Cornell 2 Yale 2, postgame

Third straight 2-2 tie with Yale at Lynah. Could have been a win, with some luck; more to the point, it could have been a loss, without some luck. I'll take it. Helluva night for the Greening line.

Trotsky
Third straight 2-2 tie with Yale at Lynah. Could have been a win, with some luck; more to the point, it could have been a loss, without some luck. I'll take it. Helluva night for the Greening line.

Yeah, except for the dumb penalties that Greening takes. It's tough when your penalty leader is a captain and forward.

Unlike some, I think Yale is better than their record. By playoff time they could be a very tough team. I think the worst match up for us was their speed.

Jim Hyla

Trotsky
Third straight 2-2 tie with Yale at Lynah. Could have been a win, with some luck; more to the point, it could have been a loss, without some luck. I'll take it. Helluva night for the Greening line.

Yeah, except for the dumb penalties that Greening takes. It's tough when your penalty leader is a captain and forward.

Unlike some, I think Yale is better than their record. By playoff time they could be a very tough team. I think the worst match up for us was their speed.

And I believe that line was on for both Yale goals. Riley was coming back on the goal scorer both times. Not that they were his fault necessarily (the camera angle wasn't extremely informative as it was too tight), but not a perfect night for the top line, to say the least. I thought there was a pretty good energy level the whole game, which has not been the norm. The main issue was the breakout/rush with too much stickhandling at the blue line causing timing problems and offsides issues.

So is it fair to say that the Ivy title is Princeton's to lose?

Riley is very talented offensively, but in my opinion his play on the other side of the puck is mediocre. He frequently waits for the puck handler to make the first more and then he reacts. I know it's not really his job to play great defense, but I think Mike should help him develop that part of his game. Maybe that is going to take some more time.

On the road, three points against Brown and Yale would be fine, but at Lynah, well, most people are probably disappointed.

I hope a lot of students will be able to make the trip to Hamilton next weekend. The second game of that series is always tough on the road.

Let's hope for the best.

min
So is it fair to say that the Ivy title is Princeton's to lose?

Yeah. Harvard's still close, oddly enough.

min
So is it fair to say that the Ivy title is Princeton's to lose?

Given that they would need two losses and a tie and Harvard would have to win out? Pretty much.

lynah80
He frequently waits for the puck handler to make the first more and then he reacts.

I pay attention to his offense, almost exclusively, and the thing I notice is that he's often "too many" moves ahead on the chessboard -- he makes those feather passes right to where his linemate ought to be, but his linemate isn't there, because several seconds earlier when he should have made the break, there was no obvious reason for him to do it. Yet, Nash can see it.

He did a nice job setting up the second goal with his brother.

Trotsky

min
So is it fair to say that the Ivy title is Princeton's to lose?

Yeah. Harvard's still close, oddly enough.

Princeton's title to lose. What is this, basketball?

Greg - you have Princeton playing Brown on 2/16 instead of Dartmouth.

according to the Cornell box office, the second game is already sold out. If any of you know a good way to get tickets (besides trying to buy into the colgate sections) please let me know

Sometimes you can judge the tenor of the game by the quantity of the responses. Just 11 posts weighing in on the Yale-at-Lynah game suggests the 2-2 was about what we deserved.

In New Haven, Yale was a rugged team and we managed to win. Here on our own ice, we didn't do so well. This should have been a four-point weekend. Ah, well.

How was attendance? Early on, I saw a lot of empty seats in Section [?], the far left at the open end of the horseshoe. Is that the vistors' section or to the left of the visitors?

billhoward
How was attendance? Early on, I saw a lot of empty seats in Section [?], the far left at the open end of the horseshoe. Is that the vistors' section or to the left of the visitors?

Yeah, if there were any holes in the stands, it was in section O. Other than that, it was as packed a house as we've had all season.

Over the last three weeks Cornell is 3-0 on Friday's and 0-2-1 on Saturday's. Although it's easy to say that we struggle on the back-end of weekend games, Union, Clarkson, and Yale are all much better teams than RPI, SLU(T), and Brown. I think it's a combination of factors which contribute to our Saturday slump, but it must be addressed because we cannot afford to drop points to Colgate next weekend.

Some interesting stats I'd like to take note of this weekend: Cornell was 40 - 15 in faceoffs against Yale, compared to 22 - 27 against Brown. Greening and Nash were each -2 for the weekend. Although they put up 2 goals against Yale, Evan Barlow managed to stay even for the weekend. Players with the last name of Greening or Nash contributed 10 of Cornell's 18 penalty minutes this weekend.

