USA Today Poll

The first of the new polls is out:

2003-04 USA Today/American Hockey Magazine Preseason Coaches Poll

Place School, points (first-place votes)
1. Minnesota, 481 (25)
2. Michigan, 442 (3)
3. Boston College, 439 (3)
4. New Hampshire, 369
5. North Dakota, 366 (2)
6. Harvard, 301
7. Boston University, 267
8. Cornell, 251 (1)
9. Ferris State, 246
10. Colorado College, 202
11. Michigan State, 159
12. Denver, 154
13. Maine, 128
14. Ohio State, 83
15. Minnesota-Duluth, 60
Others receiving votes: Massachusetts, 29; Dartmouth , 21;
MSU-Mankato, 16; Miami (Ohio), 19; Northern Michigan, 12;
Wisconsin, 10; St. Cloud State, 9; Notre Dame, 8; Providence, 5;
Brown, 1; Mercyhurst, 1; Yale, 1.

More on the Athletics webpage:

[cornellbigred.ocsn.com]

I find it hard to believe we're #8.

JH

Jeff Hopkins '82 wrote:
I find it hard to believe we're #8.

I find it easy to believe. ("Hey, weren't they in the final four? I'll vote for them then!" I find it difficult to agree. Yet.

Yeah - the only part I don't *believe* is the first place vote... Schafer doesn't strike me as the type who would have done that - my guess is the coach of some other mid-to-low level ECAC team wanted to give some props to the league. Who knows?

The USCHO poll is also up, and we're #9 with no first place votes.

[uscho.com]

If the USCHO has us 9th at the end of the season, that probably means our recruits are as good as they are touted. I'm down with that.

Harvard must drop tho'.

I'm happy to see we're in the top ten in both polls. Didn't we start out at about #8 last year?

The Harvard-Cornell rivalry is only gonna get better this year. It is unfortunate that the game at Harvard is during winter break.

Hey, if we're going to ever be top 10 in the pre-season, it might as well be after a F4 appearance.

Cornell has now been in the top ten in both national polls for 36 consecutive polls, dating back to 2/4/2002:

2002-03: [members.cox.net]
2001-02: [members.cox.net]

Unfortunately we may drop out because of the late season start.

I do not have polling histories for the golden age -- not sure there even were formal polls -- however if there were I would not be surprised if Cornell remained in the top ten from early 1966 through the end of 1979.



Post Edited (09-29-03 20:42)

There was a long discussion here on the history polls last December, n the occasion of Cornell breaking into the top four.
[elf.elynah.com]
From a cursory review of that thread, my impression is that there probably wasn't a poll for most of the "golden age".

I have to admit I don't remember a poll during the '78-'82 timeframe I was on the hill.

Then again, at the time, the NCAA tournament consisted of 4 teams - two from the east and two from the west - and hockey didn't get nearly the amount of national coverage that it gets today (which still ain't much).

JH

I don't understand Harvard's poll standing. I don't think they got higher than 10th in either poll last year and now they are 6th? I know they didn't graduate too many guys of importance so they definitely didn't get worse. But significantly better? It's essentially the same guys that couldn't beat BU is how many tries? 3? Three losses to Cornell, a loss to Maine. Their best game was the tie against BC. The primary reason they are picked to win the ECAC is because Cornell DID lose guys to graduation and the NHL. Needless to say, I'm skeptical. Their early non-conference schedule is going to determine if they stay in the top 10: BU on 11/25 and BC on 12/10. And Cornell on 12/6. Anyone got an extra ticket?

IIRC, which is an open question, there were radio stations in Detroit and St. Paul that sponsored polls during the 1980's and perhaps before. The loooongtime Troy sag, Dan Birkmeyer (sp?), may also have compiled a poll or reprinted the western ones in those beautiful, single-spaced typed college hockey weekly newsletters that he turned out from the 50's through the 80's, and which are a principle inspiration for TBRW.

Bill '94 wrote:

I don't understand Harvard's poll standing. I don't think they got higher than 10th in either poll last year and now they are 6th? I know they didn't graduate too many guys of importance so they definitely didn't get worse. But significantly better? It's essentially the same guys that couldn't beat BU is how many tries? 3? Three losses to Cornell, a loss to Maine. Their best game was the tie against BC. The primary reason they are picked to win the ECAC is because Cornell DID lose guys to graduation and the NHL. Needless to say, I'm skeptical. Their early non-conference schedule is going to determine if they stay in the top 10: BU on 11/25 and BC on 12/10. And Cornell on 12/6. Anyone got an extra ticket?

Let's not forget they came within 30 seconds or so of repeating as ECAC champs.

Al DeFlorio wrote:

Let's not forget [Harvard] came within 30 seconds or so of repeating as ECAC champs.

