Ken Kretsch writes:
>                Hockey          Steroid         Pituitary
>School                          Ball            Ball
>-----           ------          --------        --------------
>Northeastern    HE              Yankee(IAA)?    North Atlantic?
>Providence      HE              ?               Big East
>Uconn           ?               Yankee(IAA)     Big East
>Lowell          HE              ?               ?
>Merrimac        HE              ?               ?
 
NU: conferences are correct.  PC has no football.  UConn is ECAC East
in hockey & a DivI Independent (considered by many to be a "minor
Independent").  Lowell is DivII in football and hockey - NECC, I
believe.  Merrimack has no football, but is in the Northeast-10 in
basketball (DivII).  There is the rumor that football will be added
sometime over the next 5 years, along with women's hockey and several
other sports.
 
>1. BU, Maine, UNH, and maybe Northeastern can make a good case for an
>   all-sports
>   league. If they upgrade their Naismith-ball, maybe they can lure
>   Providence,
>   UCONN, and UMass-Amherst (The Big East is no longer interested in the
>   non-division 1A football schools, the A-10 is in trouble). They could ask
>   Vermont to join.  Not sure what to do about BC, Merrimac, and Lowell.
 
UMass is rumored to be pushing its football program to I-A.  But at
any rate, I don't think any of the above is likely, though the speculation
is interesting.
 
>2. At one time Merrimac was a power in DII B-ball. Would they upgrade?
 
No.  I believe that except for grandfathered programs, you cannot have
more than one program play above your school's division.  Merrimack
has neither the money nor interest in moving everything to DivI, which
is what they would have to do.
 
Other than hockey, Merrimack's only DivI sport, the school is really
known for softball.  Last year's team went something like 40-6-0 and
went to the DivII final four.  This year's team is at least as good,
currently 15-3-0 and ranked 5th in the nation in DivII.  BTW, AD and
HE acting commish Bob DeGregorio coached the softball team for many
years and started them on their rise to the top.  Also, the tennis
team is captained by Warrior defenseman Mark Cornforth, also hockey
captain, and Cornforth plays both first singles and first doubles (and
was named NE-10 Player of the Week last week).
 
Men's basketball and baseball have been successful at times, and both
men's and women's soccer have done well too.
 
It will be interesting to see what happens with the Northeast-10 hockey
schools.  The Northeast-10 is a conference made up entirely of DivII
schools.  However, there is no Northeast-10 in hockey.  I believe 8 of
the 10 schools play hockey at the NC$$ level.  Merrimack is the only
school playing DivI hockey.  The 7 others are DivII but are spread
across the ECAC East, ECAC South, etc.  I do not believe any of the
other Northeast-10 schools have a sport at the DivI level.
 
Next season, it appears, the NC$$ DivII tourney will once again go
away because there are only 13 schools that are DivII and playing
hockey, and something like 40 are needed.  I would guess that like in
1984, the DivII schools will be given the option of either remaining
under the DivII classification and not having a national title to
compete for, or declaring as a DivI Independent.  (Moving down to
DivIII isn't an option since you cannot play below your division.)  I
don't see what is preventing the 7 NE-10 schools from declaring up as
members of their own conference and getting an automatic bid from the
NC$$ as the 5th DivI conference.  Since they are all located in New
England, they could easily band together with the other DivI minor
Independents in the East to form an even larger conference - of all
DivI teams, even if they might not be of the caliber of the existing
conferences.  But as some have said, basketball has conferences like
the ACC and others like the North Atlantic.  (Not a crack at the NAC,
but they aren't the ACC.  Yet both can co-exist in DivI and get DivI
tourney bids.)
 
Thoughts?  The biggest hindrance to this I can see, is if schools are
required to (for example) have a greater amount of insurance coverage
on their players in DivI and that this expense (or any other required
expenses) would make most schools inclined not to declare up.  Can
anyone (Coach Cavanaugh?) comment on whether this scenario is a
possibility?
---                                                                 ---
Mike Machnik                                          [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                  *HMM* 11/13/93