{"id":25671,"date":"2003-03-22T19:39:44","date_gmt":"2003-03-23T01:39:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2003\/03\/22\/life-during-wartime\/"},"modified":"2010-08-17T19:55:26","modified_gmt":"2010-08-18T00:55:26","slug":"life-during-wartime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2003\/03\/22\/life-during-wartime\/","title":{"rendered":"Life During Wartime"},"content":{"rendered":"
Entering the NCAA D-III Men’s Ice Hockey Championship weekend this year has been a little surreal. As some of the USCHO D-III staff — Chris Lerch, Ed Trefzger, and I — made preparations to cover the events, we kept an eye on world events and watched Operation Iraqi Freedom begin.<\/p>\n
Questions began to nag at the back of our minds. Should we be here while our country is involved in a war?<\/p>\n
Early last week, the NCAA considered moving or postponing each of the playoffs in the various sports that are under way. Discussions were held with representatives from each of the four participants in the D-III men’s ice hockey playoffs, and also with local law enforcement officials.<\/p>\n
“We did the exact same thing [for men’s ice hockey] that all championships were doing,” said Chris Schneider, NCAA Associate Director of Championships. “We talked about contingency plans for hosting. We talked about what they normally do on campus, for the security, and worked with the local authorities. We talked about their procedures for protests and how they were handled.”<\/p>\n
After discussions with all four schools, it was decided to continue with plans to hold the championship on the campus of Norwich University.<\/p>\n
The USCHO staff arrived at the hotel in Montepelier late Thursday night, and then headed towards the campus of Norwich in nearby Northfield mid-day on Friday. We turned our car off of Route 12 and were immediately met with a checkpoint manned by cadet MPs on the campus of Norwich. This was the first of three checkpoints that we passed through before reaching the rink, each time having our names checked against a prepublished access list.<\/p>\n