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Mark McCutcheon

Posted by Zack '06 
Mark McCutcheon
Posted by: Zack '06 (---.twcny.rr.com)
Date: March 29, 2004 12:59AM

Wasn't he supposed to be one of the top recruits coming in this year? he didn't seem to do much and was the worst on the team in +/-. What went wrong??
 
Re: Mark McCutcheon
Posted by: Josh '99 (---.ny5030.east.verizon.net)
Date: March 29, 2004 09:23AM

It takes some players longer than others to adjust to the differences between college and juniors. McCutcheon (along with Carefoot) seemed to start hitting his stride down the stretch, and I think we can expect to see more like that next year.
 
Re: Mark McCutcheon
Posted by: rstott (128.164.240.---)
Date: March 29, 2004 01:18PM

Given that McCutcheon played all 32 games without scoring a goal (has another Cornell forawrd ever played an entire season without scoring?), Schafer must have seen something he liked. Still, with the new recruits coming in, he's probably really going to have to really up his game to stay in the lineup next season.
 
Re: Mark McCutcheon
Posted by: calgARI '07 (---.resnet.cornell.edu)
Date: March 29, 2004 02:04PM

No question that he has considerable offensive upside. He has very good hands, perhaps better than anyone on the team. His skating and size are his weaknesses, and they are considerable weaknesses. He has tried to put on weight this year but could not sustain it for whatever reason. He has decent height, but he is really slim and gets knocked around pretty easily. He has a bit of an awkward, straight legged stride which slows him down. I am sure he'll be staying around during the summer like almost all the players do and do everything he can to strengthen these areas. If he cannot, I am not sure that he'll have a place in the lineup next year with 4 new forwards coming in.
 
Re: Mark McCutcheon
Posted by: ben03 (198.16.0.---)
Date: March 29, 2004 02:16PM

... do you ever go to class? whistle ;-) whistle

 
___________________________
Let's GO Red!!!
 
Re: Mark McCutcheon
Posted by: calgARI '07 (---.resnet.cornell.edu)
Date: March 29, 2004 02:29PM

Going to class is actually what gives me the time to post here. The 30-40 minutes I have between each of my five successive classes on Mondays and Wednesdays is a time where I have nothing to do but go on the computer at the ILR library.
 
Re: Mark McCutcheon
Posted by: CUlater 89 (64.244.223.---)
Date: March 29, 2004 02:43PM

[Q]has another Cornell forawrd ever played an entire season without scoring?[/Q]

A quick review of TBRW? indicates that it happened twice previously:

1976 John Stornick 29 games
1962 Harvey Edson 18 games

More recently, Shane Palahicky was held without a goal in 2001, playing 27 of 33 games.


 
Re: Mark McCutcheon
Posted by: cuFAN (---.twcny.rr.com)
Date: April 01, 2004 06:03PM

i think the fact that his dad played for cornell and also was the coach for a year or two will keep him in the lineup
 
Re: Mark McCutcheon
Posted by: ugarte (65.217.153.---)
Date: April 01, 2004 06:10PM

[Q]cuFAN Wrote:

i think the fact that his dad played for cornell and also was the coach for a year or two will keep him in the lineup [/Q]Cornell history didn't keep Hughes in the lineup and it won't keep McCutcheon in the lineup. McCutcheon's talent (good enough to get him drafted in the 5th round by the Avs) will keep him in the lineup.


 
 
Re: Mark McCutcheon
Posted by: O.S.B. (---.twcny.rr.com)
Date: April 01, 2004 07:36PM

He also played in the Ithaca Youth Hockey, but his skating greatly improved, and as a freshman down the stretch he proved that he could skate with the rest of them
 
Re: Mark McCutcheon
Posted by: Al DeFlorio (---.ne.client2.attbi.com)
Date: April 01, 2004 07:39PM

[Q]ugarte Wrote:

Cornell history didn't keep Hughes in the lineup and it won't keep McCutcheon in the lineup. McCutcheon's talent (good enough to get him drafted in the 5th round by the Avs) will keep him in the lineup.

The artist formerly known as big red apple [/Q]
"Cornell history" didn't keep McCutcheon in the coaching job after 1995, either.



 
___________________________
Al DeFlorio '65
 
Re: Mark McCutcheon
Posted by: CUlater 89 (64.244.223.---)
Date: April 02, 2004 10:25AM

[Q]"Cornell history" didn't keep McCutcheon in the coaching job after 1995, either. [/Q]

Or Dick Bertrand for that matter.
 
Re: Mark McCutcheon
Posted by: billhoward (---.union01.nj.comcast.net)
Date: April 02, 2004 11:04AM

[Q]CUlater 89 Wrote:

[Q]"Cornell history" didn't keep McCutcheon in the coaching job after 1995, either. [/Q]
Or Dick Bertrand for that matter. [/Q]

There's a theory that the best coaches spend time as assistant coaches at that level, meaning a college assistant going to a college head coaching job, a pro assistant going to be a pro head coach, but first getting to know what the players are like at that level. A current prime example is the New Jersey Nets, who promoted the assistant, Lawrence Frank, and then took off on a 14-game winning streak. Or Mike Shafer, from Cornell asst to WMich asst to Cornell head coach.

