Pam Sweeney writes:
>{Mike's example omitted in futile attempt at brevity.}
 
Futile being the operative word here, but you did well. :-)
 
>As I said, I can see that situations with players considering leaving for
>Olympic and pro teams could occasionally lead to problems in assessing the
>number of scholarships available, but it seems like it allegedly* happened
>repeatedly at BC.
 
The key here is that these situations are not uncommon and teams know
how to deal with them.  Sometimes you know far ahead of time that a
player will be leaving early, and other times you don't know until the
summer or later.  The Ferraros are a good example here.  I do not know
for sure, but I believe that Maine was all set to allot two scholarships
for them for next season.  Since they turned pro a couple of weeks
ago, two scholarships would be freed up.  It is late, but Maine can
now use those elsewhere - they could re-apportion the scholarships to
current players, or they could go out and land players for next season
who had not signed with anyone yet.
 
In all likelihood, Maine has a list of players who they would be
interested in should scholarships become available.  They could
contact those players and make them an offer, though it might be late.
It's not unusual to land players this late who turn out to be solid
contributors, especially with the recent cutback of scholarships from
20 to 18 - fewer scholarships available tends to mean more good
players who don't get them and are still looking.
 
The way I see it, you consider those scholarships not available until
you receive official notice that they are - like when a player does
actually sign or notify the school that he plans to leave.  If it
happens to be late in your recruiting cycle, well, then it is just a
cost of doing business.
 
From what I recall, BC has not had more than a couple of these players
at most over the last few years, players who were on the fence and
might have turned pro or gone to the Olympics.
 
>*  I don't have a lawyer to advise me on such matters, but I figured I'd cover
>my behind and include the "allegedly"s anyway.  :-)
 
By now, a disclaimer like this probably should be a part of any
HOCKEY-Ler's .signature. :-)
---                                                                    ---
Mike Machnik                                             [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                     *HMM* 11/13/93