CU-HA+RVA+RD Thoughts

Well, we could have easily lost. Played well enough to win, but also to lose. Harvard is a good puck handling team but also has alot more size than you might expect. Although they got their only goals on the PP, they had a number of good chances at even strength.

I thought our offense was OK but not as consistent as I'd like. But alot of that had to do with a good Harvard forecheck which kept us bottled up much too much. No one who looked at the second period would ever have thought we would have come out ahead by such a margin. After all you can't always expect three goals on five shots.

But just like with Ohio State, we found a way to win, albeit not very prettily. The best part of our offense remains it's diversity. We play all lines and I'm sure we do wear teams down. Our PP looked terrible. Harvard did not allow us to set up with any consistency, and when we did, we did not move the puck at all like we usually do. Don't get me wrong we played well at times on the PP, but not like we have been.

I think our defense did very well. Although the Harvard PP has not been as good this year as in the past, I can't fault the two PP goals. Otherwise we shut them down, but there were alot of nervous periods.

I was very happy with the fans. The were loud as you heard but no nonsense. So an A+ for us (even if we don't go to a grade inflation school).

Did anyone hear about Charlie Cook? I don't think he played the last of the third period, and when there was a play stoppage he would go out and take some practice skates, as if he was testing his leg.

And finally the T Shirts came out well, get one if you want to. Email me or you know who.

Cook got up a little shakily at one point early in the third, at the stoppage when Murray and Nowak got matching minors after a scrum near Section K. He didn't seem too bad, didn't need help to get to the bench or anything. Didn't notice him on the ice beyond that point, though. Here's hoping he's OK.

Also, I notice that according to the box scores on USCHO and collegehockeystats.com that the goal originally credited as Palahicky's first of the night (CU's second) was changed and credited to Murray, his first of the year. I'm sure he's glad to have that overwith

I agree with Jim that the offense wasn't really hitting on all cylinders, and that Harvard's forecheck did a good job of keeping us in the defensive zone. Their PK was strong as well. However, a game like this is very encouraging in that it shows that we can find a way to get goals when the "first line" (if there really is such a thing on this team) isn't putting them in, and then hold on to a lead against even a strong offensive team (not that there was ever any doubt that this team plays great defense).

I'd agree with Jim about the crowd as well, but that'd be self-congratulatory.

Interesting discussions before the game between Adam and the coaches about Harvard/Cornell. First, Schafer and Mazz both commented that it was much easier for Harvard to play three lines in the Placid final because of all the TV timeouts. Apparently, Mazz doesn't feel harvard needs to do that anymore, but I didn't hear their fourth line mentioned between about the 35:00 and 55:00 mark tonight.

More/better, Schafer and Mazz knew each other in the CCHA and have a great alliance going on. They recognize that a rising tide lifts all boats and they are trying to help each other out of conference as much as possible. Harvard plays BU Tuesday and they are going to send Mike all of their reports afterwards, to try to help Cornell beat the Terriers this weekend. It was also pretty evident that both coaches realize the vitality of the rivalry is really helped when both teams are winners, and both realize that with all the hurdles Ivy and ECAC teams face, it's well past time we all started pulling in the same direction. Very good news IMHO, from two coaches who carry influence throughout the league. I hope the league's two MOST influential coaches -- Taylor and Marsh -- are similarly inclined.

A nice column in the Syracuse Post-Standard about last nights game, the crowd, and the fish. [www.syracuse.com]

Not sure about Downs' assessment of the rivalry. I don't think it has anything to do with Harvard being prestigious and a lot to do with them beating us 10 years in a row.

At least I see it that way since I'm an engineer and Harvard had nothing to offer me academically...

I agree, since I was in the same situation

For me it's a mostly backlash against the conceit that there is such a thing as "the best university in America". Different places are right for different people. For me, the best place really was Cornell; for others it was UChicago, or on the other end of the spectrum (shudder) Brown.

Also, at the time I saw Harvard and Yale as playgrounds of the aristocracy. Princeton was the only other Ivy I considered applying to.

Well I was gonna point out that it came from the song, but Downs did that for me. And my point was that if it made it into the song (a verse which I recall getting a good response during my Cornell night), there's probably some truth to it. I remember it getting a loud response bc I remembered thinking at that time that it's part of the reason for the then-only-heard-of rivarly.

