Apparently the net ate my post. Although Mike has already responded with his typically intelligent late night response, I too will respond to Arthur Berman's post. >Perhaps it is time for the Ivies to go off into the corner and be by themselves with their holier than thou attitude....if the Ivies want their own rules, let them play in their own league. Arthur's got it backwards. It's the rest of the ECAC that wants to keep the Ivies in the league. The old ECAC members, Clarkson, St. Lawrence, Colgate and RPI like playing the Ivies and want them to stay put. For various reasons playing with the suits the needs of each. Let's examine each separately. Colgate historically is viewed as a step below the Ivies academically. Yet their sports programs share the Ivies' viewpoint of the student athlete. Colgate was a founder of the Patriot League, an academics first sports league. Colgate sticks to its philosophy even when it lands one of the top ten basketball talents in the country, Adonis Foyle, beating out the likes of Syracuse and Duke. The Colgate sports program likes playing against the Ivy League and always will. Clarkson and St. Lawrence tend to stay put because that's their only choice, be it location-wise or whatever. Neither school has ever been actively recruited by HE, probably due to travel times. Other than Colgate, RPI and Vermont, the Ivies are probably the only available opponents. Which brings us to RPI. RPI loves playing against the Ivies. Competition-wise Harvard is probably considered their biggest rival, at least in the Engineer's eyes. RPI is wedded to the academic index, in fact applying a more rigorous standard than other ECAC schools. RPI likes the opportunity to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond. Those two de facto NCAA bids always seem to be in reach of the Engineers--just put together a run at the end of the season. And there is no real battle between RPI and the Ivies. During RPI's mating dance with HE the ECAC did make a couple of gestures to satisfy the Engineers, most notably raising the number of games to 34. And it wouldn't surprise me if the limit was raised to the NCAA maximum of 36 (unless you play Alaska up north) in the near future. It would take another complete change-over by the administration to get RPI away from the Ivies, so don't hold your breath. I suspect there remains a degree of enmity between HE schools and the Ivies, but I don't see it as much of a factor with the old ECAC teams. The status quo of the four leagues seems to be working very satisfactorily for all involved, and I doubt that there will be an migration of ECAC teams in the future. Which brings me to my last point: it will be difficult for Niagara to obtain admission to the ECAC, and will occur only if, as Chris Lerch suggest, it is paired with another upgrading team, perhaps a Buffalo State or RIT. Union was only admitted as a replacement for Army, in order to retain the travel partner scheme. Assuming no one leaves the ECAC (the only other candidate I could think of is Vermont, and they don't seem to have any inclination to bolt) Niagara would have to be paired with some team out in the western fringes of the ECAC. Cornell is currently the western-most, but their proximity to Colgate makes the current arrangement preferable to both schools. So I would guess that Niagara will have an uphill climb to true D-I status, unless, as John H. points out, they elect to go with the CCHA. :-) ********************************************************************************* Brian Morris RPI Engineers--1995 ECAC Champions [log in to unmask] HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.