NCAA Hockey Ban Menaces Six from Harvard

The fate of some 200 collegiate hockey players, including six Harvard students, will be decided this week by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

The NCAA has set up a three-man subcommittee under the direction of Stan Marshall, South Dakota Athletic Director, to review the cases of those Canadian and American players who acknowledged on a recent NCAA "Ice Hockey Questionnaire" that they participated in Junior A hockey in Canada or received some kind of money for participating in hockey programs before coming to NCAA member colleges. In either case, the players fall under the head of professionalism.

The association's rules currently ban all Junior A players, as well as lower level players who received expenses while participating in the program, from competing in intercollegiate athletics.

The six players who fall into this category at Harvard for one technical reason or another are Randy Roth, Steve Janicek, Kevin Burke, Steve Dagdigian, Mike Leckie and freshman Ken Farrish.

Though the final decision belongs to the NCAA, the consensus among the players and others involved in the controversy is that the subcommittee's findings will result in a waiver for the players, allowing them to finish their collegiate careers.

"Everybody in the East is optimistic," Janicek said Sunday night. "They just can't stop us from playing."

But many have expressed uncertainties about how the always unpredictable NCAA will react to the situation. Though it would seem somewhat ludicrous to many to declare 200 players ineligible, wiping out most of the major NCAA teams, there are still doubts as to whether or not the committee will rule in favor of the players.

"I certainly hope that this whole thing will be resolved," Harvard hockey coach Bill Cleary commented, "but you never know what the NCAA is going to do. They don't go according to the game plan all the time."

The eastern players involved (excepting freshmen) have been granted waivers from the minor violations by the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference, which is totally independent from the NCAA though most of its rules parallel the national association.

The waivers resulted from a controversial suit brought by two former Boston University students, Bill Buckton and Peter Marzo, who were declared ineligible to play for B.U. in the spring of 1973 because they had played in Junior A hockey before entering B.U. and accepted necessary expense monies from the teams while attending high school.

Permanently Eligible

The pair, represented by attorney Gordon A. Martin, obtained a restraining order allowing them to play during the 1973-74 season. After a courtroom trial at the season's end, the players got the ECAC as well as the University to enter into a Consent Decree granting them permanent eligibility.

The decree also said that the ECAC must apply this Buckton-Marzo standard to all sophomore, junior and senior players in the conference.

The NCAA, however, did not go along with the agreement. The NCAA decided to review individual cases involving players it might consider "professionals" because of their high school affiliation with Canadian Junior A hockey.

Martin predicts a lot of trouble for the NCAA if it decides to declare the questionable. Martin's case is still open and pending before the NCAA and possibly the cases of the players at Massachusetts schools.

Though the ECAC and its member schools are not bound by the NCAA decision, and could conceivably go on playing the rest of the season with players the NCAA has ruled ineligible, the national association has a good deal of clout over members that flaunt its authority.

The NCAA could censure non-complying schools, barring them from participating in any association-sanctioned post-season tournaments in all sports, as well as denying them television revenue. Such an NCAA move would have severe repercussions for Harvard's many championship teams.

Hopefully, it will not come down to this. The Harvard players, at least, feel their violations are not such as to warrant a verdict of suspension from intercollegiate play.

Freshman Ken Farrish's case is somewhat different from the rest, in that he has already been declared ineligible by both the Ivy League and the ECAC. Last year's Consent Decree does not cover this year's freshmen or subsequent incoming athletes.

Farrish lived away from home, at a friend's house, while playing Junior B hockey in Canada. The 80-mile distance he would have had to travel each day precluded his commuting from his house. He received a small amount for room and board expenses.

The other five affected Crimson players have received ECAC waivers, and are still eligible pending the NCAA decision.

Both Janicek and Roth played for B teams that were involved in interprovincial playoffs at the end of the season. Roth was in three series of two weeks each for a total of six weeks. Janicek participated in playoffs for a five-week period.

Each was reimbursed for expenses incurred during the playoffs. "We have letters from the managers of the teams," assistant director of athletics Eric Cutler said yesterday, "that state that the money they received was just for expenses." Cutler and Roth traveled to Chicago Sunday to present Harvard's case to the committee.

The cases of Dagdigian and Burke came to light this year as a result of the NCAA questionnaire handed out in September. The two had not previously been asked to file affidavits because they are Americans and the association had been concerned only with Canadians in the past.

Both Dagdigian and Burke were invited to Junior A tryout camps while they were in high school. Burke's airfare to Halifax was paid and he was put up in a dorm while attending the camp. Dagdigian and some friends from high school went to Montreal for two days to a camp.

Fathers' Cars

Dagdigian and his friends drove up with their fathers, but they were put up for the two days during the tryouts. Neither Burke nor Dagdigian received payments for their playing abilities during their brief associations with Junior A hockey.

Mike Leckie's case falls into the same general category, except that he is a Canadian. Leckie, who played Junior B hockey for the North Bay Trappers in his home town of North Bay, Ontario, was also invited to a tryout with the Junior A Greyhounds, some 300 miles from his home.

Leckie received room and board for the week he was with the Greyhound camp. He did not realize at the time that he would be violating any American college rules.

"A lot of kids are in the dark in Canada about these rulings," Leckie said. "They really should do something to inform them of the rules."

The ECAC, B.U. and other institutions will bring proposals to update the rules and the methods by which they are disseminated in Canada before the NCAA during the association's annual meeting in January.

But right now, Harvard's immediate concern is the individual eligibility cases before the subcommittee.

"We should know this week," Cutler said, "but we're optimistic about the whole thing."