Cornell Coaching Championships

With Cornell clinching the Ivy League title last night, Schafer becomes the first Cornell coach since Harkness to win four or more straight Ivy titles and the first ever to win six or more total. Looks like the last Ivy coach to manage either feat was Bill Cleary.

Schafer entered the season with twelve banners in the Lynah rafters, three behind Uncle Ned and one ahead of Bertrand. As of last night, he's got at least one coming for this season. An ECAC title and the associated NCAA bid would tie him in that category; beyond that I dare not say.

I think that's a good enough reason to rename the Cleary Cup into the Schafer Cup.

[Q]Will Wrote: I think that's a good enough reason to rename the Cleary Cup into the Schafer Cup.[/q]

Schafer Mug. You'd get sponsorship money that way.

A summary of Cornell coaching records, prior to this season:

[www.tbrw.info]

I've never actually paid attention to the banners... so they get one for the Ivy League title, one if they win the ECAC tournament, and one for just appearing in the NCAA tournament. However, they get no banner for the ECAC regular season title? Who decides what's "banner worthy"? Can Cornell put up a "2005 ECAC Regular Season Championship" banner if they want, or is there an NCAA rule forbidding it?

Thanks,
Chris '03

Speaking of banners, does anyone else here think it was a mistake to replace the nice, old, cloth banners with the current plastic ones? I feel like the old ones were really classy, and that there was something cool about thinking that they were actually hung at the time they were earned. It added to the mystique of Lynah, at least for me. I'm wondering if others here might feel the same way.
Andy W.

[Q]CornellChris Wrote:

I've never actually paid attention to the banners... so they get one for the Ivy League title, one if they win the ECAC tournament, and one for just appearing in the NCAA tournament. However, they get no banner for the ECAC regular season title? Who decides what's "banner worthy"? Can Cornell put up a "2005 ECAC Regular Season Championship" banner if they want, or is there an NCAA rule forbidding it?

Thanks,
Chris '03
[/q]
They can put up pretty much whatever they want. But when you go to Brown or Union and see the "ECAC Final Four" banners, well, its not exactly becoming of a program who wants to be a national power.

Cornell only does: Ivy Champs, ECAC Champs (tournament only), NCAA Tournament, and NCAA Champions

[Q]andyw2100 Wrote:

Speaking of banners, does anyone else here think it was a mistake to replace the nice, old, cloth banners with the current plastic ones? I feel like the old ones were really classy, and that there was something cool about thinking that they were actually hung at the time they were earned. It added to the mystique of Lynah, at least for me. I'm wondering if others here might feel the same way.[/q]

Yes. Agreed completely. There was a reason for the newer ones that hang from the rafters (the reason being that they were paid for by voluntary donations by boosters and it was prohibitively expensive to get really nice cloth ones), but the "list" ones on the open end look like MetroDome trash bags -- they are very disappointing and I'm a little depressed every time I look at them. Ferchrissakes, there are only four of them -- the U should spring open the wallet and put really nice ones up.

Cornell only does: Ivy Champs, ECAC Champs (tournament only), NCAA Tournament, and NCAA Champions

Interesting... thanks for the reply!

This is what I would do though (as if anybody cares): add the ECAC Regular Season Championship banners, get rid of the NCAA tournament banners, add NCAA Frozen Four banners. I'm not sure if that would yield a greater or smaller number of banners hanging, but that's what I'd like to see...

-Chris '03

Well, until they do that, the banners on the TBRW homepage are very close to what you want.

[www.tbrw.info]

Frozen Four's not a bad idea in this day and age, with enough teams where it's a distinct accomplishment.

As for regular season, its just not nearly as prestigous as the tournament. This of it this way, all 6 conferences were given a choice as to whether their NCAA auto bid should be the regular season champ or the post season tourney champ. All 6 chose post-season tourney. The regular season is certainly an accomplishment, but if its not postseason, its not prestigious, and its not banner worthy (IMHO).

Although it was also logical for the conference to choose PS champ to maximize their presence in the tourny. An RS champion is relatively likely to qualify for an at large, so picking the PS as the auto bid gives you that much more chance to sneak in a darkhorse.

[Q]Trotsky Wrote:

Although it was also logical for the conference to choose PS champ to maximize their presence in the tourny. An RS champion is relatively likely to qualify for an at large, so picking the PS as the auto bid gives you that much more chance to sneak in a darkhorse.[/q]
True enough for the "Big 4" but what about CHA and AHA? They're likely only getting one bid as is, and picking regular season probably would have made that the stronger overall team. But they chose the tourney champ as well. There are other issues, but I still think it speaks to the importance of the tournament champion versus the regular season.

Attendance at the tournaments is big factor in giving the tourney champ the auto-bid. Playing for the NCAA berth (and the trophy) certainly generates more interest than just the trophy.

If you aren't going to award the conference championship and the auto-bid that goes with it to the tournament winner then why bother having a tournament?

speaking of banners, maybe they'll bring back the "B4" practice jerseys

The idea of getting a banner for the post season tournament and an NCAA bid seems kinda silly. If you win the post-season tournament, you're guaranteed a bid. Why not have a banner for regular season champ instead?

[Q]KeithK Wrote:

If you aren't going to award the conference championship and the auto-bid that goes with it to the tournament winner then why bother having a tournament?[/q]

Does this mean if there was no autobid you shouldn't have a conference tourny?

