Here is information I received from a friend of mine who was a big fan of
Dartmouth hockey back in Harkness' reign at Cornell:

Although Cornell is a private university and is forbidden to give athletic
scholarships as part of their membership agreement with the Ivy league, part
of Cornell (the school of Agriculture, I believe) was part of the SUNY
(State University of New York). Harkness somehow played the loophole that
since SUNY was "separate" from the private Cornell, those students enrolled
at SUNY were eligible for hockey scholarships. Ned scoured the plains of
Canada from Ontario west to recruit for his spectacularly successful Cornell
team. My friend recalls going to a game in Hanover, NH when Cornell came to
town and the Dartmouth students crafted and hung a huge banner over one end
of the rink that said: "Welcome to the Future Farmers of Canada"

On 11/14/05, Ralph N. Baer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> As Joe said, Harkness left Cornell for the Red Wings which I think was his
> dream job as he modeled RPI's uniforms after Detroit's and then did the
> same
> at Cornell.
>
> As to leaving Union, basically, the Union administration wanted to keep
> Union hockey as a D-III program and also didn't like the caliber of
> student
> that Harkness was recruiting. Harkness's goal was always to become D-I.
> After Harkness left, most of his players left also, and Union completed
> that
> season with a lot of walk-ons.
>
> Although Union did, of course, later become D-I, they do still regard a
> .400
> winning percentage as a successful season. :-D
>
> I add that he left RPI for Cornell because he was having trouble
> attracting
> a sufficiently number of talented players to RPI's limited selection of
> fields of study.
>
> Ralph Baer, RPI
>
> ------------------------------
>
> > Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 20:33:39 -0500
> > From: Richard Henry <[log in to unmask]>
> > Subject: Hockey History
> >
> > While studying USIU sports history (my older son's club coach is the
> > soccer coach at USIU) I wandered into some college hockey history pages
> > (yes, USIU used to play DI hockey), and found the records of Ned
> Harkness,
>
> > former coach of RPI, Cornell, and Union. What I couldn't find were the
> > reasons Harkness left maybe the best DI college hockey program at
> Cornell
> > to move to DIII Union, or why he left Union in the middle of the 77-78
> > season. Does anyone have any memories of those days?
>