>Posted on 4 Oct 1995 at 14:38:09 by Jill Maser
>
>Andy Geiger and Penn Hockey
>
>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.
>
>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."
 
I suppose it's time to return to one of the cyclical discussions on
Hockey-L: the unfortunate demise of varsity hockey at the University of
Pennsylvania.
 
As far as I can remember, the reason given by Andy Geiger for dropping
hockey was the need to make budgetary cuts. When he was athletic director
at Brown, Geiger didn't show any ill will towards the hockey program.
Quite on the contrary, he replaced Alan Soares, who had been a good
recruiter but an ineffective coach, with Dick Toomey, who proceeded to
take Brown to an Ivy championship and a third place national finish
only two years after replacing Soares. My impression is that Geiger felt
that the Brown hockey program could and should be more successful than it
had been under Soares (that is, midlle of the pack, which, in what was
then a seventeen-team league, often meant not making the playoffs).
 
But the situation may have been different at Penn. Hockey has always
been the marquis sport at Brown (despite the success of the soccer and
lacrosse teams), whereas at Penn basketball has been king (queen?).
Penn had some hockey success in the early seventies, but on the whole
Penn's hockey record was, at best, unimpressive. The Penn teams I saw
play while a student at Brown were pretty awful. Andy Geiger is a very
practical man. This trait of his personality, rather than any personal
dislike of hockey may have been the reason for his decision to
eliminate hockey as a varsity sport at Penn. It would be fair to surmise
that Geiger felt that Penn would not be able to compete consistently with
the other Ivy League universities for hockey players.
 
Maybe Geoff Howell could share his encyclopedic knowledge about Ivy
League hockey with us on this one. But do you remember that far, Geoff?
 
Luiz F. Valente
 
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