I think it is unlikely that Peca lost his scholarship if he was cut during the preseason. Because scholarships are paid at the begining of the school year, Merrimack should/must have allocated them before the school year. Granted, if Merrimack chose to revoke Peca's scholarship for second semester, it could allocate it to others, but I would think that the benefit greatly outweighs the bad PR it would receive. Because of the great risk of undermining scholarship offers, only in rare circumstances are scholarship offers not renewed over the course of four years. Indeed, I know of instances in which players who clearly wern't up to snuff athletically had their scholarships renewed. In those rare instances in which a coach doesn't want a player to continue, to free up a scholarship, I have heard of coaches who tell the players in the off-season that they will not play at all. The spectre of having to still show up at practices but for no playing time then causes the players, in some cases, to renounce their scholarships. I must point out, this is the rare exception, and is practiced to different degrees by different coaches. As far as the point about players being underpaid, I must disagree. First, the players receive an opportunity to go to schools, in some cases, schools which would otherwise show no interest in them as students alone. (I have never understood why a player such as Paul Kariya would pass up substantial financial aid (the near equivalent to a scholarship) at Harvard, as I believe he did a couple of years ago). Second, the four years are free, which for others costs $15-25,000 per year. Considering that hockey is not typically a revenue generating sport, it seems that the players are being "paid" generously. The analysis may be very different in other college sports e.g. basketball. HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.