John writes:
>I was under the impression that Canisius, and all other teams in the
>ECAC East-West (East-West-SUNY) and ECAC North-South were Division III.
>They are all listed (media guides, etc.) as Div. I -- but seem to compete
>for the Div. III title.  Isn't Plattsburgh State in the same conference
>as Canisius (the ECAC West)?  If so, why is P State eligible to compete
>for the Div. III title but Canisius is not?  (Possibly an irrelevant
>point as Canisius seems to have struggled for the last decade or so :-)
>Anyhow, it seems that there are 50 or so ECAC teams that are Div. I in
>spirit, but Div. III for all practical purposes.
 
The mistake is in lumping all the ECAC East/West/North/South/SUNY schools
into the same category like when we say that the WCHA is DivI.  (We can say
that because all of the WCHA teams are playing in DivI AND are eligible for
the DivI NC$$ tourney.  No confusion there.  It's more complicated when we
start to deal with DivII and DivIII and the tourneys.)  For example,
for several years Merrimack was DivI but was playing in the ECAC East.  They
weren't eligible for the DivIII tourney because they had declared for the
DivI tourney.  When the NC$$ DivII tourney went away in 1984, almost all of
the DivII teams declared for DivIII; a few, like Merrimack, UAA, UAF declared
for DivI, and even fewer (AIC) remained DivII and declared for no tourney.
 
In effect, Canisius is a DivI school playing DivIII hockey, much like RPI
is a DivIII school playing DivI hockey.  The designation of the school has
to do with the status of all of its sports teams.  The difference is that
RPI can jump up and play in the NC$$ tourney of a higher division than the
school is at, but Canisius (and Fairfield, UConn, Holy Cross, etc.) cannot
move down and play in a lower division's NC$$ tourney.
 
Plattsburgh and most of the other SUNY schools (if not all) are DivIII
schools.  This is why Plattsburgh is eligible to play in the DivIII NC$$
tourney.
 
Most of the 50-odd ECAC E/W/N/S/SUNY schools ARE DivIII.  A few are DivI
and a few are DivII.
 
Some folks may remember that KBYR out of Anchorage used to do a DivI
Independents poll (that may have gone away with the Alaska teams entering
conferences and the automatic independent bid being wiped out).  That poll
used to include ECAC teams like Holy Cross, UConn, Iona, Canisius, etc.  But
as Keith mentioned yesterday, around 1989 a new rule was established that
forced teams who wanted to declare for the DivI tourney to play at least
20 DivI games.  That left out the ECAC E/W/N/S (the ECAC SUNY wasn't around
then) schools and I believe KBYR stopped including them in the polls.
 
 
- mike