.   I would love if Cornell would play RIT the first season...might be my only chance to catch the two teams playing each other before i graduate!

[ithacat]

Can't argue with that, though Rochester's a pretty good hockey town. The Amerks have a great history and the teams have drawn pretty well even during softer years. Though one also has to worry about how many fans can one market support.

[ithacat]

I would hope that if Cornell playing RIT on the road it would be in Blue Cross. I think 6,000 would be a breeze -- I'm curious if they could draw 10,000. Match that game with an Amerks game and you might sell the place out.

A fun double-header could be Cornell-RIT and IHS-McQuaid, which wouldn't sell the place out but it would be a blast.

Are there any rules prohibiting College & HS or Pro & College double-headers?

[billhoward]

If there is a prohibition of HS and college on the same venue, it probably has to do with it being seen as some kind of unfair recruiting inducement. The NCAA's creed is to leave no small stone unturned in search of minor techical violations so they can in better conscience ignore wholesale payoffs and blatant violations in say, D1 basketball or football.

[ben03]

what is it you're trying to say here bill ...  ::uhoh::   ::nut:: ;-)

[billhoward]

*If* there's a reason why it can't happen, it would probably be some NCAA rule that fears for the athletic purity of the HS students. In the minds of an NCAA bureaucrat, all those carefully laid down rules about when and when you can't visit, make phone calls, send letters, would be undermined by the proximity of a HS game and a college game on the same entertainent venue.

The NCAA is good at enforcing petty rules while seldom finding major wrongdoing in D1 hoops or football. Jon Feinstein laid out some examples in his books. Then there was the year the U of Hawaii used multicolored aloha shirt colors for its uniforms; kind of cool and it is the U of Hawaii. The NCAA took about eight minutes before promulgating a rule that jerseys could only have a solid color and a couple contrasting stripes.

[dodger916]

[Q]billhoward Wrote:

 *If* there's a reason why it can't happen, it would probably be some NCAA rule that fears for the athletic purity of the HS students. In the minds of an NCAA bureaucrat, all those carefully laid down rules about when and when you can't visit, make phone calls, send letters, would be undermined by the proximity of a HS game and a college game on the same entertainent venue.
[/q]

From my somewhat limited knowledge of recruiting rules, among other things, the regulated activities concern direct contacts between recruiters and prospective student-athletes so as to minimize the interference with school work while maintaining a "level playing field" among universities.  

NCAA Div. I Rule 13.1.2.4 (b): An athletics representative may view a prospect's athletics contest on his or her own initiative, subject to the understanding that the athletics representative may not contact the prospect on such occassions.