Quantifications

Of Cornell's performance in ECAC play.

First: What is Cornell's record in their previous 40 RS/Tourny ECAC games?
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Well, let's do the math.

2001 PS 3-1-0
2002 RS 17-3-2
2002 PS 3-1-0
2003 RS 9-1-0
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TOTAL 32-6-2

Second, at 9-1-0 Cornell is poised for its earliest entry into the "red zone" (+10 in conference RS) since the undefeated season:

[www.spiritone.com]

[Q]its earliest entry into the "red zone" (+10 in conference RS) since the undefeated season[/Q]

A distinction currently held, if I'm reading the chart correctly, by last season's team.

You are reading correctly.

It's amazing that this year's team is currently 3 points ahead of last year's team's pace. Of course, last year's team had just embarked on an 8 game winning streak at this point in their season!

To put into historical perspective just how great this year's team has been, Cornell has started the ECAC RS at 9-1 or better just 7 times, and had gone 30 years without doing so!

1966 9-1-0
1967 9-0-1
1968 9-1-0
1969 9-1-0
1970 10-0-0
1972 9-1-0
2003 9-1-0

Whatever we're paying Mike, double it.

Why - where's he gonna go? Seriously - the guy's only 40ish years old and coaching the #4 team in the nation for his alma mater, for whom he appears to have deep respect and, dare I say, love. Maybe I'm naive, but I can't picture, say, Michigan calling him up when Red retires and poof, he's gone. I suppose the AHL/NHL could come calling, but I'm guessing Mike doesn't have enough pro experience for them to be terribly interested. Don't really know about that - just speculating.

Considering what Mike has done with the program in 8 seasons, I really hope to see him stay another 8, and then another. Continuity of coaching is itself an enormous asset -- it helps a program to have a legendary coach with deep, old ties within the hockey community. Mike has two generations of Faithful venerating him. The only thing Cornell could do that would be as fantastically fitting would be to name Dryden the AD.

If the athletic department continues to treat the hockey program as a second class citizen I can't see why Mike would stay here for very much longer.

The new wrestling facility is just an example. Not to say the wrestling team did not need new facilities, but come on - how many millions for a venue that seats 600 - and you can't even hold tournaments in the place. $10,000.00 plasma televisions in the lobby (bet they come up missing within a year).

Other than cosmetic changes - what are they doing about Lynah? Expansion of the seating has been talked about but nothing gets done. I know it's not about money - there are some alum who would write a blank check to cover the expense.

I think expansion of Lynah would be difficult - if not impossible - without tearing the whole thing down and building anew. If any substantial modification were made, the entire building would have to be brought up to current fire codes - codes that were not in place in 1957. In which case, if the size of the actual building were not expanded, you might actually lose seating capacity, even if you added seats on Lynah's western end.

But Cop is right. Coach Schafer hasn't made it a secret that he wants better facilities. If someone like UM does come knocking, and Schafer is frustrated enough with Lynah, he could certainly play that hand and threaten to leave if it's not addressed. Then it comes down to how badly does Athletics want to keep Schafer.

With regard to the new friedman wrestling facility, i'm not sure how much choice athletics got in the matter. Apparently Friedman, the former wrestler and now big donor, solely wanted to fund a new great wrestling center. Maybe its just a coincidence, but at the same time the place opened, we're also one of the top wrestling teams in the country. So yeah, its doing good and maybe even helping recruit students from the wrestling hotspots of the midwest.

Still, Cop, you're right. No reason why Lynah can't be renovated, and money can't be a reason. Just kick off a fundraising campaign in the middle of a hot hockey year like this one...the money should fly in.

Well, as Matt points out, there is a reason Lynah can't be substantially renovated.

The success of venues like the Whit makes it apparent that Cornell can eventually build a new hockey arena and have it pay the bills. I suggest they figure out what the seating requirement for the Regionals will be in 10 years and build it one seat larger. It would be fantastic to have a state of the art facility for recruits to wet dream about.

However, and it's a big however, the Lynah <--> Crowd <--> Team dynamic is what makes Cornell hockey special, and the atmosphere is something that numerous players cite as a reason for coming. Mike of all people definitely knows the importance of a raucous building. Would it benefit Cornell IN THE LONG RUN to have some catatonic tomb like Cheel on campus? Yeah, I'm old and a traditionalist and all that, but seriously... does anybody other than the cement contractor want to go there?

The opposition might.

I'm not saying I want a new rink or that it wouldn't kill the dynamics, but Schafer has made no bones about wanting a new rink, which was the issued being discussed. If keeping Schafer meant tearing down Lynah (or opening a new rink elsewhere), would Athletics bend over?