I'm an Engineer as well, so needless to say, I didn't apply to Hahvahd (sucks). But a good portion of the engineers here applied to and were rejected from MIT (myself included). I barely cared at the time (hell, I expected it) and I'm certainly glad to be here, for many more reasons than hockey, though that helps ). However, if MIT had any D-I sports of the 'big 5' (football, baseball, hockey, M & W's basketball), and especially if we shared a conference, I have a hunch the engineers would make a rivalry out of that (think about it, wouldn't you?).

But while some good portion of engineers were rejected from MIT, I definitely get the feeling that a large portion of A&S/Ag/ILR(/?) students were rejected from Hahvahd. That would naturally make you angry and a little bit jealous, and then you get here were everyone talks about the arogance and easy-ride/grade-infaltion of Hahvahd and it just becomes a natural hatred, so I *do* think the root of it is the preceived academic elitism/snobishness/need for connections (which very well may be more than perceived) and being rejected.

I'm sure the loosing helped fuel the rivalry on ice, but I think there's a natural academic one there anyway.

-Fred

P.S. JTW, what do you mean there is no best?!? We all know Cornell's the best!

P.P.S. I think you all know the song, but some didn't know the shirt, so to convert myself:
Related versus of "We Didn't Go to Harvard", to the tune of "We Didn't Start the Fire":
We Didn't Go to Harvard,
Cause we don't like crimson,
Plus we didn't get-in

and

Upon reflection,
it's cause we had no connections

and

No we're not that cocky,
and they can't play hockey.

Felix Rodriguez wrote:

Not sure about Downs' assessment of the rivalry. I don't think it has anything to do with Harvard being prestigious and a lot to do with them beating us 10 years in a row.

At least I see it that way since I'm an engineer and Harvard had nothing to offer me academically...

Maybe A&S people feel inferior, but I feel I went to the best damn Ag school in the world.

Felix Rodriguez wrote:

At least I see it that way since I'm an engineer and Harvard had nothing to offer me academically...

Ditto. It was Cornell or Princeton among the Ivies and I wasn't a preppie. Wouldn't change it...well, maybe I wouldn't be an engineer again.

DeltaOne81 '03 wrote:

No we're not that cocky,
and they can't play hockey.

Ironically Cayuga's Waiters wrote those lyrics for Spring Fever in 1990 or 1991, right in the middle of the 10-year drought and shortly after Harvard's national championship. OTOH, it was right around the time of the playoff sweep of the Crimson at Lynah.

The rivalry most certainly didn't start with the Cantabs beating us 10 years in a row, late 80's to mid 90's. Harvard was the original hockey rival, dating back to the 60's. I can't speak definitively about the origins but it probably had a lot to do at the time with the fact that Harvard was the king of Ivy hockey when the program started up again in '57. Beating Harvard for the first time in 2/62 was the programs's coming of age, if you will.

99% of the current students and fans don't know the historical details. But 40 years of history does matter because a rivalry was born which has taken on a life of it's own. It's not just Harvard being snobby or prestigious. It's the fact that they've almost always been good at hockey.

Compare, for example, Yale which has almost as extreme a rep for snobbiness (and almost as overrated an academic rep) as Harvard, and yet is a tepid rivalry.

Certainly Harvard has little to offer an Aggie or Engineer. It is hit or miss for Arts as well, per department (and even per year, as faculties wax and wane).

Anyway, the rivalry stems from Harvard's status as a hockey power when Cornell came of age with Laing Kennedy's win at Lynah in the early 60's. It has been kept alive because, despite a couple downturns along the way, it has been a clash of titans for the last 35 seasons.

Hey, Jim, one of the mini-peanut butter cups you threw right before the third period last night smacked me in the side of the head and landed in my cup of apple cider, splashing several people around me. Nice toss.

Beeeej

Jim throws candy at home games now? Or did he always and I've either forgotten or just managed to miss it my 100+ times at Lynah.

No, actually I like to let the Bears throw the candy, home or away, if they are available, as they were last night. So, I didn't make that wonderful throw. The only other times I throw is after the game when I walk over to the student side to cheer the raising of the sticks and make a quick exit. Then like last night, if I have any left over, I toss them from behind the students. Anyway I wouldn't be caught with a peanut butter cup, strickly Snickers.

I was gonna ask if you've switched to peanut butter cups. I ate a lot of snickers in college (vending machine breakfast for the 8am class, along with a carton of chocolate milk), but peanut butter doesn't get stuck in your teeth.

Ah, then I apologize for wrongly accusing you. I guess we'll never know the identity of the real culprit. )

(By the way, I did fish out the PB cup and eat it. No sense letting perfectly good chocolate go to waste.)

Beeeej

Hey, you got your chocolate and peanut butter in my apple cider!