A proposal in front of the NCAA would increase the minimum games limit to 35, but also remove the exemption for preseason tournaments and games in the U.S. against foreign opponents.
The current games maximum is 34, though exemptions are made for such preseason tournaments as the Icebreaker, and for occasions such as games against Canadian Universities and other foreign national teams. Those exemptions would be eliminated. Team who travel to play games in Alaska would still get their games exempted. Also, the Ivy League maximum would remain at 29.
The proposal is part of a number of items to come out of last month’s NCAA Championship and Competition Cabinet meetings in La Jolla, Calif.
Though the meetings lacked any major issues, a number of smaller issues were notable.
The Cabinet forwarded a recommendation to exempt certain sports from having to meet the so-called core competition requirements. This was the legislation that would force conferences to have at least six full-fledged Division I programs in it in order to obtain an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. The idea was to discourage single-sport conferences, which under the old legislation have an easier time of earning an automatic bid.
When the legislation was announced, college hockey scrambled for an emergency grandfather clause for the WCHA and CHA, which have less than the minimum. That grandfather clause was eventually granted.
Now, the Cabinet has recommended that sports with fewer than 50 percent of the NCAA membership included (for example, ice hockey and lacrosse), which are made up mainly of single-sport conferences, would not be subject to this core competition requirement.
In other actions, the Cabinet approved to the appointment of Harvard women’s coach Katey Stone to the Women’s Ice Hockey Committee for a term of three years. And Brown coach Margaret “Digit” Murphy was approved for placement on the Men’s and Women’s Ice Hockey Committee.