As a student I often wondered what it would take to expand seating at Lynah and the conclusion I always came to is, you can't. The space behind the last row of seats is too narrow - you would have to push out the exterior walls or do something like Princeton's rink with a second set of walls (I assume that design is the result of a renovation otherwise it makes no sense). And how high could a more rows of seats go considering the rather low rafters at Lynah? To renovate Lynah would probably mean the team would have to play elsewhere for a year.

What specifically has Coach Schafer said about better facilities? Locker rooms? Offices? Didn't they put in a new rink floor and refridgeration system?

Personally, I like old sports arenas. As Matt Damon said on Saturday Night Live, "Suck on it FleetCenter. You'll never be the Gahden."

Bill R '94 wrote:

...do something like Princeton's rink with a second set of walls (I assume that design is the result of a renovation otherwise it makes no sense).

Yep, a rather nice renovation retaining the character of the old rink, but not adding much to capacity.

Makes you wonder how few seats Princeton had before the renovation.

From a fan's perspective, Lynah's facilities are pretty good with the addition of the field house - bathrooms, concession stands, etc. Maybe they should have done something with Lynah then. Was there anything on the site of the current field house (and what are they calling it these days)?

Bartels FieldHouse

There have been discussions about renovation for a number of years. First, Matt is right, you can't do much without tearing it down. A few years ago there was a "plan" to add a second outer wall so you could put concession stands behind the seats and move the people who were walking around outside the current building.

Then, add seats at the open end and some rooms above them for the CHA "boosters" in-between periods. Locker rooms could be redone, etc..

However, as Matt said that would require bringing it up to code. So long to the tight to the ice seating, hello to Cheel-style facility. Are students going to stand on seats that flip? Would the U enforce sitting down? You get the picture.

I personally like it as is, with the proviso that locker rooms and such be made as good as possible, and then working with the county to see what could be done on the west end or an outer wall to move people around faster. That might get approval as improving exit for fire.

As far as Greg's idea about an NCAA regional facility, well, to me that is pie-in-the-sky. CU at one time tried to have their own holiday tourney and it flopped. If the team were there we could get fans from Ithaca. If no CU, then forget it. Relying upon other fans to travel there, would in my view not work. Are the casual fans from HE, or other places going to travel to Ithaca for a weekend? I think not. Yes there are other on campus regionals, but they tend to be within commuting distance of major metropolitan areas.

Jim Hyla '67 wrote:

However, as Matt said that would require bringing it up to code. So long to the tight to the ice seating, hello to Cheel-style facility. Are students going to stand on seats that flip? Would the U enforce sitting down? You get the picture.

Out of curiosity, is there any reason a renovation to bring the building up to code would HAVE to eliminate bench seating? Maybe they'd have to be metal benches for fire safety, but I don't see why they'd have to be flip seats.

What I would like to see is the expansion of the locker rooms; a seprate room for personnel training (biking,weight lifting, etc.) and a few hundred seats along the west end of the rink. I believe all this can be accomplished by moving the west wall out to about the area of the sidewalk. I would like to see a max occupancy of 4200 or there about.

As far as the building codes go, I believe Cornell got some variances when they connected Lynah to the Fieldhouse.

I don't see the need for expanding the seating in Lynah. Yes, the games sell out, but I don't think there are hundreds and hundreds of people who get shut out of buying tickets.

Haven't the locker rooms been renovated at least once in the last ten years? Have people on this board been in the locker rooms to report on the quality of the facilities? Are they really sub-par and if so how? Yes, the visiting locker rooms are woefully inadequate, but I think that's a feature, not a bug .

Maybe I just don't get it, but I don't really see the need for a separate training room for the hockey team(s). Didn't Cornell just build a facility for athletes attached to the Fieldhouse formerly known as Alberding? Is that not sufficient? Yes, they have to walk several hundred yards to get there, but...

There probably is no reason why you couldn't install bench seats in a new/renovated building. I imagine wood would fine as well, as long as it's suitably treated. But can you imagine for an instant that the Athletic Department would open their new/renovated facility with old-fashioned bench seats? Heck, new baseball stadiums are putting backs on the bleachers now!

A good question was asked: what does Mike want in a new building? Basically, I think whatever he wants he should get, because I trust his judgment about retaining the value of the home crowd.

The drawbacks cited by previous coaches have been:

1. Really crappy locker rooms
2. No weight rooms facilities
3. Virtually non-existent staff office space
4. A generally old, run down building with all the problems that implies (electrical, HVAC, etc...)

From what I can piece together, the various renovations over the years have addressed these partially.

