DI - D3 Exhibitions this Sunday

[NUProf]

Re: DI - D3 Exhibitions this Sunday

Most of the eastern teams were in the same league then, current NESCAC, ECAC-East, SUNYAC and ECAC-WEST teams regularly played current HEA, ECAC and Ivy teams.

In fact, the first college hockey game I ever saw was back in 1970 when Dartmouth played Bowdoin. I think there was a kind of informal division in the ECAC between Division I and Division II, but all games counted as league games, and I remember that Bowdoin was very good - Dartmouth won the game. The Ivy league standings were a lot more important for Dartmouth back then than the ECACs. As far as I could tell, the ECAC schedule was somewhat chaotic. Not all teams played the same number of league games, but somehow the top 8 teams made the playoffs, and the top 4 had home ice in the first round. What Dartmouth cared about was winning the IVY title and they played all the Ivy league teams twice. The schedule had no travel partners - that came to both DI and DII - which became the ECAC E and ECAC W after the DII league became the ECAC E and W - later the ECAC N-S was formed and eventually morphed into the ECAC NE.

 

[Eph72]

Re: DI - D3 Exhibitions this Sunday

...There was a league. It was the ECAC. And there was a tournament. That year Colby lost in the semi-finals to Clarkson and lost the consolation game to Harvard in the old Boston Arena. It was a sad end to what was probably their greatest season ever. Kelly soon left for BU. ...

I tried to find a definitive history of eastern college hockey and the eventual separation of the smaller colleges and the larger colleges, but came up short. The best I could find is this history of the ECAC and record of the yearly standings:

http://www.augenblick.org/chha/ecac_his.html and http://www.augenblick.org/chha/ecac_stn.html

The small colleges were a part of the ECAC in the beginning but the league very soon divided into large and small. Nevertheless, as pointed out by many, the separation was not nearly as formal as today and there were many small/large matchups through the sixties and into the seventies.

 

[Eph72]

Re: DI - D3 Exhibitions this Sunday

There is also an interesting history of the Tri-State League on the Augenblick site:

http://www.augenblick.org/chha/tri_his.html

The Tri-State League was formed in 1950, was a predecessor, in a sense, of the ECAC and initially included what are today D-1 and D-3 colleges: Clarkson, Colgate, RPI and St Lawrence, on the one hand, and Williams and Middlebury on the other.

The League survived until 1972 (http://www.augenblick.org/chha/tri_stn.html), but without Williams or Middlebury who were not sufficiently competitive and dropped out.

 

[Eph72]

Re: DI - D3 Exhibitions this Sunday

If you keep poking around the Augenblick site is a treasure trove about the development of college hockey. Here is an explanation of the development of "major" and "college" hockey, the precursor to what we know today as Division 1 and Division 3 hockey:



"NCAA Classifications


There is a great deal of confusion surrounding collegiate athletics in regards to a school's classification, particularly in the non-revenue sports (not football or basketball).

In hockey, every school can be classified in three ways:

1.National Affiliation - The classification of the school as a whole, which depends greatly on how good a football team the school had in the 1930s. Frequently assumed to be based on enrollment size.
2.Hockey Affiliation - Classification of the men's ice hockey team, which is usually, but not always, the same as the national affiliation. This is a good indicator of how successful the hockey team was in the 1960s and 1970s.
3.Hockey Playing Level - The actual level of competition of the hockey team. Usually the same as the hockey affiliation, but there are exceptions.

When collegiate sports developed in the 19th century, there was no NCAA or any type of classification. Schools played whomever they wanted in whatever sports they fielded. The NCAA was founded in 1906 to govern track and field events. Their first expansion a few years later was to monitor football, mostly because of the numerous deaths that were occurring each year. Until the 1930s, all schools were equal in the NCAA's eyes.

In 1937, all NCAA members were officially designated as either a major or college team. This was an adoption of an informal football classification that had existed for a few decades. Major football schools were those institutions that played a minimum number of games against other major colleges, a definition that permitted a degree of circular logic. The size of the school was not a determining factor. The major schools were those that were popular, successful or played other majors (whether successfully or not). The lack of enrollment as a criteria for major status permitted small colleges such as Colgate to become a major school whereas other larger, unsuccessful schools gained college status. As other sports came under the NCAA umbrella, they usually adopted the school's overall affiliation.

