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RPI 2020 Off-season Overtime: In Memory of Turk181

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NAFTA123 said:
RIT hockey back in action......I commend their administration for taking a step back and looking at the big picture.......most students off campus from Thanksgiving thru late January for a "lightly populated campus" and a safer environment. And, the return to play plan submitted to New York state for review and approval.

https://ritathletics.com/news/2020/11/17/20-21-hockey-update.aspx
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Correct, however they sounded very definitive just days ago. Now they have suddenly "reconsidered". Are we to accept as gospel that Atlantic Hockey did not reconsider for them. As in get your bleeping cabooses on the bleeping ice or don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Not all conferences are run like the ECAC who appear to have little control of members who do not act as members of a conference and who have commitments to the other members they need to live up to. Most other conferences make it quite clear that either you act for the benefit of the group or else.

Any doubt, see Nebraska of the Big 10 who have recently tried twice to buck their conference. They were brought under control very quickly both times. In all fairness, however, the ECAC does not have an annual payment of 54 million to EACH member that tends to keep rouges under control.
 
vicious said:
I wonder what this means for the league and whether they'll try to do a season with just 5 teams.
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Make that 4 teams. What that means for the league long term remains to be seen. Frankly, four that want to play and eight that want to run to the tall timber is probably too big a schism to over come. There just does not appear to be a sufficient meeting of the minds to continue as a conference as presently constructed.

A more than remote possibility (and one I would place a wager on) would be what happened to the Southwest Conference some 25 years ago. Once they were the gold standard for college football through at least the mid 1970's. Today they no longer exist.

Everything was hunky dory until the dirty SMU program got the NCAA death penalty which left a gaping hole in all the other members conference schedules while everyone else was in the midst of their own conference schedules. Thus, open dates were not fillable and lots of revenue went up in smoke. Guess this would equate to the present where programs have given themselves the death penalty except there are now eight instead of just one.

Then Arkansas, the only non Texas based school in the conference, tired of being a red headed step child (with a gaping hole in their schedule) and they wanted out. Guess that would equate to the present of being a non IVY in the ECAC.

Obviously, the good old Southwest started taking on a lot of water and eventually sank. Today, the old Southwest members (believe it was 9 at it's largest point) are spread over four different conferences.

See a very similar eventuality for the present ECAC.
 
Ralph Baer said:
Tweet by Billy JErry https://twitter.com/Billyjerry__12/status/1328798319397769216

The @RPI administration has been provided with this statement. We look forward to working on a solution together. @chnews @Buccigross

It includes this picture which is a statement that echoes my feelings. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EnDXBydWMAAGWip?format=jpg&name=small
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What a well written argument. I didn’t have a problem with the decision per se, but the process. This notice reinforced my fears that there was little communication with the players and, I suspect, the coaching staff. Shirley runs a uni-directional (top down only) organization and it has probably done major damage to the culture that the program developed. I really can’t wait until she releases her stranglehold on the school I love deeply.
 
In honor of Nyle Boyce, today is 18 November 2020. There are 318 days until RPI's next game.


This is based upon 2 October 2021 for the start of next season.
 
rpi82 said:
What a well written argument. I didn’t have a problem with the decision per se, but the process. This notice reinforced my fears that there was little communication with the players and, I suspect, the coaching staff. Shirley runs a uni-directional (top down only) organization and it has probably done major damage to the culture that the program developed. I really can’t wait until she releases her stranglehold on the school I love deeply.
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Agree completely. Adding intrigue is RIT reconsidering their decisiont to cancel and most importantly actually acknowledging that the student athletes have done their part to comply: "...The teams have done everything we have asked them to do,” said Sandra Johnson, senior vice president for Student Affairs. “We are proud of all RIT students for meeting the challenges of this pandemic.”

The exact same thing can be said RPI athletes, and yet likely never will be acknowledged by the emperor.
 
Wicked Slappaahs said:
Dumpster fire. If Smith's comments on the program status and what the future months hold doesn't concern you, nothing will.
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His comments didn't sound terrible to me, but he is not one to usually strongly voice dissent in the media, so that doesn't mean you're wrong. And in general, I agree with you.

