Friday Army announced it will leave the ECAC Division I and
    return to full-time independent status.  The Cadets have been
    in the ECAC as a full-time member for five years, but after a
    study done on athletics at West Point, it was concluded that
    the hockey team isn't competitive enough to maintain an ECAC
    Division I schedule.  So as several independents move forward
    with their efforts to enter conferences, Army goes the other
    way.  Of course, Bill Fenwick, ace reporter, broke this story
    right here a little while ago.  It's not a big surprise since
    the military schools have an inherent disadvantage in recruiting
    as it is.  But it is too bad.
 
    Army will leave the ECAC at the end of this season, 1990-91.
 
    The next question has to be: will any of the ECAC East/West teams
    make the jump to Division I and fill Army's slot in the
    soon-to-be-11-team ECAC?  Top contenders seem to be RIT and Union.
    They have already developed rivalries with several teams in the
    ECAC and would make logical entries.  We have talked about RIT
    here before and the general feeling from the school seemed to be
    that it wanted to remain in Division III where it is winning,
    rather than move to I and lose.  RIT also doesn't want to become
    known for hockey instead of academics.  But maybe some of the
    feelings have changed since there is now an opening.  As it
    stands, Princeton will need a travel partner.
 
    I have heard no talk about any ECAC East teams moving up, although
    UConn should really jump at this chance.  The school has the bucks,
    if it wants to put it into hockey.  I would like to see the Huskies
    in Division I someday.  They have natural rivalries with the other
    state schools of New England.  There has been occasional talk of
    expanding Hockey East to ten teams, but there are no serious
    candidates for entry into the league unless, say, Vermont and/or RPI
    were pulled away from the ECAC (not likely for many reasons I've
    mentioned before), or if some New England Division II-III schools
    jumped to Division I.
 
    Anyone heard of any new rumors on who might take Army's place?
 
 
    - mike