OK, I pored through the NC$$ Manual tonight and came up with the following. 12.2.3.2.4.1 deals with the limitation on restoration of eligibility for Major Junior A Ice Hockey, as Charlie pointed out. "...such individual shall be denied at least the first year of intercollegiate athletics competition in the sport of ice hockey at the certifying institution and shall be charged with the loss of at least one season of eligibility in the sport of ice hockey." 14.3.2.1.1 deals with DivI partial qualifiers (which apparently Latendresse was because of his SATs). "An entering freshman...who is a partial qualifier...may not practice or compete during the first academic year in residence." And according to 14.3.3(a), partial qualifiers in DivI have only three seasons in which they may compete. I cannot find anything which says that when two or more conditions affecting eligibility apply simultaneously, they can be served concurrently. However, I also cannot find anything which says they CANNOT. John Forsyth's post notes that Maine's (current?) NC$$ compliance officer determined that the rules required Latendresse to sit out two years. I note, however, that I haven't heard that this was the NC$$'s determination. 14.12.1 reads, "If a student-athlete is ineligible under the provisions of the constitution, by-laws or other regulations of the Association, the institution shall be obligated to apply immediately the applicable rule and to withhold the student-athlete from all intercollegiate competition." To me, this means that if Latendresse did have to sit out two years, then they would have to have taken place immediately upon his enrollment at Maine. He sat out his first year, 1991-92, as well as the first four games of 1992-93 (for the four games of Junior A he played in 1990-91). The question of concurrency seems to be one that only the NC$$ can rule on. I'm not sure what would have led Maine's compliance officer to reach the decision she did, since as I said, I can find nothing to provide definitive evidence on this one way or the other. The closest I can come is the following: if the partial qualifier rule is applied first, then Latendresse was not eligible for competition in 1991-92 (14.3.2.1.1). He would have then had three seasons of eligibility (14.3.3(a)) beginning in 1992-93. But then, applying 12.2.3.2.4.1, he would be denied his first season of competition and be charged with the loss of (at least) one season, bringing him to two. The key then becomes 14.12.1, which says that the institution must apply the applicable rule and withhold the SA from competition. That would have been in 1992-93. Nothing I can find indicates that the extra year in Latendresse's case can be "put off", as some have wondered. If this is the line of reasoning that is followed by the NC$$, and I must stress that I have *not* heard that it is, then it does seem as if Latendresse would have been ineligible to play all of the 40 games he played during Maine's championship season, including the 3 NC$$ tournament games. I believe the only way this could not happen, would be if the NC$$ ruled that it was OK to have both seasons of his ineligibility occur at once. That would run counter to the interpretation that the compliance officer came to. I certainly welcome other interpretations or comments from people more enlightened than I am. --- --- Mike Machnik [log in to unmask] Cabletron Systems, Inc. *HMM* 11/13/93 <<<<< Color Voice of the Merrimack Warriors (station TBA for 94-95) >>>>>