Harvard Appeals Ruling On Kinasewich by ECAC

Harvard will appeal the recent decision of the Eastern College Athletic conference eligibility committee which declared hockey player Gene Kinasewich ineligible for league competition, it was learned yesterday.

The Faculty Committee on Athletics decided on the appeal after a thorough view of Kinasewich's record. Harvard had wanted the other Ivy League deans to make a joint appeal to the ECAC, but made the protest on its own.

Kinasawich, a junior from Edmonton, Alberta (Canada), was the center and leading scorer on Harvard's varsity hockey team, which last year reached the semifinals of the ECAC tournament. He had been ruled ineligible during his freshman year by the Ivy League eligibility committee, because he had once accepted money for playing Junior League A hockey in Canada. But the Ivy League committee reversed its ruling at the start of last year, after studying Kinasewich's scholastic record and his Canadian hockey experience.

University Surprised

The ECAC's decision barring Kinasewich from competition therefore took the University completely by surprise.

Dean Watson had presented Harvard's case to the ECAC last June, after Kinasewich had come to the attention of members of the eligibility committee through an article about him in Sports Illustrated. The article quoted (or misquoted, as he later claimed) hockey coach Cooney Weiland as saying that Kinasewich was one of the best Canadian hockey players he had come across; it also contained a review of Kinasewich's eligibility troubles with the Ivy League.

Harvey D. Woods, director of athletics at Fairleigh Dickinson and chairman of the ECAC eligibility committee, told the CRIMSON yesterday that the Ivy League had failed to keep the ECAC posted on the status of Kinasewich's eligibility, and therefore the Sports Illustrated article was the first mention the committee had seen of his case.

Foods said that the eligibility committee would not normally meet until Dec. 5 or 6, after the start of the hockey season. He said that he would consult committee members about arranging an earlier meeting to consider Harvard's appeal.

Dean Monro issued a statement last week after receiving word of the ECAC's decision. He called it "a matter of deep disappointment and distress to us," and praised Kinasewich as "a fine student, a fine gentleman, and a fine sportsman."