I think it is unlikely that Peca lost his scholarship if he was cut
 
during the preseason.  Because scholarships are paid at the
begining of the school year, Merrimack should/must have allocated
them before the school year.  Granted, if Merrimack chose to revoke
 
Peca's scholarship for second semester, it could allocate it to
others, but I would think that the benefit greatly outweighs the
bad PR it would receive.  Because of the great risk of undermining
scholarship offers, only in rare circumstances are scholarship
offers not renewed over the course of four years.  Indeed, I know
of instances in which players who clearly wern't up to snuff
athletically had their scholarships renewed. In those rare
instances in which a coach doesn't want a player to continue, to
free up a scholarship, I have heard of coaches who tell the players
in the off-season that they will not play at all.  The spectre of
having to still show up at practices but for no playing time then
causes the players, in some cases, to renounce their scholarships.
I must point out, this is the rare exception, and is practiced to
different degrees by different coaches.
 
As far as the point about players being underpaid, I must disagree.
 First, the players receive an opportunity to go to schools, in
some cases, schools which would otherwise show no interest in them
as students alone.  (I have never understood why a player such as
Paul Kariya would pass up substantial financial aid (the near
equivalent to a scholarship) at Harvard, as I believe he did a
couple of years ago).  Second, the four years are free, which for
others costs $15-25,000 per year.  Considering that hockey is not
typically a revenue generating sport, it seems that the players are
 
being "paid" generously.  The analysis may be very different in
other college sports e.g. basketball.
 
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