At 9:54 AM -0700 11/21/96, Tony Buffa wrote:
> Gimme a break. Even in his realaudio broadcast of the overview of the
> ECAC, Adam Wodon says "Rensselaer which USED TO BE KNOWN as RPI ..."  Hey,
> its still is!  If possible, let's make standings and rankings say RPI, no?
>  We are not governed by what the RPI administration wants.
 
Here's how I have handled this issue with regard to the schedules and
standings for various teams.
 
1) Kent State University
 
Back when Kent was playing DivI hockey, around 1989 or so, the school
decided it didn't want people calling it "Kent State" because it wished to
separate itself from the deaths of the four students in the early 70s.  Or
rather, it didn't want people thinking of it only for that, which people
did when they heard "Kent State".  It requested that people use either
"Kent" or "Kent State University".
 
Since Kent is shorter, that's what I went with.
 
2) UMass
 
When UMass came into Hockey East, there was a bit of a conflict over what
to call them, which I won't rehash here completely.  As UMass Lowell had
also become part of the university system, and was a longtime member of HE,
UML objected to allowing UMass to be called UMass.  But to me, a bigger
issue was, would people get confused if they only saw "UMass" or
"Massachusetts"?  I found that they would, especially people from the West
who might not be familiar with the schools.  Apparently HE did too, and
they chose to use "UMass Amherst" or "Mass Amherst".  In fact, that's what
virtually all of the other HE schools use too, although UMass still calls
itself UMass.
 
I decided that in the interest of clarity, and given that HE was also using
the longer moniker, then I would use "Mass Amherst".
 
3) RPI
 
I think I stuck with RPI for the first year or so, but then I noticed that
they were using "Rensselaer" everywhere.  So was the ECAC.  Although even
the ECAC would use "RPI" as an abbreviation in player stats, etc.
 
I figure that whether you use RPI or Rensselaer, people know who you mean.
Given that the school and ECAC were using Rensselaer, I decided to switch
to that.
 
 
So in 1) and 3), I went with what the school preferred.  In 2) I didn't,
but I think my decision made sense because of the reasons I mentioned.
 
I don't intend to switch back to "RPI" in the standings or schedules, but
it doesn't matter to me which name people use here.  I'll probably still
use either one in messages or writeups depending on the situation.  I
understand that some people may get upset if you use "Rensselaer", but it
isn't a big deal to me.  Seems to me it is more of an issue between people
(i.e. alumni) and the school, and I don't want to get in the middle of it.
 
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                [log in to unmask]               *HMM* 11/13/93
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