How Ivy Rules Hurt Cornell Hockey

Marc Beck of the Yale Daily News has a great article today about how Ivy League rules and restrictions put Ivy hockey programs at a disadvantage.

Later start to practices:

Among the rule discrepancies is that the Ivy League restricts the date practices can start for hockey teams until two weeks before the start of the season. This year, that date was Oct. 9 for the women and Oct. 16 for the men.

For example, Yale’s second conference opponent this season, Clarkson, played two games before the Elis were even eligible to start their first practice. This past Friday, the Elis played against Providence, which had six games under its belt before facing the Bulldogs. The game ended in a 2-2 tie, but goalie Jaclyn Snikeris ’11 said there was definitely a different feel at the beginning of the season.

Yale star Mark Arcobello says what Cornell's guys won't -- that the late start puts Ivies at a disadvantage:

But forward Mark Arcobello ’10 said the lack of game experience is still a disadvantage at the beginning of the season.

“They know their players better, they know each other, and they’re used to playing with each other for a couple more weeks than we are,” Arcobello said. “After the first couple weeks, everyone gets settled. The first couple weekends, you figure your teammates out and stuff, and they figure that out before us with those two extra weeks.”

Beck also gives us the details about Ivy roster restrictions:

In addition to this rule, the Ivy League restricts eligible players for away games to 22 players, while the ECAC limit is 23. [Women's coach] Witt said this rule is not much of a disadvantage to her team because of the roster’s small size — 21 deep. But on the men’s side, head coach Keith Allain said this rule can sometimes affect his team of 27 on the second night of a double header.

I understand that the Ivy schools like to pretend to put academics first, but think how good Cornell hockey could be if these restrictions were removed!

We might have avoided start-of-season stumbles like the 4-1 RIT loss two years ago, or the loss to Michigan State a couple of years before that. (I would like our chances against Niagara on Friday much better if we'd played a game or two before.)

More importantly, we could schedule two (or even four!) extra games at the start of the season against quality opponents to both better prepare our team for the ECAC schedule and boost our PWR. Imagine an annual Cornell-Ohio State or Cornell-Michigan State series to kick off the season!

It's one thing to place Ivy restrictions on a sport like football, when the Ivy schools compete against each other and no one is going to a bowl game. But in hockey, only six of the 12 ECAC schools are Ivy. And Ivy teams like Cornell, Princeton, and Yale are among the best teams in the NCAA this season. There is no question that the Ivy restrictions are hurting the Ivy hockey programs.