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