Cornell waltzes into playoffs?

On paper, we should have little trouble winning out and finishing the regular season 22-4-3, with the ECAC RS championship but perhaps not the Ivy title. On paper, it's a cakewalk against these teams with only St. Lawrence is the top half of the 56 D-1 teams in RPI (Cornell is 5):

52  Princeton
49  Yale
44  RPI
37  Union
28  SLU
44  Clarkson

6-0 would be wondrous. Is 5-1 more realistic? 4-1-1? We are three points ahead of Colgate and Harvard in ECAC, 26-23-23. We need Dartmouth's or Brown's help to knock Harvard from the Ivy title. The Cantabs are 6-1-1 (loss to Cornell, tie with Brown) to our 6-2-0 (losses at Harvard, Dartmouth).

It could be a downer going 5-0 and then getting shaken up in the final RS game at SLU. Or, worse, we get one player injured and one DQ'd the night before at Clarkson, which is what costs us the SLU game.

You know how hard it is to sweep the North Country teams in the North Country. Even if this year both teams are underperforming compared to their respective histories, the North Country trip is never easy. Never.

[Q]Will Wrote:

You know how hard it is to sweep the North Country teams in the North Country. Even if this year both teams are underperforming compared to their respective histories, the North Country trip is never easy. Never.[/q]
Schafer-coached teams are 3-5-1 at Yale.

[Q]Al DeFlorio Wrote:

Schafer-coached teams are 3-5-1 at Yale.[/q]

True, but they are 2-0-1 in their last three games at Yale, I believe. This coupled with the fact that Yale is 4-18-1 thus far this year, while we are 16-4-3...seriously, I'm not woofing here, but you have to admit, the odds would appear to be stacked in our favor. I stand by my conviction that the North Country trip is still the biggest hurdle left in the regular season.

[Q]Will Wrote:

Al DeFlorio Wrote:

Schafer-coached teams are 3-5-1 at Yale.[/Q]
True, but they are 2-0-1 in their last three games at Yale, I believe. This coupled with the fact that Yale is 4-18-1 thus far this year, while we are 16-4-3...seriously, I'm not woofing here, but you have to admit, the odds would appear to be stacked in our favor. I stand by my conviction that the North Country trip is still the biggest hurdle left in the regular season.[/q]
Geez, Will, don't get so defensive.

I wasn't disagreeing with you, just pointing out another reason that the remainder of the regular season may not be the cakewalk some expect. Ingalls has not been an easy place for us, and Yale has displayed signs of life recently, most notably this past Saturday beating St. Lawrence 5-2 in the North Country.

 

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Al DeFlorio '65