1. The locker room are supposed to be better. Note that the Ithaca tourny was horrible because there was only space for two lockerooms, not the four you need for a tourny. Leaving that aside though, I have heard that the home lockeroom is much better than it used to be.

2. The weight facilities at the Field House are something everybody raves about. Whether or not they are sufficient to the team's needs, I dunno.

3. They remodeled the section A corner of the building several years ago and upgraded the office space.

4. Not a lot you can do about this. I mean, yeah I'm sure they upgrade equipment as necessary (they redid the roof reinforcement about a decade ago), but it's an old building aint nothing's gonna make it young.

The best solution would be to keep the seating exactly as it is (although they should put the benches back in C), and just nuke the whole rest of the structure -- take down the walls and extend the building outward in all three directions other than the field house. House the old seating in a brand new outer shell with all the fan amenities and more importantly all the neat stuff Mike needs. Can they do that without having to destroy the inner seating? Hell, we have a Law School -- get Summers (the resident Contracts deity) on it.

I doubt that the closeness of the current rows conforms to code. However, I don't know for sure. It just seems to me that if I were specifying code now, then the rows would have to be further apart to allow faster exiting in an emergency. Obviously we are all speculating about things we know little about. However, when I spoke to a CHA booster about this before, all of the mentioned issues were problems with renovation.

Doesn't blowing away the building structure make it likely that the roof will be replaced with some vaulted cavern from which a giant scoreboard is suspended? I think part of the charm of Lynah comes from the closeness of the banner-festooned rafters.

Back in the 1990s, there was a backlash against antiseptic dual-sport baseball stadia, as Camden Yards and its successors strove to create new ballparks in the style of the quirky older generation of Fenway Park and the Polo Grounds. (There was also some urban renewal involved; the eccentric nooks and crannies of the older parks came about because local geographic features were in the way, preventing the symmetric/generic construction which tracts of suburban sprawl allowed for.) So the question is, is there any way to start such a movement in hockey arenas? Can a modern facility be constructed with the intimate feel of the older rinks?

I don't see why their couldn't be. On the NHL level it wouldn't fly in the current market because attendence (especially luxury box space) is still a major factor. The NHL makes a decent percentage of it's money off of actual ticket sales, as opposed to baseball where moving from a 55k to 40k stadium is no big deal, because they get millions and millions from TV.

On the college level, it's definitely possible, but generally if you're gonna replace an old rink, it's because you want more capacity. Though I'm sure there are some purists out there who just want a new place but want it to have the same feel. Of course, people who are willing to shell out millions for essentially no change aren't easy to come by. When the new modern monstrosities are ready to be replaced (30, 40, 50 years from now) maybe we'll see a trend back (hopefully), but things have to get bad before their a yearn for the old days - like it did will all the "cookie cutter" baseball stadiums.

Appleton, the rink at SLU, was renovated not too long ago, and the seating area wasn't touched. The gorgeous wooden risers are intact, but the restrooms, concessions, etc. are much more accommodating for fans. Of course, I don't know anything about whether the locker rooms, etc. were upgraded.

The home locker rooms were renovated no more than six years ago. While space may still be an issue, aesthetics are not. Other updates to Lynah (aside from the aforementioned replacement of the cooling system) have included the new boards and seamless glass, a new pressbox, repainted red/white walls, a new hockey office (again, space may still be an issue), a new sound system, the new plastic banners (I like the "yellow" cloth ones myself), and the new scoreboard this year. Additionally, the Friedman Center for Strength and Conditioning (attached to the Field House, as Keith alluded to) is quite swank. Perhaps Coach wants a hockey-only gym; I don't know.

I agree that "new facility" does not necessarily mean "Cheel-like cavern." Of course, there's always that danger, but perhaps it is possible to have a modern barn.

As far as seating goes, I firmly believe that seating capacity should NOT be increased. During the Red/White game this year, a friend turned to me and said something to the effect of: "This was a good turnout for regular season games when I was here." That was the mid-nineties, folks, and while we may sell out now, we're not going to be #4 in the country every year. As I see, it ~3600 is perfect. It's not too empty in the leaner years (although I'll admit I haven't seen the worst of times), and we sell out when we're good-to-great.

When I sat in section A all the time, I never saw Lynah's faults. I never had to deal with the absurdbly cramped walkways, the ridiculously narrow seats, and the complete lack of leg room (trust me, standing for the whole game is BETTER). If I had my druthers, I wouldn't touch it, but I can see why someone would want to, as I'm sure there are plenty of hockey-related deficiencies in the place as well.