After this weekend, there is no question in my mind that as of right now, Topher Scott is the team MVP. You want to talk about a guy who brings it every shift and isn't afraid to get down and dirty in the corners, he's your man. You want to talk about skill, creativity, and the ability to move the puck, find the open man, and create scoring opportunities? He's your man. Want to talk about winning board battles and faceoffs? That's Topher. Want to talk about a real team leader and a guy with a huge heart, Scott is the guy. He's one point behind Nash for the scoring lead.

I think Brendan Nash still doesn't look totally comfortable on the ice. His tripping penalty against Brown was the clear result of simply getting beat on the outside. His stick handling skills are back, especially on the PP, but he just moves a step too slowly. He isn't reading the play well, and he isn't skating with any sort of intensity. At one point, he made a great couple of dekes on the point against Yale, only to turn the puck over because he couldn't move it fast enough. There were a few chances for him to keep the puck in the zone, but he couldn't get to the puck in time to hold the zone. It's nice to see him back though, because he has a great shot.

I also thought Berk and Mike Devin had poor weekends. Berk was petrified to move the puck out of our zone with one lonely Yale forechecker. When he did lead the rush that one time, he turned the puck over and Yale immediately stormed back for a 3 on 1 rush. Thanks a poor shot and/or nice save by Scrivens, the team wasn't hurt. However, when Berk defended the 2 on 1 that led to Yale's 2nd goal, Berk completely messed up. The odd-man rush wasn't his fault, but the defender has to take away the passing lane and leave the shooter to the goaltender. Instead, Berk just stood up the entire time, stuck his stick out, didn't go down to close the passing lane, and the result was a 2-2 hockey game. Devin didn't play poorly, per-se, but he couldn't hit the net on his shots from the point and struggled to keep the puck inside the blueline on multiple occasions.

Otherwise, I loved the physicality of the weekend, especially the play of Tyler Mugford. He really took a beating this weekend. Fontas was a beast on faceoff draws late in the Yale game, and Scali had some great penalty kills. He's by-far the best penalty killer on the team.

The one thing I'm still worried about is...this was our 12th conference game. In seven of them we have scored 2 goals or less. We've put up more than 2 against Brown twice, Dartmouth once, Quinnipac's third string goaltender, and SLU(T). That's the bottom three teams and Quinnipac's Vetri / McGann. Take away those games and that leaves us with a 2-4-1 conference record. Hopefully as Scott's line continues to produce points and if Nash and Greening can get going again, we'll win more of those games.

While we are having a respectable season no doubt, many posters have noted the lack of identity. I think the most consistent problem is a general inability to control the puck down low and create real scoring chances.

I agree with amerks that Scott -- after a bit of a slow start -- has been tremendous of late; we need Krantz (and Sawada, to a lesser extent) step up and provide Senior leadership down the stretch.

On a mostly unrelated note, I thought the image of Mr. Burns on the Yale sieve's helmet was pretty amusing. Noticing this then prompted about 5 minutes of Simpsons quoting between me and my friends. My favorite Ivy mention in the Simpsons is this exchange between Sideshow Bob and his brother Cecil:

Bob: You wanted to be Krusty's sidekick since you were five. What about the buffoon lessons, the four years at clown college?
Cecil: I'll thank you not to refer to Princeton that way.

Kyle

krose
On a mostly unrelated note, I thought the image of Mr. Burns on the Yale sieve's helmet was pretty amusing. Noticing this then prompted about 5 minutes of Simpsons quoting between me and my friends. My favorite Ivy mention in the Simpsons is this exchange between Sideshow Bob and his brother Cecil:

Bob: You wanted to be Krusty's sidekick since you were five. What about the buffoon lessons, the four years at clown college?
Cecil: I'll thank you not to refer to Princeton that way.

Kyle

A list of Ivy references still exists at snpp.com. While a lot of them are either innaccurate ("Penn State" pennant doesn't refer to Penn) or speculative (comparing Springfield College to Cornell), some are very subtle (all the references to the Harvard Lampoon addresses). Cornell finally got a couple concrete references, thanks to Sideshow Mel and Thomas Pynchon. Columbia remains shut out, to the best of my knowledge.

[www.snpp.com]

To steer back towards being on-topic, since a lot of the early writers were Harvard products of the mid-80s, some friends of mine have discussed the possibility of Cornell hockey influences.

In "Bart vs. Thanksgiving," there's a fantasy sequence where the whole family starts chanting "It's all your fault" in a familiar cadence.
[www.snpp.com]
mp3 clip: [download.lardlad.com]

And the hockey episode, "Lisa on Ice," the opposing fans perform deuling chants. The pro-Bart fans: "KILL, Bart! KILL, Bart!" are echoed by the pro-Lisa fans: "Kill BART! Kill BART!" It's interesting to wonder if there were any future writers watching games in the era of the "KILL, SCHAFER, KILL!" chant. Again, purely speculative, but still...
[www.snpp.com]

All of this is designed to fight off my depression that there are probably some undergrads at Cornell now who weren't even born when "The Simpsons" (as its own TV show) debuted.