As others have written in the past few days, the final decision may prove to be right, but the process and communication to get there seems to be wrong/missing. The coaches and players appear to have been left high and dry from the get-go, disappointed (but not at all surprised) by the shear incompetence and inability of the administration (AD & Pres) to provide information, whatever that may be, so the parties can take that to get some clarity and make decisions.

In terms of the longterm, I think a lot of it will come down to Coach Smith. If he is able to get buy-in from players who remain, they'll be okay. If Smith has just had enough, and the players sense he's not all in, then it will go down hill fast. And I want to be clear, I have lots of faith in Smith and don't expect that, but wouldn't blame him if that happened. He's been dealt a terrible hand.

Playerwise, the pool of players for next season will be enormous, supply (players) will be much higher than demand (roster spots). However the roster shakes out, we should have the ability to put good players on the ice. The question will be how much of that culture on the upswing will we have lost in that time?
 
Just a thought. By April or May the virus numbers should be down significantly. So it is very conceivable play could resume. Since so many schools, leagues, and players will have been impacted, what about a Spring/Summer league? The players could stay on campus and do academic work and they could play games. And play against other schools that had to cancel. Maybe just for bragging rights. But it would certainly give the players a jump start on next fall and winter and do a great deal for everyone’s psyche. And instead of having to wait 10 months to get back to games, it would be like 4-5 months. I’d pay to go to games.
 
Wicked Slappaahs said:
Dumpster fire. If Smith's comments on the program status and what the future months hold doesn't concern you, nothing will.
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Coach Smith deserves credit for how he handled that interview.

I can understand the fan frustration and reasonable people can disagree about the school's approach. I was hoping the team could get a season in, but I suspect that the emerging second-wave situation in the Capital Region became a very big factor over the last week, and is going to create a problem for intercollegiate competition at all of the local colleges--Albany County just recorded its highest number of hospitalizations from COVID-19 (https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Albany-County-sees-record-high-coronavirus-15736624.php).

Hard to find a silver lining: RPI has just lost its best player, and may lose more players and recruits. But for the players that stay, time will tell whether it was better to pull the plug and keep a full year eligibility intact, rather than expend a year of eligibility on what might turn out to be a very small number of competitive games.
 
We have the right man in charge to ensure that the long term impacts of this are minimal.

As for goalie, we will essentially have 2 freshmen in net next season since Miller won't get any time this year, and Watson is enrolling. I don't foresee Marshall or Calvaruso returning because we will need a #1 and neither have shown that even though I do like both of them. I expect us to pursue a transfer for our third goalie, one that has experience as a #1. Personally, Matt Galajda at Cornell would be on the top of my list. The drop-off from Savory to him would be miniscule.

For the rest of the roster, I'd be surprised if any of them left. There's very few roster spots around the country as rosters are pretty much set in stone, so the players wouldn't be able to land anywhere until next season anyways, and if they have to wait that long regardless, I think they'll just stay at RPI. Teams will make exceptions for elite players such as Savory, but I don't think anyone else on the roster would warrant that. Maybe Babichuk and Linden, but it would be iffy in my eyes. The issue won't be our current roster (outside of Savory) it will be in recruiting. We'll need to hold onto our current commits, and it might be tough to win new battles on the trail. Luckily, we have the players that would be enrolling next season already signed to NLIs which stops other teams from contacting them.

Overall, the key to continuing our upward trajectory will be finding a #1 goalie, and winning with our current roster. If we can keep winning when we play, that will stop the recruiting from taking a hit. With the optimism everyone had heading into this season, I think we can all agree that winning with the current roster is more than feasible. Finding a #1 goalie will be harder, however.
 
Can you imagine, from the time COVID hit in March/April, Coach Smith has had to deal with questions from his players about the season being cancelled and then what was going to happen in the fall - practice - scholarship extensions - transfer conversations - recruits questions - while not being informed or communicated to by the dishonorable SAJ, until this past Monday. It's a shame. Whether you're a part of the decision making process or not, you should at least be informed. This program has gone South ever since she arrived on campus, and will not head North until she leaves! Her lack of communication to Coaches and all student-athletes at RPI is appalling!
 
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