For sports with fewer than normal schools participating, the college/major distinction was generally ignored. Since so few schools played hockey and those that did were in two distinct geographical regions, all hockey teams were considered equal. It was not until the 1960s, when the ECAC, with over 25 members, felt the need to divide its conference, that hockey began to adopt distinctions. Using a similar method that football had used three decades earlier, the better and popular teams formed the ECAC Division 1 and the rest of the schools became Division 2. Good hockey schools, like Rensselaer and Clarkson, were awarded major status in hockey although were college status in other sports. Connecticut, on the other hand, was a major school that opted for college status. Out west, far fewer varsity hockey teams meant the WCHA, the only conference at that time, would be a major college conference.

At a special NCAA convention on August 1, 1973, all major schools were reclassified as Division 1 and college schools were divided into Divisions 2 and 3. This was applied to all sports within a decade, with those college schools playing major hockey being classified as Division 1 in hockey and Division 2 or 3 in everything else, and vice-versa for major schools playing college status hockey. The schools on the college level could move into Division 2 or Division 3 as they saw fit. Most took the same status as their national affiliation, if not Division 1.

Further confusion arose from the ECAC's internal structure which classified what is now ECAC East-West-SUNY as Division 2 and the current Northeast conference as Division 3, while the school's hockey status may be different. The ECAC's designations reflected the playing level of the school, not the technical hockey affiliation. The East-West-SUNY schools (old ECAC Division 2) devote greater resources to their hockey programs than the others and therefore are rated higher in the ECAC.

This rather confusing system of labeling sports results in some anomalies. Merrimack is a Division 2 school that plays Division 1 hockey on the Division 1 level. Rensselaer is a Division 3 school that plays Division 1 hockey on the Division 1 level. Connecticut is a Division 1 school that formerly played Division 1 hockey on the Division 3 level. Over a dozen schools play Division 1 hockey but are institutionally classified Division 2 or Division 3, while 6 Division 1 schools once played at a lower level, but (in name only) fielded a Division 1 team.

No one ever said anything about the NCAA would be easy to understand. That is what college is for."

Here is the link: http://www.augenblick.org/chha/info_cls.html

 

[OhioMule]

Re: DI - D3 Exhibitions this Sunday

I tried to find a definitive history of eastern college hockey and the eventual separation of the smaller colleges and the larger colleges, but came up short. The best I could find is this history of the ECAC and record of the yearly standings:

http://www.augenblick.org/chha/ecac_his.html and http://www.augenblick.org/chha/ecac_stn.html

The small colleges were a part of the ECAC in the beginning but the league very soon divided into large and small. Nevertheless, as pointed out by many, the separation was not nearly as formal as today and there were many small/large matchups through the sixties and into the seventies.

Thanks for doing all this research. I note two things. In the 61-62 season, Williams also had a very good team. And in the 2010-2011 season, Union College, which I consider to be a small college akin to a NESCAC school, came in first in the regular season.

I love looking at this stuff!

 

[Eph72]

Re: DI - D3 Exhibitions this Sunday

...And in the 2010-2011 season, Union College, which I consider to be a small college akin to a NESCAC school, came in first in the regular season.
I love looking at this stuff!

Mule: I love looking at it too!

You mention Union College, which is a school whose history, both hockey and otherwise, fascinates me, too.

Here are a couple of historical notes:

Founded in 1795, Union holds itself out as the first institution of higher learning chartered by New York State. Only Columbia is older and it was founded by a royal charter granted by King George II in 1754.

In the 1820s and 30s Union was the birthplace of college greek letter fraternities in the US and has been called the "Mother of Fraternities". Kappa Alpha Society, Sigma Phi, and Delta Phi, known collectively as the Union Triad, were founded there between 1825 to 1827. Several other fraternities, including Psi Upsilon (1833), Chi Psi (1841) and Theta Delta Chi
(1847) were also founded at Union.