Who can forget? I think about the last minute of that game all the time.

arrrgh i am so sick of this!! just because lenny decides to leave us, we are looked upon as a lower team? lower than before? lower than HARVARD?!!! wtf!!! we are still the great team we were before, even if we lost our prize goaltender... screw the polls!!

riiiiiiiiiight

I know! This was almost like the time that the Oilers lost Gretzky, and people just assumed that they were worse!! Ridiculous!!

other problem with that hahvahd game is that it is a friday. why is that game always friday? i cant make it on a friday damnit!

True. But one game does not a season make. I'm not saying that they suck - only that it is essentially the same team as last year. Maybe with one more year of experience they will break through and actually win a non-conference game of significance. I would put them at like #10, right where they were last year. But then again, I don't know too much about Ferris State, Colorado College, Michigan State or Denver so maybe Harvard might be better than them. Still, I'm putting my money on BU next month. I mean really, the Harvard boys have all of that studying to do. . .

Right, all that studying to do. Something tells me they'll get an A no matter what

But, Bill '94 - every team loses people every year (with very rare exceptions). The vast majority of teams lose at least one key leadership type player, who by definition has to be replaced by an unknown quantity. By this reasoning, you'd have to expect every team to get worse every year - a downward spiral toward Princeton. Yes, Harvard lost a few key people. But the right questions are: a) did they lose less than those around them, and b) how do their fresh faces look compared to those around them? I think it is quite reasonable for a team that took a few losses to move up in the hierarchy.

I know it's just a poll so I don't want to argue this to death but I don't think I suggested every team would spiral to mediocrity. Some will do better than the preseason poll suggests and some will do worse. I think the other teams got knocked down because their player losses make them a bigger question mark. I think Harvard benefits in the polls from this. They return much of last year's good team so they are less of an unknown (I don't understand where you got that I think Harvard lost important players from last year). But I don't think they are that much better than last year. That's my major point and of course, that's just an opinion. For them to stay at #6 or better they will have to win out of conference. And some of those teams below them in the polls, like Cornell and BU, are on their schedule.

Preseason polls are all about expectations. Given their talent, Harvard should have done better out of conference last season. If they hadn't tanked their non-conf slate they would have been ranked solidly within the top 10 come tournament time instead of tied for #12 in the PWR. If the pollsters assume that the Crimson will finally live up to expectations then #6 is not far-fetched. IMNSHO, of course.

Keith, I agree with your point about expectations and about where Harvard may have been in the polls last year had they won out of conference. I guess the short version is that I don't share those expectations for this year with the pollsters and I base that on my belief that they are essentially the same team.

I think I have a problem with them being #6 and us starting last year at #8 or #9 because I think at the beginning of last season we were better than they are now.

In college hockey, when essentially the same team, that team should be significantly better in the new season than in the previous season. Players improve their skills and gain experience.

Harvard is not a team that recruits 21-year-old freshman who have relatively little capacity for improvement. Sophomores like Charlie Johnson and Peter Hafner should be substantially better hockey players this year than last. Junior Tom Cavanaugh seems poised for a breakout season. Also, I doubt Tyler Kolarik and Noah Welch will regress.

Harvard's goaltending should be solid; Cornell and Dartmouth have much bigger question marks between the pipes. Harvard has a much more experienced defense than Cornell and Dartmouth; remember that Harvard had one of the best team defenses in college hockey last season. In the ECAC, only Dartmouth should be able to light the lamp as prolifically as Harvard. I think Harvard should clearly be the team ranked #1 in the preseason ECAC polls and the highest-ranked ECAC team in national polls. And, unlike his predecessor, Mark Mazzoleni does not have a history of underachieving.

Last year, Harvard came up a bit short in a lot of key games. Whether you believe that those losses were a product of bad luck, an inate inability to win close games, or both, this year's more experienced Harvard team should fare better.

Craig Buckser '94 wrote:
And, unlike his predecessor, Mark Mazzoleni does not have a history of underachieving.

I don't quite agree with that. I think he's a very good recruiter that (as of yet, anyway) hasn't been able to get his team to the level they should be at. This could be the year that changes all of that, but I'll believe it when I see it.

I think we tend to think that, since the team has played Cornell tough the past few seasons, he doesn't underachieve, but if you look at his non-conference record, the team's brutal slump in the second half of 01-02, and blips like losing at home to Princeton last year, their team has been pretty inconsistent. They made a nice run in the '02 tournaments (partially at our expense, unfortunately), but with the talent that they have, they could have achieved more, IMO.

Or maybe I'm just unfairly contrasting him with Schafer...

Sully '00 wrote:

I don't quite agree with that. I think he's a very good recruiter that (as of yet, anyway) hasn't been able to get his team to the level they should be at. This could be the year that changes all of that, but I'll believe it when I see it.

