That’s to be expected, considering they’re among the game’s most storied, with four NCAA championships and 57 NCAA tournament appearances between them.

They are also vital to their respective communities, from the standpoint of both die-hard fans and small businesses set up around having good business on Friday and Saturday nights during winter. (I mean, do you know anything better to do in Potsdam, N.Y., when it’s 15 below?)

And though these athletic scholarships are seen as a mechanism to neutralize the Ivy schools’ “brand-name” recognition during the recruiting process, it’s in the best interest of Harvard’s national image, ratings percentage index (RPI) figure and chances for at-large NCAA tournament bids, that its opponents—Clarkson, Rensselaer and St. Lawrence included—be strong on the ice.

With that in mind, how big of a hit would these programs take if they stopped offering scholarships? Consider that, taken as a group, Clarkson, Rensselaer and St. Lawrence averaged 18.42 wins over the last 12 years. That is almost twice the average over the same span for Union, the only Division III school in the ECAC Division I hockey league that does not offer scholarships.

If the legislation goes into effect, the schools would have to decide between altering their athletic profile to Division I or Division II, a costly and bureaucratically uncomfortable option, or not offering athletic scholarships for hockey players beginning with the 2008-2009 season (the senior year of next year’s recruiting class).

In other words, the stakes are high. Very high. We’re talking potential lifestyle changes for people and institutions.

These schools are going to fight this to the hilt, and it’s taking the shape of a national campaign. It has to, really, since the votes of our close personal friends at Maranatha Baptist Bible College and Valley City State University matter as much as Clarkson’s or Rensselaer’s.

Thus, the presidents and athletic directors at the eight schools (the four hockey schools, along with Johns Hopkins, SUNY-Oneonta, Hartwick and Rutgers-Newark) embark on a quest to educate all of the Division III membership—a daunting 424 schools—about the details of this proposal.

“We’re doing everything we can,” Clarkson athletic director Sean Frazier said this week. “There is already a lot of community support, both local and national. There’s a lot of interest in getting this taken care of, and voted down.

“Every hockey chat line has something on there about this. There are a lot of folks out there who are quite concerned, and a lot of people who would be directly affected. We need people to understand what these effects can be, so we need to get in the information out.”

We trust the telephone lines will be burning. Please be courteous if you get a call from the Campaign ’03: Ice the Vote office.

Nate the Great

In case you lost track of Nate Leaman in July, when he left his post as a Harvard assistant to become Union’s bench boss, here’s an update.

He is alive, well and off to a 5-1-1 start in his new job, with the only blemish a frightful 9-2 loss to No. 3 New Hampshire on Halloween. The Dutchmen were 4-0-1 after five games, which set the longest unbeaten streak in program history, according to USCHO.com, and prompted ECAC Commissioner Phil Buttafuoco to phone Leaman with his congratulations.

“It’s not bad. I’m not unhappy about it,” Leaman said. “We’ve played seven games and won five, but I told the guys that we’ve only crossed the plains. Now comes the mountains, with the league season coming up. This league is a challenge. Anyone can win on any given night, and Harvard learned that [last] weekend.”