>
> Seems to me that Ned Harkness was also involved with Union College hockey in
> the late 1970s when the team was interested in moving up to division I.  If I
> remember correctly, they had the invitation from the ECAC, but the invitation
> was turned down by the president (and maybe the faculty) of Union.  After
> that, Harkness and most of the team resigned from Union.
 
This is correct.  Achilles Rink was built to bring college hockey back
to Union.  Harkness was brought in with great fanfare to build a
program.  He had tremendous success.  If I remember correctly, in only
his second season his team beat nationally ranked UNH.  However, he
claimed that the school promised when they hired him that the team would
be allowed to move up to Division I.  The school denied this and
Harkness quit in mid-season.  Virtually his entire team quit with him.
The school then fielded one of the worst college hockey teams of all
time (maybe a decent high school varsity at best) for several years
until they could rebuild.
 
I don't know who was telling the truth....but, at the time the school was a
member of the New England Small College Athletic Conference which didn't
even allow coaches to visit recruits' homes (a rule Harkness broke).  It
is highly unlikely that they ever intended to field a Division I team.
 
Jon Greene
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