I have to agree with Paulette Dwen, John Nash, and Mike J. concerning
Messrs. Johnson and Berman's comments on the Ivy League's place within
the ECAC.
 
Ken Johnson wrote:
"The Ivies care more about who among them land on top of the Ivy pile
than anything else, in my opinion (they crown their own champion amongst
themselves)....."
 
Who does Ken mean by "The Ivies"? Does he mean the alumni? the fans? the
AD's?  I know that, as an alum and a fan, I consider the Harvard hockey
team to be, first and foremost, an ECAC team.  The "Ivy League Title" is
definitely more of a formality than anything else.  I can confidently say
that NO hockey fan of an Ivy League school considers that title to be
more important than an ECAC title.  Ken's comments would be more on the
mark if he were talking about football.  Ivy football is very much it's
own thing with it's own traditions.  I don't think you can even talk
about an "Ivy League of Hockey" since two of the schools (Columbia and
Pennsylvania) aren't even represented.
 
Ken uses this misconception as justification for having the Ivies form
their own division. He then backs this up by implying that Ivy league
hockey fans care more about games against Ivy opponents than non-Ivy
ones.  Harvard-Cornell has been a rivalry because, historically, these
two programs have been the strongest among the Ivy schools (hence the
national titles). However, I agree with Paulette's assessent that
rivalries come and go depending on the quality of the teams.  I've only
been following Harvard hockey closely since the 92-93 season, and Cornell
hasn't really challenged us until this year.  Harvard-Brown has been
developing into quite a rivalry lately, but only time will tell how far
it will go.  In any case, since I've been following the Crimson, the
regular season games that I have been the most excited about were those
against our strongest rivals (i.e. Clarkson, Rennselaer, Vermont, and
Beanpot games against BU) -- it had nothing to do with whether the school
was in the Ivy League or not.  (And Mr. Johnson should re-evaluate his
belief that Cornell is the only Ivy school that cares about its hockey --
Harvard always packs 'em in and the games I've been to at Brown's Meehan
Auditorium have been full of enthusiastic Bruno supporters).
 
I, for one, would not like to see an Ivy league division with more games
within the  division than with our non-Ivy brethren.  I think that as
long as Hockey East wants to grow, they should get the newcomers and the
ECAC should stay they way it is. Contrary to what Mr. Berman seems to
believe, the Ivies don't "impose their priorities on the rest of the
ECAC." As Mike Jackman pointed out, the non-Ivies can (and do) schedule
more than 29 games, and they aren't restricted as to when they can start
holding practices.  Only the Ivy League teams must follow those rules.
 
However, once Hockey East feels it has enough members, problems will
arise if there are still more eastern programs wanting do go Div. I.  At
that point, though, I feel that nothing short of a major re-organization
of the system will do.
 
Tony Garcia
H '94-5
Go Crimson!!
 
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