The NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions has penalized New Hampshire’s men’s ice hockey program with two years of probation and multiple recruiting restrictions for a case involving 923 impermissible e-mail messages from the associate head coach to 30 prospective student-athletes.

The case was resolved through the summary-disposition process, a cooperative effort in which the involved parties submit the case to the Committee on Infractions in writing. When the NCAA enforcement staff, the university and involved individuals agree to the facts of the case and penalties proposed by the university, they may use this process instead of a formal hearing. 

After the review of the summary-disposition report, the committee concluded that the case called for recruiting-related sanctions beyond what the university had originally proposed. In late April, the committee and the university reached an agreement with regard to these additional recruiting sanctions.

The university’s associate head men’s ice hockey coach sent the impermissible recruiting e-mails during the 2007 fall and 2008 spring semesters. The associate head coach sent all of the e-mails using a recruiting software program that allowed the associate head coach to send an e-mail message to multiple prospects through one computer keystroke. Thirty prospects received impermissible recruiting contacts from the university before June 15 after the end of their freshman or sophomore years in high school.

The associate head coach said the violations occurred because he misunderstood the relevant recruiting rule and entered data into the recruiting software program according to the prospective student-athletes’ expected enrollment at the university, rather than their high school graduation. As a result, high school freshman and sophomores were placed in the same category as juniors and seniors.

All the involved parties agreed that the case should be categorized as “major” because the violations were neither isolated nor inadvertent, and the volume of impermissible e-mails provided more than a minimal competitive advantage.

The penalties in this case, including those self-imposed by the university, are as follows:

• Public reprimand and censure.
• Two years of probation beginning on the date the university accepted the committee’s additional recommended penalties (April 24, 2009, to April 23, 2011). (Self-imposed by the university).
• Reduction by one in the number of permissible recruiters in men’s ice hockey who can be off-campus at any time from April 24, 2009, through October 23, 2009.
• The 30 involved prospective student-athletes will not receive an expense-paid visit to the university’s campus. (Self-imposed by the university.)
• None of the 30 involved prospective student-athletes will be allowed to sign a National Letter of Intent with the university. (Self-imposed by the university.)

The members of the Committee on Infractions who reviewed this case are Paul Dee, chair of the committee and lecturer of law and education at Miami (Florida) and formerly the institution's athletics director and general counsel; John S. Black, attorney; Melissa Conboy, deputy director of athletics at Notre Dame; Eileen Jennings, general counsel at Central Michigan; Britton Banowsky, commissioner of Conference USA; Alfred J. Lechner Jr., attorney; and Dennis Thomas, the commissioner of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and formerly director of athletics at Hampton.