As far as funding goes, I don't think that the hockey team's success this year really matters. The type of people wealthy enough to fund a new facility are not the type of people who are holding back for a winning team. Sure, some of us peasant folk might give more (or rather, more peasant folk might give), but even our combined contributions don't amount to much. Unless some of you guys are multimillionaires, our donations are irrelevant to the financing of a new building. It's all about one or two rich guys. Ten, twenty, thirty thousand dollars... maybe it'll pay for the paint.

The baseball example is instructive that the cosy feel of charming sports arenas is itself a huge draw. People go to Camden, Jacobs, PacBell, and Safeco because they are intimate, just as Wrigley and Fenway are still huge attractions precisely because they are funky and small. Smaller can thus equate to bigger attendance and more revenue positive, which will ultimately be the university's only criterion.

There must be an architecture genius sleeping over at Sibley who can string a low, taut, corrugated-some-alloy roof over a hundred thousand square feet without interior supports. Hell, put the whole arena in a large, overturned garbage can and bang on the outside. Just make it loud.

I dunno about that one Greg... ever been to UConn? that's what a rink made from a garbage can turned over feels like. And while I'm sure garbage-can Lynah would be louder, it still wouldn't be a nice place

I actually have been to the old UConn rink. It feels like Cass Park, complete with space between the roof and walls for the winter wind to blow in. UConn used to issue a frostbite advisory to visiting teams who thought they were kidding... the first time.

For my money, the closest there is aethetically to a true overturned garbage can is Starr. It's like the Quonset hut living quarters on Gomer Pyle.

I'm all for leaving seating capacity and seating itself completely alone, and just working on the hockey facilities. Put up an auxiliary building in the west parking lot. Invent anti-gravity and hover it. *Anything* so long as they never ruin the atmosphere. Given Cornell's penchant for erecting structurally and aesthetically horrible buildings since 1960, I definitely do not trust that "brain trust" with this one.

Sometime in the early 70s the CUAA made a study of expaning Lynah. The two main plans they came up with were 1. Extending the seats around the west end, and 2. Lifting the roof and adding more rows behind the aisle -- as in Bartels. They also looked at putting in ice (temporary) in Barton Hall! They didn't do anything which suggests that the final conclusion was that none of these were very good options.

But I'm convinced that they could sell out a larger rink -- they routinely had crowds of 4,800 in Lynah for big games in the 60s and 70s. (Don't ask me how.) There are plenty of students and lot of townies who would buy season tickets if they could, and I suspect that would continue even if we had losing teams. (Even in bad years, the great majority of seats were sold, people just weren't coming to the games.) It would be tragic if we lost Mike becuase of the facilities. The new president is a Cornellian, maybe he might take some interest in Cornell athletics, unlike Rhodes and Rawlings who seemed happy to be a place where, unlike Michigan and iowa, the alumni were not constantly carping about football, basketball, etc. -- neither seemed to pay much attention to Conrell sports.

Greg,

Well I've seen picture of the old UConn rink and the new one's certainly better. After all, it's indoors (and not just covered). They're lobby area is nice albeit indeed for a small crowd. The rink itself is just a hulking space, all made out of aluminum (so it's coooold), with about 4 or 5 rows of alumnum seats on an aluminum floor. They essentially said "Let's build a box and put in some ice and benches." It's better then the old place, it works for their needs, but it's hardly a nice place. Just warning against the garbage can idea (which I know what sarcastic anyways).

I agree with those who have pointed out that "new facilities" doesn't have to have anything to do with expanded seating. Remember, seating is a fan issue, not a player issue. Instead it would make sense to improve what the players and coached interact with on a daily basis. Things like locker rooms, weight rooms, and offices.

If things like a sparkling new building or plush seating are going to attract recruits, then the recruits are sort of missing the point. We are not a Big Ten school, we shouldn't have to act like it. Sure innovation is a key component of the Ivy League, but so are class, dignity, and tradition.

"I agree with those who have pointed out that "new facilities" doesn't have to have anything to do with expanded seating. "

Exactly. Further, Schafer himself said on The Sporting Life with Jeremy Schaap this past Saturday that he loves the atmosphere at Lynah and wouldn't trade it for any of the newer facilities.

One of the ways the attendance figures got so high in the late 60's was the SRO, ostensibly for the walkway behind the stands. Cornell eliminated all standing room tickets when they built the Field House (I assume because of fire code but have no idea why -- Lynah is neither more nor less safe now). Also, because there were tickets not corresponding to seats, and because student tickets were general admission, they used to cram untold numbers of kids into each row.

But attendance isn't a problem, and during mediocre years an empty building means the death of all crowd energy and cheer tradition.

There are so many exits from Lynah that I can't believe it's a real fire trap. I know that isn't the same thing as being up to code but I seriously think you could empty that place in 5 minutes.