And, if we do NOT get in... -- CROSSPORTS: Holy Cross Crusaders Sports Message Board

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Date Posted: 09:01:07 07/13/04 Tue
Author: HC1843
Subject: And, if we do NOT get in...
In reply to: Zipp 's message, "And If We Don't Get In?" on 08:57:41 07/13/04 Tue

Coach Pearl would be entirely within his right to walk away from HC.

Cheers.

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[> Re: And If We Don't Get In? -- HChockeyalum, 11:00:45 07/13/04 Tue

IF we don't get in, somebody with big money bags needs to teach that pantywaist McFarland a lesson that he will understand. Personally, I have been a contributor to the annual fund every year since graduation, which supposedly means something. I will send a letter to McFarland and the Chairman of the Trustees indicating my outrage and my intent to never contribute again until we are admitted to the ECAC. I highly encourage all of you to do likewise.

Actually, given the poor treatment the HC hockey program has received over the years from the administration, I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up. But I still have hope. The ECAC will be making a big mistake if it admits Quinnipiac. Didn't that used to be a junior college? I am hoping that the ECAC has been gaming HC into "concessions," as if putting our money where our academic mouth is is a "concession."

You would all be surprised to know that McFarland actually recently wrote a letter on the issue. I quote, "We're making this application with the conviction that we can join the ECAC in hockey without severely compromising our principles, which would not be the case if we joined the Big East." And what principles are those, Father? Academics? Are the Ivies compromising their principles by fielding a competitive team? Aren't the Ivy's academic principles higher than ours? They were the last time I checked!

If we do get in, maybe all the cocktail parties with the Ivy Presidents will have meant something. If we don't, how can we believe HC when it says that we should be competing against our academic equals?

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[> [> Re: And If We Don't Get In? -- timholycross, 11:19:49 07/13/04 Tue

Can someone explain to me why HC would need to give hockey scholarships in the ECAC when the Ivies don't give them?

Plus, scholarships are the reason the Hockey East teams split away from the ECAC 20 years ago.

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[> [> ECAC and Scholarships One More Time -- zipp, 11:33:07 07/13/04 Tue

To save myself some typing, I'm going to just re-post (again) an old comment I made a couple of weeks ago:

I'll take a shot at trying to explain that. First, there's one school of thought amongst hockey people that the main goal of the ECAC (new commissioner and all) in adding a school is to improve their overall league strength and thus strength of schedule. Obviously, adding a non-scholarship school is less likely to achieve this goal than schorarship program. Argue this point if you want but IMO few would debate that we've had unusual success with out scholarships and that it's clearly easier to be successful with scholarships than with out.

We can argue if this is the ECAC's primary goal (certainly HC seems to hope that academic fit is their primary criteria), but the ECAC really IS a scholarship league. Colgate now gives scholarships which makes all the non-Ivy schools scholarship except Union and Union is clearly the blacksheep program of the league. In fact, there was a fair amount of speculation that the league might attempt to give the boot to Union and then add an even number of teams (particularly after the Union President angered the other schools by voting against the D-III scholarship exemption at the NCAA vote this spring, but that's another issue).

Now I know what you're going to say, "but the Ivy's don't give scholarships." LOL. First, they're the Ivy's, period, nuff said. And we've seen the results of the "let's compete against the Ivy's with out scholarships" experiment. Secondly, as Paul Pearl once said, "What is a scholarship?" (or something to that effect). Ask around and you'll find plenty of people (and its been debated here) that will tell you that the Ivy's can be interestingly creative with financial aid; particularly with hockey players.

So, I've gone on a while but the point is this league arguably is a scholarship league (Ivy + Scholarship). A school of thought says that the primary goal for ECAC inclusion is a school that maximizes (now or eventually) in-conference SOS. And the theory goes, a scholarship school(s) is most likely to achieve this goal.

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[> [> Re: And If We Don't Get In? -- sader1970, 13:51:00 07/13/04 Tue

Not sure where HChockeyalum got the quote from Fr. McFarland and recognizing that the statement is quoted in a vaccuum, I don't read the comment as anything other than full support for trying to get HC into the ECAC. He's drawing a POSITIVE distinction between trying get HC hockey into the ECAC where we will be competing with other high quality academic institutions and can do so without sacrificing out academic reputation vs. going Big East in basketball/other sports and might very well have to tinker with our admission standards. Now, you can argue whether or not we'll all go to hell if we could ever get into the Big East, but the good father seems to be saying we can "have" our athletic cake and "eat" our academics too with the ECAC hockey.

And, by the way, I don't think our "academic principles" are the same as any other non-Catholic college whether or not they are Ivy League schools. If by that you mean that it is harder to get into an Ivy League school than HC, I agree with you.

I'll repeat what I've said often, Fr. McFarland is a strong supporter of HC hockey and I believe he'd do anything and everything legally and ethically to get HC into the ECAC. But he would not do anything that would be in conflict with the mission of Holy Cross.

Because HC has not put out for media consumption what they are willing and unwilling to do to gain admission to the ECAC, there seems to be a presumption that HC administrators don't truly care and that we therefore have no chance of making the cut despite the fact that we are now among the final two candidates. To me, that's a very good sign. Heck, the ECAC might end up taking both of the final two.

Regardless, IMO too many of you seem to be throwing in the towel a bit prematurely.

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