RichH
All of this is designed to fight off my depression that there are probably some undergrads at Cornell now who weren't even born when "The Simpsons" (as its own TV show) debuted.

I hate you for reminding me of that.

KeithK

RichH
All of this is designed to fight off my depression that there are probably some undergrads at Cornell now who weren't even born when "The Simpsons" (as its own TV show) debuted.

I hate you for reminding me of that.

Ditto. As a token of my "gratitude" for reminding me about the differences between the kids today and me, I'm prepared to send you several of my grey hairs.

PS, for anyone else who would like a trip down "memory lane", the NFL network is showing the 1987 NY Giants-Denver Bronco SuperBowl. It might be worth tuning it to see the "graphics" of the day. However, it is kind of nice without all the ticker/timeout/clock stuff at the top of the screen.

RichH
All of this is designed to fight off my depression that there are probably some undergrads at Cornell now who weren't even born when "The Simpsons" (as its own TV show) debuted.

Well how does this taste?...When The Simpsons debuted on The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987, some juniors weren't even born yet.

krose
On a mostly unrelated note, I thought the image of Mr. Burns on the Yale sieve's helmet was pretty amusing. Noticing this then prompted about 5 minutes of Simpsons quoting between me and my friends. My favorite Ivy mention in the Simpsons is this exchange between Sideshow Bob and his brother Cecil:

Bob: You wanted to be Krusty's sidekick since you were five. What about the buffoon lessons, the four years at clown college?
Cecil: I'll thank you not to refer to Princeton that way.

Kyle

That's my second favorite Ivy reference from animated shows... my favorite, thought I don't watch "The Family Guy" at all, is from the one episode I ever have watched:

Wellsley Sheperdson: "Ooh, my incarcerated business partner's retarded gay niece went to Brown. What year did you graduate?"

Rita
As a token of my "gratitude" for reminding me about the differences between the kids today and me, I'm prepared to send you several of my grey hairs.

Great. I'll make sure to be extra creeped out when I open that envelope.

amerks127
Well how does this taste?...When The Simpsons debuted on The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987, some juniors weren't even born yet.

Yeah, that's why I made my parenthetical about it being its own show, 1) because I knew someone would make the Ullman statement and 2) I didn't want "that guy" to be me. Even though I religiously watched both shows from the beginning. "The Simpsons" premiere was much more of a seminal event for me...the fact that college kids weren't around for it blows my mind.

RichH

Rita
As a token of my "gratitude" for reminding me about the differences between the kids today and me, I'm prepared to send you several of my grey hairs.

Great. I'll make sure to be extra creeped out when I open that envelope.

amerks127
Well how does this taste?...When The Simpsons debuted on The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987, some juniors weren't even born yet.

Yeah, that's why I made my parenthetical about it being its own show, 1) because I knew someone would make the Ullman statement and 2) I didn't want "that guy" to be me. Even though I religiously watched both shows from the beginning. "The Simpsons" premiere was much more of a seminal event for me...the fact that college kids weren't around for it blows my mind.

What really blows my mind is that I used to read Matt Groening's comic strip, "Life in hell," in the early 1980s. That predates the current students and the Simpsons by at least a half a generation. IMO Groening did his best work in "Work in Hell" and "Love is Hell." When I first read this stuff I did not believe any of it (I was young and foolish!). I have learned over time, however, that he knew what he was talking about.

Beeeej

krose
Bob: You wanted to be Krusty's sidekick since you were five. What about the buffoon lessons, the four years at clown college?
Cecil: I'll thank you not to refer to Princeton that way.

Kyle

That's my second favorite Ivy reference from animated shows... my favorite, thought I don't watch "The Family Guy" at all, is from the one episode I ever have watched:

Wellsley Sheperdson: "Ooh, my incarcerated business partner's retarded gay niece went to Brown. What year did you graduate?"

the Pope: Are you sure this is Boston?
Peter: Yeah, its Boston. See, there's Harvard.
the Pope: That's just a barn!
Peter: Oooo, somebody went to Yale

RichH
"The Simpsons" premiere was much more of a seminal event for me...the fact that college kids weren't around for it blows my mind.

Agreed. Especially since I started college in '89. And the dorm cable didn't get Fox freshman year.

BillCharlton
What really blows my mind is that I used to read Matt Groening's comic strip, "Life in hell," in the early 1980s. That predates the current students and the Simpsons by at least a half a generation. IMO Groening did his best work in "Work in Hell" and "Love is Hell."

You are correct. Happily, there's a three-volume collection called "Big Box of Hell" with a lot of great stuff, including his amazing 16- and 32-panel "Guide to Types of" Boyfriends, Girlfriends, Parents, Teachers, etc. The forward explains that Groening "rhymes with 'complaining.'"