Scott Biggar writes: >The other mistake that the NCAA seems to be making is not allowing the DII >programs to play down to DIII next season. The addition of some high quality >programs like Bemidji St. (an old RIT rival) Mankato, etc. to DIII hockey would >be a boon to the league. I kind of understand their concern about "playing >down" to a lower league, etc. but there is a precedent here and when it >happened 10 years ago with RIT, et. al. moving down to DIII it didn`t seem to >adversely affect the DIII leagues very much. However, what happened ten years ago was really a result of the NC$$ beginning to force schools to play within their own divisions. A few then-DivII teams were allowed to play down, but only because their school was DivII and playing down to DivIII was one of the options the hockey program was given. This option will not be available this time. RIT and 95% of the others went down to DivIII because the classification of the school was DivIII. I would say an adverse effect upon some of the DivIII teams was that there was suddenly no real hope that ECAC North-South (and now Central) teams would ever be able to compete for a national title - without moving up to the East-West. Their "national title" is the ECAC N-C-S championship. On the ECAC, apparently we may soon see the breakup of the huge (~18 teams) ECAC East into two smaller divisions (East and Mid-East? EastI and EastII?). Last season, the East had 14 DivIII schools and 2 each from DivI and DivII. If the split is done right, such that all of the schools in one division are classified as DivIII, then I don't see why that division could not petition for an automatic bid to the DivIII tourney (like the SUNYAC and MIAC). However, I could also see why this might NOT happen - imagine if you're one of the DivIII schools that will get stuck in the other new East conference and can't get that auto bid. Chances are you would not support the reorganization. It will be interesting to see what happens - maybe the East will just remain one conference but have two divisions. --- --- Mike Machnik [log in to unmask] Cabletron Systems, Inc. *HMM* 11/13/93 <<<<< Color Voice of the Merrimack Warriors (station TBA for 94-95) >>>>>