Conversely: Betrand, from 29-year-old team captain to head coach, with no stop as an assistant. A story made for the movies if he had been successful. (Like by say winning that NCAA champsionship in one of his first four years). Instead, Cornell slipped in his later years, he went to Ferris State, it didn't work out there, and he's now overseeing youth hockey in East Grand Rapids.

Conversely: Ned Harkness, straight from Cornell to the Detroit Red Wings. Twenty years of motivating 18- to 22-year-olds to championship form didn't translate in the pros.

(In the annals of what-coulda-been, suppose he'd turned down Detroit and closed out his career at Cornell, handing off the reigns in 1990 to then four-year-assistant Mike Schafer on the occasion of Harkness winning his tenth NCAA hockey championship for the Big Red.)
 
Re: Mark McCutcheon
Posted by: ninian '72 (165.224.215.---)
Date: April 02, 2004 11:50AM

[Q]billhoward Wrote:

Conversely: Ned Harkness, straight from Cornell to the Detroit Red Wings. Twenty years of motivating 18- to 22-year-olds to championship form didn't translate in the pros.

(In the annals of what-coulda-been, suppose he'd turned down Detroit and closed out his career at Cornell, handing off the reins in 1990 to then four-year-assistant Mike Schafer on the occasion of Harkness winning his tenth NCAA hockey championship for the Big Red.) [/Q]

Absolutely on target. Harkness's over-the-top bench presence didn't work at all with the Wings. Word was that his team rules, such as forbidding smoking, were poorly received as well. He was not popular with fans in Detroit, who thought he was clueless.

By sheer coincidence, I was seated in the same row with Harkness on a flight from Boston to Detroit in June of 74, and he took a long, wistful look out the window when the captain announced we were passing over the Finger Lakes. What a moment! I wonder whether he wasn't thinking the same thing Bill is suggesting. However, Harkness probably would have recruited a different set of players, Mike might have played elsewhere, and be coaching another team now. I like the way things turned out.

 
Re: Mark McCutcheon
Posted by: Al DeFlorio (---.ne.client2.attbi.com)
Date: April 02, 2004 12:23PM

[Q]billhoward Wrote:
(In the annals of what-coulda-been, suppose he'd turned down Detroit and closed out his career at Cornell, handing off the reigns in 1990 to then four-year-assistant Mike Schafer on the occasion of Harkness winning his tenth NCAA hockey championship for the Big Red.) [/Q]
Only ten? nut

 
___________________________
Al DeFlorio '65
 
Re: Mark McCutcheon (way OT)
Posted by: billhoward (---.union01.nj.comcast.net)
Date: April 02, 2004 12:37PM

[Q]ninian '72 Wrote:

Absolutely on target. Harkness's over-the-top bench presence didn't work at all with the Wings. Word was that his team rules, such as forbidding smoking, were poorly received as well. He was not popular with fans in Detroit, who thought he was clueless.

By sheer coincidence, I was seated in the same row with Harkness on a flight from Boston to Detroit in June of 74, and he took a long, wistful look out the window when the captain announced we were passing over the Finger Lakes. What a moment! I wonder whether he wasn't thinking the same thing Bill is suggesting. However, Harkness probably would have recruited a different set of players, Mike might have played elsewhere, and be coaching another team now. I like the way things turned out.

[/Q]
When you go from college to the pros, there are financial and, ah, personal growth opportunities. You make more money and most people think it's a greater challenge to win the Stanley Cup than the NCAAs. Coaching a pro team and winning a Stanley Cup carries more recognition (your ego gets stroked more). But there must be some threshhold economic level that would keep a wavering coach in college. Who knows what the coach makes now, but let's say it's $75K. If it was $150K, that's enough to live on nicely and send your kids to a good college (I think the tuition swap deals for faculty are declining). Then the offer of a pro coaching job at $300K isn't such a big thing because the government's taking most of it back anyway. I just hope the endowed coaching chairs here in the key sports (hockey, lacrosse, football I believe have them) have enough salary headroom to keep the good guys in Ithaca.

(I think that [usually] decent people like judges and police/military officers make the same decision all the time: Do I live on a $100K or $150K or $195K (Supreme Court) salary and contribute to society, or do I go back to private practice and increase my income by an order of magnitude? I always thought it's silly that a ranking police officer can double or quadruple his salary overseeing security at GE's headquarters building than keeping the city of Boston safe, but that's life.)

Did I recall reading that Harkness never made more than $7500 a year coaching at RPI? And I believe I recall reading a recent SI profile of John Wooden saying the man never made for than $30K coaching UCLA. That's about $110,000 in today's dollars, but still. Today, the coach's shoe deal is worth more. And I don't think coach Wooden would like comfortable pacing the sidelines in Armani.
 
