I'll cut to the chase and give my sermon up front for those who can only
stomach a paragraph or two of my prose.  IMO it's high time for the NC$$ to
spend less time on minutiae and picking lint out of its own navel, and address
issues like this that have serious, lifelong impacts on innocent kids.
This situation is orders of magnitude more important than 90% of the BS that
the NC$$ gets concerned with.
 
Anyways...
 
Thanks to Mike for his rebuttal of Dave Wang's BC comments.  Mike put it much
better and longer :-) than I could have.  A kid's athletic scholarship is
"holy ground" and I refuse to believe based on mere supposition that other
schools defile it in the cavalier fashion, or in *any* fashion for that matter,
that BC seems to have.
 
Mike's description of Merrimack's scholarship offers matches what I have heard
second-hand about UMass-Lowell's.  UML puts the offer in the kid's hands and
if he wants it, he signs it.  If he wants to take forever to decide, the offer
is withdrawn since it seems clear that UML is not the number one choice.  If
a scholarship is available after the kid gets turned down by his top choice,
then, no hard feelings, the kid gets another shot at UML.  But once the offer
is withdrawn, there's no guarantee.  FWIW, this is how it works in the Metro
Boston Hockey League for kids at age 8 and up.  Last night of tryouts you put
down your deposit or the team considers you gone and they go on to the next
kid on the list.  If you can tell 8-year old kids that "they are on the bubble"
and might not get picked, then colleges can do the same to PSA's.
 
I am confused about one thing in the article.  Mike included it in his
"executive summary":
 
> * Bob Hall, father of former BC and current UNH D Todd Hall, told how
> his son was told a week or two before his junior year that he was not
> playing hockey anymore.  Todd transferred to UNH, sat out last season
> and will play this year; I consider him one of the better Ds in the
> league and he will help UNH immensely.  His father said that he had
> kept quiet till now, but that he plans to pursue this and BC hasn't
> heard the end of it.
 
What happened here?  How can a college tell a kid that he "just isn't playing
anymore"?  And if he's one of the better defensemen, why?  The only thing I can
guess about why? is that BC felt they were rebuilding and would rather go with
a freshman than an excellent junior who wouldn't be around to help them when
they had gotten back to the top of the league.  ANy other ideas?  But if he
had a signed letter of intent, how could this have happened anyways?
 
Finally, I do have one quibble with Mike's final paragraph.  Which was:
> One more thought: I certainly don't believe that BC, Cedorchuk or anyone
> else was intentionally playing around with these kids.  It's entirely
> possible and believable that things just got out of control after not
> being monitored closely enough by the coach or whoever, and in fact I
> don't think anyone is claiming that they intentionally yanked a kid
> around.  But it does look like there was some negligence or ignorance
> involved and that it resulted in a lot of problems that did not have to
> happen.  I hope everyone learns from it, but meanwhile, what of the kids
> caught in the middle who can't go back...
 
Assuming the veracity of the Globe article...
 
I think in Mike's gentlemanly attempt to be fair to Cedorchuk he goes too far.
This was not a one-time occurance.  It seemed to be systemic to the way things
went once Cedorchuk became head coach.  Which means Cedorchuk didn't learn
his lesson the first time.  And not only that, but his telling a parent just
to tear up the tuition bill at a point when he *had* to know there was no
scholarship coming, was a refusal to own up to the quagmire he had created.
Cedorchuk was akin to a wino saying, "Drinking problem?  I don't have a
drinking problem."  Based on his *repeated* offenses and unwillingness to own
up to them, Cedorchuk can't claim ignorance at this judge's feet.  AD Gladchuk
had been criticized for firing Cedorchuk with the following words: "The way
you coach makes me sick.  Clear out your desk and get out of here."  I
first read those words before all this came out and I felt it was an atrocious
way to treat a loyal BC guy who simply had not gotten the job done.  Now,
however, I would have to concur with Gladchuk's assessment.
 
DaveH