I hope this both a clarification and a question: >>Re: IVY group >> >>An even further digression, just random trivia: the league was originally >>only four teams. Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Cornell formed the "League >>of IV" (read it as a Roman numeral), thereafter referred to casually as the >>I-V, or Ivy, League. >> >>These four teams were later joined by Brown, Dartmouth, University of >>Pennsylvania, Columbia, Army, and Navy, to form a league of ten. I believe >>the military academies left the league in the late 1940s, shortly before >>league play was formalized, but I'm not positive. This is clearly apocryphal. The phrase "Ivy League" precedes by twenty years the origins of the Ivy Agreement. The Ivies were defined in the sports press of the 1930's, particularly Caswell Adams and Stanley Woodward , to refer to old colleges of the East. (It should be noted that much as religious groups like the "Shakers" took on a name that had derisive orginis, talk of the "Ivies" was often far from flattering.) As early as 1936 the editor's of 7 of the 8 ivy school newspapers ran a common editorial calling for the formation of the Ivy League ("an Ivy League in fact, not just the mind of Sportswriters.") The Brown Daily Herald was the only paper not to print the editorial. In November 1945, the presidents of the Ancient Eight (all of them), signed a pact to regulate eligibility, scholarships, and post-season play in football (only football). Now, the news stories that announced the pact used the phrase "Ivy League" to describe the group by the president's agreement did not. In 1952 the Ivy Group Agreement reiterated and strengthened the common commitment to the 1945 regulations. Still, the agreement applied only to football, but the dialogue was firmly established. In 1954, the Ivy Group signed a more general agreement applying to all intercollegiate athletics and providing for the round-robin play among the members when possible. It is the basic principles of that agreement the govern the Ivy League today. The question is... What was the origin of the Pentagonal League? Was it simply the hockey collective of the group of colleges clearly recognized by institutional and athletic histories as similar and distinct? Was there a more formal effort to parallel the developments in football among the hockey playing schools? Kevin Grau Brown '91 Director Chair Ingenuity and Enterprise Center Telecommunications Committee @ the Rhode Island Historical Society Common Cause / Rhode Island 110 Benevolent Street Providence, RI 02906 The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the opinion of any of the above organizations nor, on some days, the opinions of the author. HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.