Thanks for copying me...
 
At 6:35 PM -0600 1/12/1998, David Parter wrote:
> > Understood. :-)  However I have yet to come across anything stating
> > beforehand that the games would count.  As I have said, I assumed they
> > would too, but I can see how some might have thought they would not.
>
> I don't have the exact quote, and I don't have access to the appropriate
> rule books, but the week of the ice-breaker, when it was reported in
> the local papers (as a "last-minute problem"), Coach Sauer was quoted
> as saying something to the effect that NCAA rules are that all games
> between NCAA schools are suppossed to count, it isn't up to the
> coaches.
 
That's not true at all.  It is very much legal, as Parker and others have
stated, for two NCAA schools to play and designate the game as an EX.  This
happens many times when D1 schools play a preseason game against D3
schools.  There is nothing that states a game between two NCAA schools must
not be an EX.
 
Nor one between two D1 schools.  The Hall of Fame Game is a perfect
example.  The rules do not state one way or the other what the status of
this exempted game or any others must be.  And it has been a bone of
contention for several years.
 
There was also, as another example, a preseason game between Maine and
Merrimack several years ago that was played and counted as an EX.  But note
that this game was a "countable" game meaning that it went towards the NCAA
limit (then 38 games) for both teams.  In that respect Sauer is correct,
unless it is exempted, then a contest between two NCAA teams of any
division must go towards the limit whether the game is an EX or not.
 
I will reiterate, the section in the NCAA Manual which details the
exemptions (17.13) does not state what the status of any game must be with
regard to NCAA selection or stat-keeping.  I also cannot find any other
area of the rules which covers this.
 
As an aside, with the trip by UNH and Lowell to play Clarkson and St
Lawrence last weekend having been canceled, nothing in the rules that I am
aware of would have prevented UNH and Lowell from deciding to play one or
two games against each other instead and considering those games as EX's so
they could avoid being off for a while.  (or they could have called them NC
games if they wished.)
 
> From that I think that it may not have been in the contract, and
> the default would be that the games count. Given the circumstance
> of a first-year event, and confusion, it may be that they exempt
> it this year.
 
I certainly believe from things I know that the NCAA would have liked the
games to count but that as a result of the confusion, they will not count
this year.
 
And there is also the fact that Clarkson coach Mark Morris said before the
tourney that his understanding was that the games would not count.  But
most people focus on Parker.  I find that interesting.
 
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                [log in to unmask]               *HMM* 11/13/93
*****         Color Voice of Merrimack Hockey  WCAP 980 AM          *****
*****       Unofficial Merrimack Hockey home page located at:       *****
*****   http://www.tiac.net/users/machnik/MChockey/MChockey.html    *****
>>>    U.S. College Hockey Online http://www.uscollegehockey.com/     <<<
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.