>Other than St. Anselm and AIC, I don't remember any of these schools being in
>division II back when there were many teams playing at that level (pre-1984). I
>always thought that the ECAC North/South was comprised entirely of division III
>schools. It's weird that almost all of the division II schools in the ECAC
>East/West dropped down while these schools who primarily play against "real"
>division III teams didn't.
 
Thanks to Craig's posting, it looks like this question has been answered for
good.  Great job, Craig.  To answer your question, Chris, many of these
schools were playing hockey at levels that weren't the same as their school's
division.  The legislation forced schools to stop playing hockey at divisions
lower than their school's division although it is ok to play higher.  With
RIT, etc. being DivIII schools, it was apparently thought best to drop the
programs down to DivIII when the DivII tourney was abolished.  Thus we have
RIT, Plattsburgh, etc. in DivIII but Quinnipiac, Stonehill, etc. in DivII.
The DivII schools could not drop their programs down to DivIII under the
new regulations.
 
The end result is that for hockey, at least, DivII is not necessarily better
than DivIII.  Odd but true.  It's just a separation of some sort required by
the new rules.
---
Mike Machnik    [log in to unmask]   Color Voice of the Merrimack Warriors
(Any opinions expressed above are strictly those of the poster.)    *HMN*