During the first half of the 19th century Union experienced great success and was ranked with Harvard and Yale among the top colleges in the country. By 1839 Union had one of the largest faculties in American higher education and an enrollment surpassed only by Yale. It was one of the first colleges to develop a scientific curriculum alongside the traditional "classical" curriculum and Union's President, Eliphalet Nott, was thought by many to be the preeminent college president in the US during the period.

In 1881 Chester Arthur, Union class of 1848, became the 21st President of the United States.

Union hockey began in the early 1900s, but, unlike its neighboring upstate New York schools, like RPI and Clarkson, it enjoyed no particular success and hockey was dropped as a varsity sport in the 1940s.

After World War II, Williams, Amherst and Wesleyan joined Bowdoin and Dartmouth in signing the so-called Pentagonal Agreement regarding college athletics and academics. In 1971 Union joined the Pentagonal colleges (other than Dartmouth which had joined the Ivy League in the meantime) and Bates, Colby, Hamilton, Middlebury and Trinity colleges and Tufts University in forming the New England Small College Athletic Conference.

About the time it joined NESCAC, Union had a new president named Thomas Bonner, who wanted to raise the profile of the school's athletic programs. Bonner hired the former Army football coach, Tom Cahill, to build up the football program and the controversial former RPI, Cornell and Detroit Red Wings coach, Ned Harkness, as head coach and rink manager, to revive the hockey program. Bonner apparently gave the coaches carte blanche to do whatever was needed to win -- and win quickly. Funds were raised for a new arena and the Achilles Center was built. The school began play in NCAA Division III and was instantly successful, finishing with a 20–4–1 record in the 1975–76 season, their first since the 1940s, with a roster full of freshmen. Harkness followed up this initial success with a 22–3–1 season, and the young program was well on its way to becoming a powerhouse. Sports Illustrated wrote the Harkness comeback story up in February 1977: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1092047/3/index.htm.

At the same time, however, there was a huge amount of controversy over the limitations imposed by NESCAC on Union's athletic aspirations and in May 1977 Union decided to leave the NESCAC. See: http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...EYxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=GOEFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1191,4829816.

The 1977–78 season started off with the team going 4–1–1 record in their first 6 games. However, in late December, four of Harkness' top players were put on academic probation and barred from playing. Harkness was furious and abruptly quit. Reports flew that he had violated NESCAC recruiting rules (and then lied to Bonner about it) and that admission standards for hockey players had been compromised. Many of the Union players coming in as freshmen were well into their twenties and had played for Canadian Senior teams; others were NHL draftees drawn by the chance to play for Harkness and his plan to jump the team to Division I. Upon hearing of their coach's decision to leave, the entire team refused to play the remainder of the season in a show of solidarity with their coach.

Overnight, the school's JV team turned into the varsity and due to the scandal, Union's schedule was rubbed out. They were forced to play a makeshift schedule which included games against prep schools such as Hotchkiss, Trinity-Pawling, and Kimball Union, as well as games against other school's JV teams. They went 0-13-0 for the rest of the season and were outscored 146-32. As for Harkness, he instantly resurfaced as the founder/GM of the AHL's Adirondack Red Wings. In 1982, he was appointed president/CEO of the U.S. Olympic Regional Development Authority in Lake Placid.

In May 1978, Bonner left Union to become President of Wayne State University. He had never recovered from the Harkness controversy. See: http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...0&dq=thomas+bonner+leaves+union+gazette&hl=en

Union went back to D-3 hockey the following year, except, for better or worse, they were no longer NESCAC members, and stayed there until 1991 when it accepted an invitation to replace Army in the Division 1 ECAC hockey league. Last winter Union won its first ECAC regular season championship.

 

[OhioMule]

Re: DI - D3 Exhibitions this Sunday

Union went back to D-3 hockey the following year, except they were no longer NESCAC members, and stayed there until 1991 when it accepted an invitation to replace Army in the Division 1 ECAC hockey league. Last winter Union won its first ECAC regular season championship.

Fascinating... You couldn't make stuff like this up. Thanks, again.