Re: Mark McCutcheon (way OT)
Posted by: Al DeFlorio (---.ne.client2.attbi.com)
Date: April 02, 2004 12:53PM

Seems to me I just read an article on the men's Final Four basketball coaches, and all are making in the neighborhood of a cool million--considering salaries, bonuses for achieving each round within the NCAAs, and local media deals. That doesn't include shoe contracts and the like.

 
___________________________
Al DeFlorio '65
 
Re: Mark McCutcheon
Posted by: jkahn (216.146.73.---)
Date: April 02, 2004 01:44PM

In Ned's defense, he took over a very aging team in Detroit, led by a top line featuring 42 year old Gordie Howe and 39 year old Alex Delvecchio. They had been swept in four games in the first round of the playoffs the year before. Had he had a group of youngsters, or been given more time, I believe he would have done well. However, after half a season, and problems in the locker room where, at least from press reports, Delvecchio refused to stop smoking cigars, Bruce Norris, the Wings owner, decided to make some changes. Surprising many, he dumped the Wings GM Sid Abel and kicked Ned upstairs to the GM job.
Ned made some good moves early. I was living in Montreal that year, but was in Ithaca when Ned became GM. The Habs were struggling at the time and the Wings needed younger guys who could skate. I actually speculated to friends on the day Ned became GM, that he would trade Frank Mahavolich to the Habs for Mickey Redmond. He managed to get two other players thrown in also, Guy Charron and Billy Collins. While Montreal won 2 Cups with Mahovolich, Redmond went on to have a couple of 50 goal scoring seasons for the Wings before a bad back prematurely ended his career. Ned's first draft choice as GM was Marcel Dionne, and at the time he got widely criticized in the local press for not taking Gene Carr. After Ned was let go as GM of the Wings, Delvecchio became coach and then Dionne was virtually given away to the Kings.



 
___________________________
Jeff Kahn '70 '72
 
Re: Mark McCutcheon (way OT)
Posted by: billhoward (---.ziffdavis.com)
Date: April 02, 2004 01:46PM

I don't begrudge good coaches a million dollars a year anymore than I begrudge Bill Gates his money. They earned it and for the most part legitimately. I mean, Windows is a rock-solid piece of code that has merely bubbled to the top among the dozens of operating systems that all have a chance to compete in the open marketplace of commerce.

Duffy Daughtery of Michigan State had a great quote (not as famous as his "Not only is he ambidextrous, but he can throw with either hand.";) about the job (and I suppose about being worth the money). Paraphrasing here:

>>> Any fool can tell me on Monday morning what play we should have run. Try doing it Saturday afternoon in 25 seconds.
 
Re: Mark McCutcheon
Posted by: Josh '99 (---.ny325.east.verizon.net)
Date: April 02, 2004 01:55PM

Carr: 215 points in 10 NHL seasons
Dionne: 1771 points in 19 NHL seasons

Seems like Ned had some idea what he was doing. :-)
 
Re: Mark McCutcheon (way OT)
Posted by: RedAR (---.gsd.harvard.edu)
Date: April 02, 2004 01:55PM

[Q]I mean, Windows is a rock-solid piece of code that has merely bubbled to the top among the dozens of operating systems that all have a chance to compete in the open marketplace of commerce. [/Q]

Now that's funny.
 
Re: Mark McCutcheon
Posted by: ninian '72 (165.224.215.---)
Date: April 02, 2004 02:44PM

[Q]jkahn Wrote:

In Ned's defense, he took over a very aging team in Detroit, led by a top line featuring 42 year old Gordie Howe and 39 year old Alex Delvecchio. They had been swept in four games in the first round of the playoffs the year before. Had he had a group of youngsters, or been given more time, I believe he would have done well. However, after half a season, and problems in the locker room where, at least from press reports, Delvecchio refused to stop smoking cigars, Bruce Norris, the Wings owner, decided to make some changes. Surprising many, he dumped the Wings GM Sid Abel and kicked Ned upstairs to the GM job.
Ned made some good moves early. I was living in Montreal that year, but was in Ithaca when Ned became GM. The Habs were struggling at the time and the Wings needed younger guys who could skate. I actually speculated to friends on the day Ned became GM, that he would trade Frank Mahavolich to the Habs for Mickey Redmond. He managed to get two other players thrown in also, Guy Charron and Billy Collins. While Montreal won 2 Cups with Mahovolich, Redmond went on to have a couple of 50 goal scoring seasons for the Wings before a bad back prematurely ended his career. Ned's first draft choice as GM was Marcel Dionne, and at the time he got widely criticized in the local press for not taking Gene Carr. After Ned was let go as GM of the Wings, Delvecchio became coach and then Dionne was virtually given away to the Kings.[/Q]


All good points. Check the following link to a 2003 Detroit News piece on the "Barren Years" of the Wings of which Ned became - mostly unfairly - a symbol:

[www.detnews.com]

Even if he had worked better with the older players, it's doubtful anyone could have succeeded with the Detroit ownership situation at the time.
 

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