Hockey no more popular now than last year

I know "the polls don't matter," but...

Last April I posted the results of a campus poll conducted by the Cornell Progressive which found that hockey was the most popular men's varsity sport.

[elf.elynah.com]

Which Cornell men's varsity sport is your favorite to watch?

Hockey         37%
Basketball     18
Lacrosse       6
Football       6

Other          7
None           26

+/- 5.3%, N=348, 3/27-30

Our new poll finds almost identical results:

Which Cornell men's varsity sport is your favorite to watch?  

Hockey        38%
Basketball    16
Football      5
Lacrosse      4

Other         6
None          31

± 4.3%, N=494, 1/15-19

Despite a stronger hockey season, there has been no significant increase in popularity for the team.

CornellFan silently weeps...

Can you realistically expect hockey to get much more of a "market share" than it already has? I mean, 38% of the undergrad population is more than enough to fill Lynah (all of it, not just the student section).

Nothing has significantly changed over the span of the past year. it would be great if they continued taking the poll every year, same time, with good methodology, and we could see the results ebb and flow with losing, championships, etc. It would be interesting to have the breakdown from, say, 1969.

The "favorite" metric is a problem, though. It would be much better to ask individually "how closely do you follow" a given sport. That way, if, say, both hockey and football were very popular among the same people, it would not be artificially portrayed as zero sum.

How do you know that CornellFan didn't stuff the ballot box?

As someone who was on campus 1969-73, I doubt the poll results would have been much different then, at least as to hockey. Football, with Ed Marinaro, would have been second, with Richie Moran's lacrosse team. Basketball would have been subsumed in"other". On the other hand, if "hatred of Nixon" had been a varsity sport, it might have challenged hockey.

hypotenuse
if "hatred of Nixon" had been a varsity sport

Columbia might have finally been okay at something.

hypotenuse
As someone who was on campus 1969-73, I doubt the poll results would have been much different then, at least as to hockey. Football, with Ed Marinaro, would have been second, with Richie Moran's lacrosse team. Basketball would have been subsumed in"other". On the other hand, if "hatred of Nixon" had been a varsity sport, it might have challenged hockey.

Having enrolled in 1968, I developed the impression that "taking over buildings" ranked high on the list of sports.

David Harding
Having enrolled in 1968, I developed the impression that "taking over buildings" ranked high on the list of sports.

Our taking over buildings teams have sucked for decades. I thought that getting some of the stars of the team to be University trustees would spark interest in revitalizing the program but no dice.

Maybe if we restart the taking over buildings team, there won't be an issue about the F-word at Lynah anymore.

ugarte

David Harding
Having enrolled in 1968, I developed the impression that "taking over buildings" ranked high on the list of sports.

Our taking over buildings teams have sucked for decades. I thought that getting some of the stars of the team to be University trustees would spark interest in revitalizing the program but no dice.

They tried to restart the team in 2004 but it members came off as whiney and douchey.

It's too bad that lacrosse doesn't get more student support. Back in the glory days of the '70s, it would have been right up there with hockey.

Willy '06
Maybe if we restart the taking over buildings team, there won't be an issue about the F-word at Lynah anymore.

Maybe you could organize a group to take over Teagle and demand that Andy be fired?

hypotenuse
As someone who was on campus 1969-73, I doubt the poll results would have been much different then, at least as to hockey. Football, with Ed Marinaro, would have been second, with Richie Moran's lacrosse team. Basketball would have been subsumed in"other". On the other hand, if "hatred of Nixon" had been a varsity sport, it might have challenged hockey.

Sort of like "hatred of Bush" today, huh?

They tried to restart the team in 2004 but it members came off as whiney and douchey.

The spring of 2005 was a pretty exciting time to be on campus. A disco ball on top of the clock tower, a trip to the NCAAs, a hilarious and petty takeover of Day Hall, and a sudden resignation of the President.

mnagowski

They tried to restart the team in 2004 but it members came off as whiney and douchey.

The spring of 2005 was a pretty exciting time to be on campus. A disco ball on top of the clock tower, a trip to the NCAAs, a hilarious and petty takeover of Day Hall, and a sudden resignation of the President.

Disco ball? Did it have strobe lights?

That may top the pumpkin that was on the tower for a long time in the fall 1997/winter 1998.

Rita

mnagowski

They tried to restart the team in 2004 but it members came off as whiney and douchey.

The spring of 2005 was a pretty exciting time to be on campus. A disco ball on top of the clock tower, a trip to the NCAAs, a hilarious and petty takeover of Day Hall, and a sudden resignation of the President.

Disco ball? Did it have strobe lights?

That may top the pumpkin that was on the tower for a long time in the fall 1997/winter 1998.

Am I the only one who was on campus at the time who didn't give a rat's ass about a stupid pumpkin on the tower?

I was on campus for the disco ball, and honestly never even knew it was there.

I call bull, Datafone, unless you're one of those majors that doesn't go anywhere near ho plaza or west campus. (I'm an engineer, but I lived on West at the time).

There was an enormous, giantic, colossal crane in the middle of Ho Plaza there for a week trying to take down the ball. The Daily Sun said that the whole thing cost tens of thousands of dollars, because of the special crane.... it was a mess. They had to take the thing down in case it fell on someone's head, but there's few cranes that tall around Ithaca. Plus, Ho Plaza isn't made to hold such heavy objects, so there were special considerations for that.

In any case, there is no way that you could have walked anywhere near the tower and not noticed. Well, as I said, unless you never went that way...

I call bull as well. It was a huge ordeal due to the perceived safety issues of a glass object falling from such heights. (For some reason a pumpkin falling from the same heights was thought to be safer.)

And even if he never saw it, it was plastered all over the Sun. And even if you don't read said newspaper rag, surely an associate would surely bring it up to make conversation. The likelihood of not hearing about some sort of object on the top of the clocktower would be incredibly small.

mnagowski
the perceived safety issues of a glass object falling from such heights. (For some reason a pumpkin falling from the same heights was thought to be safer.)

Pumpkin shards hurt people all the time, it's just not widely reported.

The real question is student apathy - "None" increased from 26% to 31%. Holy $hit!

And interest in lacrosse is plummeting despite having a good team.

Sample size is increasing but results are still +/- 4% so hard to make many real conclusions.

RatushnyFan
The real question is student apathy - "None" increased from 26% to 31%. Holy $hit!

I guess we just have to accept the fact that Cornell is not a jock school!