Breaking: Harvard Ends Its Season, Won't Participate in Remaining ECAC Playoffs

Administration Bars Team From Playing; ECAC Deciding Options

CHN Staff Report

Harvard will not be playing its Best-of-3 ECAC Quarterfinal series this weekend at Rensselaer, CHN has learned.

The school's administration has barred its athletic teams from competing, part of a series of precautionary measures being taken to prevent coming in contact with coronavirus, and preventing its spread.

As a result, Harvard will not participate in its series with RPI.

"We support and respect the decisions made regarding the health and well-being of our students and the University community," Harvard coach Ted Donato said in a statement. "I feel profound disappointment for our student-athletes, particularly for our seniors, that we won’t be able to compete for a championship. I want to thank our seniors for everything they’ve done to make our program better over the past four years."

It's still up in the air what will happen with the other series. They could go on as scheduled, or the teams could re-seed, with top-seeded Cornell earning an automatic trip to Lake Placid.

As of now, the final four of the ECAC championship is still scheduled for the following weekend in Lake Placid, and is still open to the public.

RPI was set to play its games this weekend without fans in the building. It announced this measure last weekend, the first team in the country to do so.

Cornell was set to play Princeton this weekend, and has closed Lynah Rink to the public. Each player will be allowed to invite three guests to watch the game in person.

Quinnipiac is hosting Yale, and school officials have been meeting today to decide whether spectators would be allowed in the building.

Clarkson is hosting Colgate, and everything is currently scheduled as normal.

The Ivy League recently canceled its men's and women's postseason basketball tournament over coronavirus concerns. The regular-season champions, which includes Yale on the men's side, are still planning to participate in the NCAA Tournament. But that could change at any time.

The Ivy League also announced today that all spring sports are canceled. The individual schools are allowed to decide whether to have their winter sports teams continue playing in the postseason.

Dozens of colleges around the country have already canceled classes or moved them online, and/or told students to stay home from spring break, either temporarily or for the rest of the semester. In almost all of those instances, athletic teams are still being allowed to play, perhaps with restrictions.