Realignment foils ‘3’-peat
Steps seen as unfair to co-op programs
The seedings and matchups for the 2017-18 MIAA hockey tournaments will be announced Saturday, and teams across the state will begin competing in the following days, all hoping to be able to skate on the Garden ice in the state finals March 18.
Last year’s “Championship Sunday” on Causeway Street featured an entertaining Division 3 boys title matchup between Shrewsbury and
Old Rochester/Fairhaven, but even before the first puck is dropped in this season’s tournament it’s already guaranteed a rematch won’t happen. While Shrewsbury still is a Div.3 power and a favorite to repeat, Old Rochester/Fairhaven was among the handful of co-operative programs that were elevated to Div.2 before the season as part of the MIAA’s regular four-year cycle of realignment.
The move has confounded some, including OR/ Fairhaven coach Eric Labonte, who doesn’t understand how programs such as Shrewsbury, Hanover and
Westfield with larger enrollments and greater participation numbers remain in Div.3 while his team and other smaller ones were elevated.
“I had 18 kids from two schools try out for my team, not including the eighthgraders. I know (Wareham/ Carver) has had less than 15 players, Apponequet 17 players, and the list goes on and on,” Labonte said. “So in the infinite wisdom of the MIAA they decide to take all co-operative teams and move them to Division 2. Based on what?”
Power (im)balance
The co-op conundrum, as well as the balance of power in Div. 3 hockey in Massachusetts, are two issues that date back to the early 1990s.
Co-operative programs began as an experiment in 1992, when Rockport and Manchester Essex pooled players on their respective hockey and football programs, neither of which would have been sustainable otherwise. The pilot program later got full approval from the MIAA, but even back then there were concerns the new rule could be used for more than just a means of survival and giving more students opportunities to compete.
Today, many coaches across the state privately and publicly question the co-op rule. Among the concerns are the use of eighthgrade waivers to add players, where some schools are not allowed that possibility, as well as the potential to build powerhouse teams by grabbing individual players from multiple schools.
But in the eyes of co-op program participants themselves, it’s a matter of survival in an era in which more and more players are opting to head to prep school or play junior hockey.
“It is extremely difficult for me to rationalize how we belong in Division 2,” said Apponequet coach Craig Correia, whose team is among the five from the South Coast Conference — all co-ops — that were moved up this season. “The main issue I have with it is that we have struggled to keep the program numbers to a manageable level in past years. Now we are expected to compete with teams that were in the Super Eight conversation at points.”
According to MIAA deputy director Richard Pearson, the MIAA ice hockey committee made the decision during the normal realignment process to move co-op teams in Eastern and Central Mass. up one division, and then allow the normal appeal process. While some schools say they were caught offguard by the change, Pearson said the standard process is to post the proposed new alignments on the MIAA’s website, “with all the criteria, and it’s up to the schools to check.” Pearson added that 20 hockey programs — both boys and girls, and not all coops — successfully appealed their placement.
Nonetheless, many of the co-ops affected are having a hard time justifying the original decision.
“As a coach, I certainly thought the MIAA should know better than to put a second-year program in Division 2,” said Essex Tech coach Michael Geary, whose team qualified as runnerup of the Commonwealth Athletic. Along with Southeastern they are the only vocational schools — both coops — affected by the move.
Regional discord
The competitive balance when it comes to Eastern Mass. Div.3 vs. Central and West adds another layer to the debate.
In 1993, when St. John’s
(Shrewsbury) was selected to the Super Eight, that left only three teams to compete in the Div.2 Central bracket. With no Div. 2 in Western Mass., North Middlesex
needed to win only one game to reach the state final.
After St. John’s shifted to Eastern Mass. the next season, Central Mass. made the move to pool all remaining teams in Div. 3, just as Western Mass. did when then-Springfield Cathedral
headed east. But that created a similar situation in Eastern Mass. schools in which smaller programs were finding it impossible to compete with schools with much larger enrollments.
So in 2008, Western Mass. got approval to create a Div. 3A, in which predominantly smaller programs — mostly co-ops — are better able to compete in the postseason with comparable teams. Central Mass. followed suit the next year, and coaches in both regions agree the arrangement has worked well, with the two winners meeting for a state title.
That still leaves a pool of just 18 Div. 3 teams in Central and West combined, whereas the new alignment placed 35 programs in the South alone. At the same time, many in Central and West are opposed to any kind of broader realignment that would shift Eastern teams in their direction to balance things out, much like what has happened in recent years in sports such as basketball and lacrosse.
So, would a Division 3A tournament work on a statewide scale?
“I think the (ice hockey committee) at different times has heard the question, but hasn’t felt compelled to expand beyond Central and West,” Pearson said.
The question remains, should it? Last year’s run by Old Rochester/Fairhaven is by far the exception rather than the norm. In fact, coop teams were a combined 5-28 in the Div. 3 North/ South tournaments from 2013-16, including 0-8 in the 2016 postseason.
“I have said repeatedly over the last five years that there should be a (Div.) 3A South,” Labonte said.