Championships

Open letter to Age:

Now that we've finally won what has become the premiere college hockey holiday tournament, and since it's named after a Cornell coaching legend, I propose adding "Ned Harkness Cup: 2003" to the list of championships at left. I realize it's not a season-long accomplishment, but at least it's not named after a Harvard guy. (Also, I'm sure a BU hockey forum would include Beanpot championships in a similar list.)

We should also make it clear that the "Ned Harkness Cup" is also known as the Everblades Tournament Championship. It might not be immediately obvious to those not in the know.

Yeah, I thought about that when we won and kinda forgot to follow-up when I got back. Thanks.

[Q]John T. Whelan '91 wrote:

what has become the premiere college hockey holiday tournament[/Q]Well, I hope that was tongue-in-cheek. Many of us, and others, would still call the GLI that. Once the Everblades sells out, with fans that really show up, then the battle will begin.

In terms of the quality of particpatants, I think it's fair to characterize it as "one of the premiere college hockey tournaments". The GLI still looks the best, but this year it seems like the top teams were quite spread around over the holidays. Which is probably the way it should be.

BTW - I just noticed that CC wasn't in the Denver Cup tournament this year. Weren't they a regular in this tourney?

I meant it in the way Keith says.

One of the drawbacks of the Everblades tournament is that it's unrealistic to expect even the well-travelled Cornell fans to hoof it all the way to south Florida, though I did notice in 2002 that there were a ton of Maine fans. Not as organized as the little pocket of Cornell fans keeping up the Lynah cheers in the corner, but much more numerous. What's the deal with that?

Section A Banshee wrote:

One of the drawbacks of the Everblades tournament is that it's unrealistic to expect even the well-travelled Cornell fans to hoof it all the way to south Florida, though I did notice in 2002 that there were a ton of Maine fans. Not as organized as the little pocket of Cornell fans keeping up the Lynah cheers in the corner, but much more numerous. What's the deal with that?

I think it's the Disney effect; a lot of the locals seemed to be cheering for Maine because they'd heard of Kariya. (At least that seemed to be the case the first year, which was the last time I paid much attention.)

Or the retirement effect. While I'm sure there are also a lot of Cornellians who retire in Florida, it seems that most of the state of Maine heads south once they hit their 60s. Unless they have an affiliation with some other hockey school, Mainers will cheer for UMaine even if they never attended.

Year 1 of the Everglades I stayed at the same hotel as Maine (and Clarkson). Many of the Maine players were there with their parents, siblings, etc., making a family vacation out of the trip as well. I'm not sure if we've had the same amount of player's families, and perhaps ours are not as vocal as Maine's.

There's a good amount of state pride in the Maine, UHN, and North Dakota hockey programs, the UConn women's basketball program, etc. A lot of residents with no direct connection to the state university become ardent fans of these teams--sort of like following the local NHL team.

I don't think that's at all true with Cornell hockey outside the friendly confines of Ithaca. In fact, there is likely no direct New York state analogy to this phenomenon, because there is no flagship institution for the state's higher education system, and because, well, New York is New York.

As a matter of fact, Al, New York might be the only state without a major single state institution that the fans can get behind.

The closest school to that concept might be Syracuse in basketball, but even that's a stretch.

JH

This may have been true in the past, but it absolutely, positively wasn't true in last year's Everblades. The Cornell fans were there in numbers and made themselves heard.

From the Fort Myers News-Press on the Ohio State game:
“About 500 Big Red graduates and fans sat behind the visitor’s goal and made a considerable ruckus. ‘Let’s go Red, Let’s go Red,” the group chanted as the team’s lead ballooned.”

The 500 was an exaggeration, but they were pretty loud. There were a lot of Maine fans, but many were retirees who lived nearby (as the last post noted, the whole state roots for them), and limited their cheering to when Maine scored and that wasn't very loud (or very often).