Luiz Valente writes:
 
>But the situation may have been different at Penn. Hockey has always
>been the marquis sport at Brown (despite the success of the soccer and
>lacrosse teams), whereas at Penn basketball has been king (queen?).
>Penn had some hockey success in the early seventies, but on the whole
>Penn's hockey record was, at best, unimpressive. The Penn teams I saw
>play while a student at Brown were pretty awful. Andy Geiger is a very
>practical man. This trait of his personality, rather than any personal
>dislike of hockey may have been the reason for his decision to
>eliminate hockey as a varsity sport at Penn. It would be fair to surmise
>that Geiger felt that Penn would not be able to compete consistently with
>the other Ivy League universities for hockey players.
 
First, some background on Penn hockey:
 
ECAC Record, standing, Princeton by comparison
 
1977-78   5-14-2   16th of 17  (Princeton 7-13-1)
1976-77   7-17-0   14th of 17  (3-20-1)
1975-76   5-17-1   16th of 17  (6-16-1)
1974-75   9-13-1   11th of 17  (5-13-2)
1973-74   9-12-0   10th of 16  (7-12-1)
1972-73   13-7-2    4th of 17  (3-18-0)
1971-72   14-7-0    4th of 17  (5-14-0)
1970-71   11-8-0    7th of 17  (1-20-0)
1969-70   3-12-0   16th of 17  (5-15-1)
1968-69   1-14-0   17th of 17  (5-18-0)
1967-68   1-15-0   17th of 17  (13-9-1)
 
I don't know much about Penn history (sorry, Luiz), but I
think it is interesting to compare the Quakers with Princeton -
both schools have rich basketball histories, they are only
45 minutes from each other and both have successful
athletic programs in other sports. Princeton, however, is in
a very small market with no competition from pro sports in
the winter. Philadelphia has the 76ers and Flyers, in addition
to other big city distractions. Princeton had the Princeton
Country Day School (now Princeton Day School) as a feeder
program from the very beginning - many of those alumni
still live in the area and provide a solid fan base, even
if PDS is no longer a producer of hockey talent. The governing
body of Pennsylvania high school athletics does not recognize
hockey, although many schools across the state have varsity
programs. New Jersey, paticularly in the north, has supported
continuous interest in high school hockey. I suspect that
Geiger made a purely budgetary decision that Princeton could
have followed at any time - for whatever reason, it didn't.
 
Geoff Howell
Drop the Puck Magazine
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.