The Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper of the University of
Pennsylvania, published an article this morning explaining the reasons for
the demise of Penn's varsity hockey program in 1978.
 
As some of you might know, Penn had made some adjustments to its budget in
1978 and varsity hockey was one of the student programs cut (there were
several sports and some artistic groups).
 
The article begins with some whining about the current athletic director not
being communicative, Title IX, and that the Penn student body is missing out
on the excitement of hockey shared by most of the other Ivy schools.  It
makes no mention of the varsity team's history and of how few students
actually did share in the excitement when it was available to them.
 
Jake Glaser "co-president of the Penn hockey club" explained that the
"varsity ice hockey program was disbanded 16 years ago after then-Athletic
Directory Andy Geiger attended a game in which several fights broke out on
the ice.  In addition to the on-ice brawls, many members of the crowd added
to the problems by being rowdy and throwing debris on the ice."
 
What a crock!
 
I came to Penn in 1977.  I attended every home game of the 1977-78 season.
I don't remember an inordinate number of fights on the ice.  The 30 or so of
us who regularly attended games were vocal, but not rowdy.  Most of us were
hockey players or hockey parents and no one was stupid enough to throw
anything on the ice.
 
I'd love to be sports information director for a day and get the truth out.
This is just a fabulous message to students:  act rowdy and we'll take your
sports away.  (This while students are frantically beaning one another and
the cheerleaders with bagels during the 3rd quarter of football games--but
that's a whole nother story.)  And, isn't is thorough of Andy to allegedly
have made his decision after attending one game?
 
No wonder admininstration gets no respect.
 
I hope Andy does better research in his new post.
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Jill Maser                                           [log in to unmask]
Director, Operations Analysis                        phone:  (215) 898-1007
University of Pennsylvania                           fax:    (215) 573-2069
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