The NCAAs are nice and all, but I see them as totally separate from ECAC honors.

Didn't mean that exactly. I mean, if you treat the RS championship as the ECAC championship then there's no reason to have the tournament.

I'd like to see us take down the NCAA tournament banners (perhaps replacing them with Frozen Four banners) and change the NCAA champion banners to make them stand out. (Before they replaced all the banners and added the women's ones in white, all the banners were white except for the two national championship banners, which were red. It was impressive and drew attention to them.)

I have no desire to see regular season championship banners. The ECAC Champion is the winner of the playoffs. That's why we have playoffs.

[Q]jtwcornell91 Wrote:
I have no desire to see regular season championship banners. The ECAC Champion is the winner of the playoffs. That's why we have playoffs.[/q]
Agree wholeheartedly (while checking in from Chiang Rai).

The other issue is determining the so-called "regular season champion" historically. For example, Greg credits Clarkson with being the 1962 regular season champ--based on their getting top seed for the tournament, I suppose. USCHO does not credit them with this--I'm guessing because Colby finished with a better regular-season won-lost percentage. But Colby played a relatively easier schedule, the reason why they were seeded third (IIRC) behind Clarkson and Harvard. So who's really the regular-season champ?

So the question is: before 1985 when the ECAC schedule became balanced, how does one really determine who the "regular-season champion" was? Complicating this is the fact that before the NCAA awarded an auto-bid to the regular-season champions, no one even knew they were competing for such a thing while they were playing the regular season--except perhaps in the WCHA where the McNaughton trophy--IIRC--has always been awarded to the regular-season leader (except, that is, when Michigan Tech took it with them to the CCHA for a few years!).

The Regular Season "Championship" is not a Championship, and there's nothing anyone can do or say to convince me otherwise. It made me want to vomit when USCHO Colgate fans put "2004 ECAC CHAMPIONS" in 48 point font in their signatures. (but not as much as I actually vomited when Harvard won the real 2004 Championship) I think Colgate's team also skated the Cleary Pisspot around as if it were the AVCO Cup. Morons.

The old cloth banners were awesome. Moldy, but awesome.

I'm also glad they didn't hang the "National Figure Skating Champions" banner made from the rafters. Even if it does hang on a wall facing Section O for all opponents to mock. Good for the figure skaters, really, I mean that.

I was disappointed that the Cleary was on the table next to the Whitelaw at the 2003 postgame celebration. It should have been upside down on the floor acting as a pedestal for the Whitelaw.

How many banners are hanging from Cornell's rafters? But when your team has only a handful to show off - think Princeton and, what, one 1998 postseason title plus memories of Hobey Baker 85 years ago - maybe you'd want to have a banner for the RS title or the honor of holding the Cleary Cup indicating you got more points in the RS.

Not important to us, not as important as the ECAC playoff title, but worth it to somebody in some years.

Taking down the NCAA tournament banners means that the classes of 1981, 1986, and 1991 would not get any recognition at all.

The '86 team won the ECAC title and would thus be recognized. However, I believe the NCAA Tournament is special enough that the banners should stay up.

I recommend banners for NCAA Champions (larger, and/or with a distinct border -- see RPI's and Harvard's NCAA title banners), Frozen Four, and NCAA Tournament. Since they are a subset/superset relation, only hang the deepest one from a given year. So, 1970 gets the NCAA Champion banner, 2003 gets the Frozen Four banner, and 2002 gets the NCAA Tournament banner.

I track ECAC RS Championships by seed into the PS tourny, since that to me gives it meaning. I agree that it's an artificial distinction and shouldn't get a banner. On the other hand, I don't see the problem with imposing a logical rule for deciding it, or even extending into the past. This is done in other sports. There was no ERA or K champion in baseball in the early part of major league history, yet all the record books recognize "winners" of these stats. The rules for SB were radically different in early baseball history, yet the books still manage to declare SB champions.

The best solution is for the team to win so many Ivy, ECAC, and NCAA championships that the rafters become so crowded that the "minor" ones are crowded out.

[Q]Trotsky Wrote:
I recommend banners for NCAA Champions (larger, and/or with a distinct border -- see RPI's and Harvard's NCAA title banners), Frozen Four, and NCAA Tournament. Since they are a subset/superset relation, only hang the deepest one from a given year. So, 1970 gets the NCAA Champion banner, 2003 gets the Frozen Four banner, and 2002 gets the NCAA Tournament banner.[/q]

Why not make them "NCAA Tournament"/"NCAA Quarterfinalist"/"NCAA Semifinalist"/"NCAA Finalist"/"NCAA Champion" in that case?

[Q]jtwcornell91 Wrote:

Trotsky Wrote:
I recommend banners for NCAA Champions (larger, and/or with a distinct border -- see RPI's and Harvard's NCAA title banners), Frozen Four, and NCAA Tournament. Since they are a subset/superset relation, only hang the deepest one from a given year. So, 1970 gets the NCAA Champion banner, 2003 gets the Frozen Four banner, and 2002 gets the NCAA Tournament banner.[/Q]
Why not make them "NCAA Tournament"/"NCAA Quarterfinalist"/"NCAA Semifinalist"/"NCAA Finalist"/"NCAA Champion" in that case?[/q]

Because "NCAA Quarterfinalist" = "We got our ass handed to us by North Dakota the next night." "NCAA Tournament" celebrates the achievement, not its termination.