Recently, I received in the mail copies of two articles from the March
2, 1994 Troy (NY) Record that discussed the possibility of RPI moving
to HE.  The author of both articles, Tim Leonard, listed a number of
pluses and minuses associated with the possible move.  Let me list
them, without Leonard's detailed explanations but instead insert
comments of my own:
 
Pro -- Hockey East wants RPI
I will accept that this is true.  I have seen no evidence to the
contrary.
 
Pro -- Television
Clearly this is also true as relatively few ECAC games are shown on any
TV station.  Leonard, however, incorrectly states that last year's ECAC
tournament was only available in Lake Placid -- I know that I saw parts
of it on a UHF channel that broadcasts from Virginia.  A lot of static
(both of the transmission variety and the station asking for money),
but it was on.
 
Pro -- Hockey East is a better conference
I must admit that this is correct if by this one means that the average
team in HE superior to that in the ECAC.
 
Pro -- Play games at Knickerbocker Arena
I do not see what connection this really has to RPI moving to HE -- the
RPI Invitational or any other game could be moved to Albany whether RPI
is in the ECAC, HE, or any other conference.  One could envision both
RPI-Union games being played in Albany if Union's program continues to
rise, as seems to be the case.
 
Pro -- The new president has old connections
This is referring to the fact that new RPI president Byron Pipes was
formerly at Delaware which plays in other sports in the same
conference as BU, UNH, Maine, and NE.  I don't know how much of a plus
this is.
 
Pro -- No academic index
In my opinion this is a mixed blessing.  Assuredly, RPI would have an
easier time finding recruits if it didn't have the additional burden of
having to find those that satisfy the ECAC's more rigid academic
standards.  However, these more rigid standards have meant that a much
larger percentage of Hockey players have remained academically eligible
than was the case when I was an undergraduate in the mid-60's.  What
sense is there in admitting a student if he goes on academic probation
after the first semester of his freshman year--and then leaves school
at the end of the year?  It was an annual event for RPI's freshman
hockey team in the 60's to either cancel the remainder of its schedule
in January or convert into a JV or Club team.  (This was prior to
freshmen being allowed to compete on varsity teams.)
 
Whenever the topic of RPI hockey players and academics comes up on
Hockey-L, the fact that most of them are Management majors is
mentioned.  This has been the case at least since I was a freshman in
1964/65.  As has been repeatedly been stated, the perception of the
average student was, and apparently still is, that Management is an
easier major than those in Science and Engineering that are the majors
of most students at RPI.  I suspect that the truth is as Mike M has
often stated -- the Management major at RPI is not easy, and many
Engineers/Scientists at RPI would have trouble with it.  Whether it is
easier or harder depends on the person and his or her aptitude.  I have
seen hockey players who struggled through the required
freshman/sophmore Calculus and Linear Algebra sequence (at least it was
required for management majors in the 60's and 70's), indeed as a
graduate teaching assistant I had the mixed pleasure of trying to teach
several hockey players (not to mention other students) these subjects.
On the other side, I have known engineers who had troubles with
management courses (I never took any).  As an aside to Mike, this
year's RPI press guide does not list majors.
 
Pro -- RPI will be able to recruit more from the Boston area
I suppose so, but it won't be much easier.  I suppose that there are
hockey players who want to leave home to play hockey but want to play
some of their games in the Boston area.
 
Pro -- Leaving the Ivy League
Con -- Leaving the Ivy League
This was listed, rightly so, as both a plus and a minus.  The plus
being the supposed reflected glory that the ECAC-non-Ivies receive from
being associated with the Ivies; the negative being the fact that the
the Ivies supposedly control the league.  Although Leonard didn't
mention it, the former could be illustrated by the fact that RPI was
not allowed to go to Alaska (last year?) because of the ECAC game
limit, while the Ivies permitted Yale to exceed their own, even more
stringent limit for the same purpose.
 
Con -- Traditional rivalries will be thrown away
I shudder from the fact that this would mean that traditional rivalries
with Clarkson and SLU would disappear.  How many straight years has RPI
made an annual trek into the North Country?  (To think that I thought
that it would be heresy to move this trip from its annual location in
February (or was it January?) at the time of the ECAC-HE breakup.)
However, it does not take too many years for new rivalries to form;
really all it takes is for two teams that have a similar degree of
success to play each other regularly.  RPI once had a strong rivalry
with BU which disappeared with the ECAC-HE break up.  RPI once had a
rivalry with UNH abetted by RPI's win in a first round ECAC playoff
game when RPI was seated 8 and UNH 1, and UNH's improbably comeback in
another game by scoring what seemed to me to be a half dozen goals in
the last five minutes (perhaps not that many).  These and/or other
rivalries will be born.  All in all, I think that the HE teams form a
more attractive package that the ECAC teams.  Assuming that RPI can use
its additional games to continue at least one game a year against each
of Clarkson and SLU and a couple of the other more attractive ECAC
teams, this becomes a big plus in favor of the move -- not a minus.
 
Con -- Travel costs would rise
True.  I wonder though by how much.  It certainly can't be nearly as
expensive as WCHA teams' schedules.
 
Con -- Facilities
I hadn't realized this, but Leonard indicates that that the average HE
facility is worse than that in the ECAC.  I really don't want to start
a flame war, but he points out that although teams like BC, Maine, and
NE have modern arenas, others as Merrimack and Lowell play in
buildings that "are dumps, unworthy of housing Division I teams".
Please note, that is Leonard's opinion -- I have seen neither arena.
The only arena in the ECAC that Leonard singles out negatively is
Yale's.  Personally, I don't think that this should be a major point.
 
Final analysis -- Go
I guess that I agree with Leonard, however I am not nearly as strongly
in favor of the move to HE as I was in 1983 when the ECAC-HE breakup
took place.
 
Ralph Baer  RPI '68, '70, '74
Beat Union!