>>>>> "Bill" == Bill Fenwick <[log in to unmask]> writes: Bill> Forwarded from [log in to unmask] Bill> [...], but because Midd is in the process of Bill> constructing a new, first-class arena (very similar to Bill> Dartmouth's) and I think is entertaining thoughts/hopes of Bill> *moving up* to Div I, which, for a school of Midd's academic Bill> standing and physical location, should mean a berth in the ECAC. Middlebury would have a hard time in division I if they remained in NESCAC (New England Small School Athletic Conference) and I doubt they would drop out. NESCAC puts severe restrictions on sports teams in the name of academics. (Whether or not this is valid is a topic for debate) I think they would run into problems with number of games, practice start/stop dates, not to mention that they can only participate in one post-season tournament. They are also not be allowed to offer athletic scholarships. Overall, NESCAC restrictions are even more stringent than the normal division III restrictions. For these reasons I highly doubt that we will see Middlebury become a division I program, much less enter the ECAC-I. They have an excellent program that does very well in ECAC-III East. The new arena should provide more revenue and possibly bigger donations, but I believe that the team will stay in their current division and conference. BTW, for anyone trying to access hockey3 recently (the division III list). The disk it was on crashed big time without adequate backups. It seems that since I left the company that the machine the list is on didn't make it into the normal backup procedure. (I used to do my own backups). Anyway, they have sent the disk off to a third party to try to recover the data and the list should be back up by the end of the week. I'll send a note out to hockey3 when things are back to normal. Pete Kester [log in to unmask]