NCAA CONDUCTS ITS FIRST MAJOR INVESTIGATION

[cyclonewinger]

NCAA CONDUCTS ITS FIRST MAJOR INVESTIGATION INTO ICE HOCKEY COLLEGE AND COLLEGE PROSPECTS ACCEPTING MONEY TO PLAY ROLLER HOCKEY


Details to follow, but a source inside the NCAA confirms there is an ongoing investigation, and that the NCAA has asked several roller hockey tournament series for complete rosters of teams with players 14 years and older.



Apparently, complaints have been received from the Colorado area about student athletes getting paid to play roller hockey, beyond what is allowed by NCAA rules. Improper payment can be made by companies or even individuals. Also, individual sponsorships of equipment, as opposed to team sponsorships, can result in a rule violation.



The investigation has now expanded to the Detroit area, East Coast and even the West Coast.



The NCAA looks at hockey, ice and roller, as one sport and thus if you are deemed a professional in roller you lose your college eligibility in ice hockey.


As with any investigation, the higher profile you are, the more chance you have "to get caught." Current college ice players, Junior A Ice Players, National Team Development players and those known to have oral commitments to college will all be reviewed for eligibility rule violations.



Word to the wise: Keep your receipts showing you paid your own way...

[Rebecca]

Where did you get this information from please? I have been discussing the issue with ACHA and am very interested in this topic. Please PM me with your direct source or contact if you have one. Thanks!

Rebecca Breitel
Advisor, NCRHA
President, ECRHA
<A HREF="http://www.ncrha.org" target="_new">http://www.ncrha.org</A>

Rebecca

[Rebecca]

Seems to me this post may have been copied from another site: (EXCLUSIVE TO SEALWEENIES deleted from it)

I think there are policies against that, but I think this is important enough that it should appear here too. One thing though is that when you do this, you should give credit at least to the site that it was copied from.

Now I think this info came from Irish so I will ask him for his 'source'.

Rebecca

[NLane]

Won't the NCAA tell you?

[Rebecca]

I wish it were that easy. They have a number of different people who respond and my experience is that over the years their people change and have inconsistant answers. I want to see things in writing and have real personable contacts not generic email links and &quot;submit questions here&quot; style communication, ya know what I mean?

Rebecca

[NLane]

Oh yeah. Know any good (annoying, get the job done types) sports reporters? Plant a seed and let the digging begin!

[MDE3]

At last check..last year I believe..no teams in roller hockey were yet "deemed professional"..and by that I mean none were on the NCAA list of professional teams. That may have changed. Second issue....I just wonder who is the person that blew the whistle out in Colorado????? Perhaps some may remember the post from a few months ago where players who had played for certain "sponsored teams" were considered inelligible for a particular Colorado inline hockey organization.

At the time the justification was that these players contravened NCAA rules, and that started quite a heated and vituporous debate, where it looked suspiciously like a particular coach was trying to co-erce certain players to play only for his organization.

..now we have a supposed NCAA investigation starting from Colorado....hmmmmm Could it be some serious sour grapes here??????/

[Rebecca]

Well you could be on to something, however, here a post I made elsewhere:

I believe this topic is much deeper than us. NCAA and NAIA schools have different policies on 'scholarships' and there recently has been a large discussion by the ACHA over this. It involved both Lindenwood and Eastern Michigan. The topic may have just trickled down and then was compounded by many people's inquiries about 'pro vs. amateur' and what is allowed and who deems it permissible. As an Advisor for the NCRHA, I can tell you that it has not been easily applied to roller hockey, or specifically college roller hockey.

Add to the fact that Gabe Gauthier played in an NCRHA game in the Colorado Region, RMCRHA (he was later deemed by NCRHA as inelligible to participate at Nationals).

One thing though that I picked up in Irish's post above is this sentence "The NCAA looks at hockey, ice and roller, as one sport" however, USOC does not seem to feel that way because the Ted Stevens Sports Act is what they proclaim gives them the right as NGB over all "roller sports". If the NCAA does feel this way, why hasn't USA Hockey used that to bring to the USOC table? (or have they? - I don't know).

Anyhow, items like these make me very frustrated and make me feel as if people everywhere are trying to sink their hooks into inline without knowing very much about the sport, the people of the sport, or how the community is doing business.

Who has NCAA contacted? Because it certainly hasn't been the group running collegiate roller hockey and it seems to me that we are the group who should be helping to set the standards.

Rebecca Breitel
Advisor, NCRHA
President, ECRHA
www.ncrha.org




Rebecca

[Falcons77]

When I ran the Falcons MLRH team, we had the question pop-up because we had a few players who planned on playing D1 and D3 ice hockey (one did play D3, the other D1 this fall). The NCAA rule states that they can not get paid for performance, but they CAN receive equipment, as long as, it is not excessive. The question is, "what is the definition of excessive"?