A few thoughts to add to those voiced so far on rivalries... It is very true that there will be more rivalries vs. "better" teams or schools that are perceived as "better" (even if not in a particular sport) than others. Witness the rivalries in the WCHA, where most teams name Minnesota as a rival. WI/MN is big in all sports, and extends to NFL football as well (sorry Vikes!). MN/NoDak is also a natural "border battle." The fact is, MN is always strong, and a win always means something, so there are lots of rivalries. Carrying this over to the ECAC, it was mentioned that the Cornell/Harvard rivalry is more on the Cornell side. This is understandable in part because Cornell was an easy game for Harvard for so many years. It also points out another factor not yet mentioned: small-town vs. big-city. The Cornell road trip to Cambridge is legendary, and is a big production for the students involved. In addition to seeing a great hockey game, they get a visit to Boston. I noticed this in Ivy football: Dartmouth had a big rivalry with Harvard, but not so much vice-versa. The feelings of small-school/big-school and small-town/big-city were definitely evident. This occurred no matter how badly the Harvard football team sucked (which was often a lot). Someone also asked about Harvard-Yale in hockey. The rivalry is definitely there, no matter what the teams' strengths. One of the few Harvard losses in '89 was to Yale, and it always seemed to us that the Whale thermostat would conveniently "break" whenever Harvard visited, leading to sloppy conditions that favored Yale. The four-way rivalry of the Beanpot is natural, since the same four play every year, and are geographically so close. While we're enumerating rivalries, I should note that Wisconsin has a growing rivalry with Lake State, stemming from the '92 final and other key NCAA games. And we shouldn't forget Northern Michigan-Michigan Tech, which is similar to Clarkson/SLU in pitting two small towns from the north against each other. Drop the puck, eh? -john nash Harvard '91, Wisconsin '97 ----------------------------------------------- John Nash [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.