At 4:14 PM 12/18/95, Greenie wrote:
>Over the holidays, Maine will be traveling throughout Canada, playing six
>exhibition matches against Canadian schools (British Columbia (2),
>Calgary(2), Concordia, and Ottawa).
>
>These games are in addition to the Penney's Classic, where they play one
>non-conference game (Union, methinks), and one exhibition against a team
>from the World Junior tournament.
>
>My question is: what (if any) are the NCAA rules regarding the total number
>of games, exhbition or otherwise, that a team is allowed to play during its
>regular season?
 
Last year, I put in the HOCKEY-L archives a file which contains excerpts
from last year's NCAA Manual that answer these questions and others.  The
file is called something like NCAAMAN EXCERPTS.  The HOCKEY-L FILELIST will
give the exact name if this is incorrect.
 
There are a number of exemptions teams are allowed to take in order to play
certain games (this happens in other sports too).  This means that the
games do not have to count towards the NCAA DivI limit of 34 games.
 
Maine is exempting all of the games you mentioned.  The game in the JC
Penney Classic against either Sweden or Switzerland falls under the
exemption for hosting one foreign team each year (Union is also taking an
exemption for this, I believe, as are Cornell and UMass in the UMass
tournament).  And, the games in Canada are considered a foreign tour which
teams are allowed to take once every four years, exempting all games played
on the tour.
 
Maine also took an exemption to play in the Hall of Fame Classic, as did
their opponent, Michigan.
 
>What are the regulations regarding college hockey? It would seem unfair if
>a team with "money & fame" can use its resources to schedule a number of
>games as "practice," while other teams with limited budgets and lesser
>notoreity remain at home, practicing intra-squad as usual.
 
Any team is allowed to use as many of the exemptions as they can, as long
as they fall within NCAA rules.  Many other teams have gone on foreign
tours in recent years, with most of those tours being in Europe.  Again,
you can only use the foreign tour exemption once every four years.
 
Maine is just taking advantage of many of the exemptions available to them.
Many of the exemptions (hosting a foreign team, playing in the HoF Game)
have also been used by other teams in the past.  BTW, CCHA and WCHA teams
that go to Alaska to play UAF or UAA get to exempt those games too.
Exemptions are actually being used all over the place.
 
BTW, I see at least three good reasons for the tour from Maine's standpoint:
 
1) A chance to get playing time for many of the players who have not played
much and who may be keys in upcoming years (or who just want to play).
2) A chance for some Canadians playing at Maine to play in front of their
parents, friends, and the hometown fans.
2) A chance to become more visible in Canada to potential recruits.
 
I would not be surprised if in upcoming years, we see more teams use their
foreign tour exemption to go to Canada.  It certainly makes sense and I
don't know why it hasn't happened yet.
 
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                   [log in to unmask]            *HMM* 11/13/93
>> Co-owner of the College Hockey Lists at University of Maine System  <<
*****       Unofficial Merrimack Hockey home page located at:       *****
*****   http://www.tiac.net/users/machnik/MChockey/MChockey.html    *****
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.