Great Expectations For Men’s Hockey

[cornellsun.com]

The transition from a “grind-it-out” style to a more offensive-centric formula will signal a shift in of coaching tactics from Schafer.

This again?

With stronger league competition and national contenders like North Dakota and Boston University on the schedule this year, Schafer understands that to win, the team must run four lines that consistently threaten to score. Without a checking line, the team may sacrifice the best counter-punch to top scorers, but it gains a level of offense perhaps unseen in Schafer’s 15 years on East Hill. A hybrid approach, balancing the need for strong defense with the need to score more goals, makes Cornell a legitimate threat to make a deep run this year.

Hm. There are some good points here. But the whole "Schafer understands..." bit: is this deduced from any actual conversations with the coach? Or is this just speculation on the writers' part on what they want to happen? How do we know there's no checking line? I seem to remember a pretty unorthodox Checking Line last year...more of a "shut down" line than your traditional picture of a bruising checking line.

Those who attended the annual Red/White scrimmage last weekend quickly realized that complementing a strong returning roster will be a highly touted freshman class with immense skill.

"The freshmen will contribute immediately" is heard in some form every year. It's very difficult to make any judgements from a scrimmage. There's *always* an adjustment period to this level, and there will be freshmen mistakes. Sometimes there are very talented players who have great difficulty making the leap, and there are some players who come out of nowhere to fill a role so well that nobody saw it coming. I usually wait until January to actually expect anything out of freshmen.

That said, Cornell has a deep, experienced team, and they have a great potential for success this season. Go Red.

Good to see familiar names getting writing work in the Sun, too.

I thought this paragraph from today's IJ was interesting (typos aside):

"Hockey is a game of mistakes and what we'll talk about all week is to not be paralyzed thinking about the systems. We'll play at a high pace place. We'll correct the mistakes," Schafer said. "The guys that can play at a high pace and correct their mistakes quickly are the guys that will be getting more ice time. We don't want to come out tentative and be thinking about what we want to do. We want to let them out of the barn and let them go, and then correct things as we go."

Has a different ring to it. We'll know more after this weekend.

[www.theithacajournal.com]

This season's keys to success:

1) Riley Nash needs to be louder, angrier, and have access to a time machine.
2) Whenever Riley Nash is not on the ice, all the other players should be asking "Where's Riley?".

French Rage
This season's keys to success:

1) Riley Nash needs to be louder, angrier, and have access to a time machine.
2) Whenever Riley Nash is not on the ice, all the other players should be asking "Where's Riley?".

"I think this is going to be a very successful croning"
"That's cloning, you idiot!"

RichH
Hm. There are some good points here. But the whole "Schafer understands..." bit: is this deduced from any actual conversations with the coach? Or is this just speculation on the writers' part on what they want to happen? How do we know there's no checking line? I seem to remember a pretty unorthodox Checking Line last year...more of a "shut down" line than your traditional picture of a bruising checking line.

I don't think this has made it into any media reports, but it's based on quotes by Schafer and Greening at Media Day a couple of weeks back. Schafer discussed the need for more balanced scoring. Greening took things a step further and strongly implied that they needed to have four lines who are a threat to score in order to wear down the opposing defense over the course of a game. I got the impression that they wanted players who could score goals, not just forwards who can play defense. And with the exception of the checking line's goal at the beginning of the season against Princeton last year, they were pretty quiet offensively. Schafer did seem to skate a checking line tonight, with Scali, Nicholls, and Collins. But Collins is a more offensive-minded player than Mugford and Nicholls had a goal. So it seems like this year's fourth line might be more of a threat to score than checking lines in the past.

In reference to your other comments, I suppose that yes, at the beginning of every year we tend to say that the freshmen will contribute immediately. But there is some support for this position, since INCH ranked our incoming class 13th in the country. The freshmen got a lot of ice time tonight (and obviously in Red-White), and they look better than the classes from at least the previous two years. Maybe back in fall 2006, when we had fairly big d-men like BNash and Krueger, and talented forwards like Greening and Romano, did we have a similar situation. And those guys (maybe minus Romano, plus Gallagher) have turned out pretty well. They don't really seem to be undersized or overwhelmed by the pace of the college game (although Windsor was a very slow team).

The results this season will prove whether our expectations are justified, but at this point I don't see much of a cause for pessimism. (Unless Scrivens sat out tonight for an injury...)

ebilmes
(Unless Scrivens sat out tonight for an injury...)

I spoke to a lady who seems to be "in the know". She knew ahead of time that Garmin would start on Fri with Scrivens going on Sat.

redice

ebilmes
(Unless Scrivens sat out tonight for an injury...)

I spoke to a lady who seems to be "in the know". She knew ahead of time that Garmin would start on Fri with Scrivens going on Sat.

Is she on ELynah? Can I PM her for details?

Kyle Rose

redice

ebilmes
(Unless Scrivens sat out tonight for an injury...)

I spoke to a lady who seems to be "in the know". She knew ahead of time that Garmin would start on Fri with Scrivens going on Sat.

Is she on ELynah? Can I PM her for details?

Nope!! But go ahead & PM her!!!

French Rage
This season's keys to success:

1) Riley Nash needs to be louder, angrier, and have access to a time machine.
2) Whenever Riley Nash is not on the ice, all the other players should be asking "Where's Riley?".

Well I don't know about louder and angrier, but he definitely looks bigger and stronger on the puck.