A good point. If memory serves me correctly, Harvard finished last season with an 0-8-1 record vs. top 15 PWR opponents.

The last few years of the Tom-ass-oni regime, they were annually expected to finish near the top, using the (faulty) logic that they always had the most NHL draft picks on their roster. They kept finishing lower than 5th. In the late '90s, I'd argue that there wasn't a more disappointing team relative to their expectations.

The Princeton loss last year can't be held against Maz to much. Things like that happen in a long season (at least if you're not the '70 Red) and it's not like he has a history of losing to Princeton or bottom feeders down the stretch. But the team's poor record against top non-conf competition still can be held against him to some extent.

Keith K '93 wrote:

The Princeton loss last year can't be held against Maz to much. Things like that happen in a long season (at least if you're not the '70 Red) and it's not like he has a history of losing to Princeton or bottom feeders down the stretch. But the team's poor record against top non-conf competition still can be held against him to some extent.

And it isn't as if we weren't a hair's breadth from losing to Princeton last year also. I was very relieved to get out of Hobey Baker with that win. (Thanks, Lenny.)

cornell drops to ninth place in the new USA Today Poll (10/6). we also lost the one first-place vote from last week.

USA Today/American Hockey Magazine Poll
October 6, 2003

No. Team (First-place votes) Points Last Week
1. Minnesota (30) 501 1
2. Michigan (1) 453 2
3. Boston College (3) 452 3
4. New Hampshire 385 4
5. North Dakota 374 5
6. Harvard 285 6
7. Boston University 266 7
8. Ferris State 252 9
9. Cornell 228 8
10. Denver 197 12
11. Colorado College 186 10
12. Michigan State 150 11
13. Maine 128 13
14. Minnesota Duluth 83 15
15. Ohio State 36 14

Also receiving votes: Dartmouth 23, Massachusetts 22, Wisconsin 14, Northern Michigan 12, Minnesota State 12, Miami 11, Providence 9, Yale 1.

i'm not surprised we dropped, given our awful performance this weekend!

I guess that former first place voter must have read about himself getting trashed here and on USCHO and mended his ways...

Greg correctly predicted it; Cornell's streak of top ten placements in the polls comes to an end (at least in USCHO)...

USCHO Division I Men's Poll
October 20, 2003

   Team        (First Place)    Record  Pts   Last Week
 1 New Hampshire        (17)     2-0-0  559     2
 2 Boston College       (18)     3-1-1  554     1
 3 Minnesota             (2)     1-1-0  477     3
 4 North Dakota                  2-1-0  470     4
 5 Maine                 (2)     3-0-0  455     5
 6 Michigan                      4-1-0  368     6
 7 Denver                (1)     4-0-0  309    11
 8 Boston University             1-0-1  299     7
 9 Harvard                       0-0-0  290     8
10 Colorado College              2-0-0  276    10
11 Cornell                       0-0-0  249     9
12 Ohio State                    4-2-0  142    NR
13 Providence                    4-0-0   83    13
14 Ferris State                  2-2-0   76    12
15 Minnesota-Duluth              0-2-1   46    14

Others Receiving Votes: Massachusetts 36, 
Northern Michigan 34, Dartmouth 30, St. Cloud State 28, 
Colgate 5, Miami 4, Quinnipiac 3, Minnesota State 2, 
Western Michigan 2, Mercyhurst 1, Notre Dame 1, Union 1

Ooooh, that tough loss by Red definitely hurt us in the polls. Two places because of a shootout loss seems pretty excessive though...

How does Michigan not drop with two near losses to Q a week after a 8-3 beating by Miami?

moreover, maybe it's just me, but how can a team (minnesota-duluth) with only 1 pt in 3 games still be ranked in the top 15?

Min-Wei Lin wrote:

moreover, maybe it's just me, but how can a team (minnesota-duluth) with only 1 pt in 3 games still be ranked in the top 15?

Can you spell WCHA?

Actually, can most of the players in the WCHA spell WCHA?

JH

Michigan gets points because there's no other CCHA school for the midwesterners to vote for.

Michigan is certainly dominating the CCHA vote, with 368 of the CCHA's total 627 points. I think they're just getting credit for their incredible run of Frozen Fours recently - the pollsters are assuming that they'll right the ship and be Michigan eventually. I see that as a predictor of future success vote, rather than looking at what teams have actually done on the ice. Good thing - otherwise Red wouldn't have any votes after that loss!

Poll points by conference:

HE: 1986
WCHA: 1608
CCHA: 627
ECAC: 575

Robb '94 wrote:

I see that as a predictor of future success vote, rather than looking at what teams have actually done on the ice. Good thing - otherwise Red wouldn't have any votes after that loss![/q]
Red doesn't have any votes. But there are a lot of people who think that White looks great already.