If you could choose...

Ok, waiting for each successive weekend of hockey is proving more and more difficult. So, to pass time (and avoid work) I'll pose the following question:

If you could choose, would you rather (a) Cornell wins the ECAC Championship in Lake Placid but loses its first game in the NCAAs, or (b) Cornell loses in the ECAC final, still qualifies for the NCAAs, then wins its first two games (convincingly) in the NCAAs thereby advancing to the Frozen Four, losing in the semifinals.

Personally, I think I'd enjoy "a" more (plus, being two wins away from winning the NCAAs and coming up short might kill me), but I think "b" would be better for the program recognition/recruiting wise. The point being that choosing "a" is not cut-n-dry for me.

(For those who find such hypotheticals stupid/annoying, please forgive me.)

A. No question about it. Mainly because A gives us a banner and B does not.

With very little hesitation, given these choices I choose B - especially if we win the Cleary cup this year for finishing first in the regular season. Yes, it'd be great if we could win the ECAC tournament again, it's been five years - but our losing in the first round of the NCAA regionals would give other conferences all the usual "Easy-AC" ammunition.

So I'd rather have the respect of a great regular season, the excitement of winning the ECAC semis and a good ECAC finals (even if we lose), followed by what would have to be an absolutely incredible experience of seeing us in the national semis in St. Paul with national attention.

Beeeej

I've got to agree with Beeeej and go for B, though only if we do win the RS title (I still think you ought to have to win *something* before being admitted to the national tourney.)
By the way, B does get us on the NC$$ Tournament banner (can't remember if we still do the individual tourney appearance banners). And there's also the chance of the all-important Ivy banner.

We still do individual NCAA tourney appearance banners (while more hardware-starved teams like Brown go for the "ECAC Final Four" banners).

I don't think we've ever done regular season title banners, tho'.

Beeeej

I agree with Jeff and Keith. I'd rather be one of the four best teams in the nation than the best team in a relatively weak conference. I'd prefer a trip to the Frozen Four even if we didn't win the Cleary Cup.

Would you rather drive a Yugo or a Porsche. The Frozen Four is what it is all about! That is where respect comes from. Most of us have seen a ECAC title. What we haven't seen if we went to Cornell fairly recently, is a trip to the Frozen 4. Almost in 1997 (which was great), but making it and being on national TV would be incredible.

Yugo or Porsche

Are there any other choices?

Jeffrey "Beeeej" Anbinder '94 wrote:

I don't think we've ever done regular season title banners, tho'.

But then, as we've discussed, it's been a LONG time since there's been any call for one.

No question. With an ECAC regular season title, I would take the Frozen Four this year. And I don't care if our NCAA wins are convincing. (Unless one of them is against one of the scrub conferences.)

The choice is complicated because winning the ECAC and losing in the first round would suck. If I didn't know the tournament results and was given a choice between taking our chances in the NCAA tournament after winning the ECAC's and taking our chances in the Frozen Four following a PWR-based bid I would rather win the ECAC title first. I think. It is just so hard to choose from among good, but ultimately disappointing outcomes.

To be fair I think a better analogy would be:

A) a 4Motion Turbo Passat

or

B) a Ferrari 360 Modena with a balky shifter that needs a full engine rebuild.

Actually, I think the analogy should be "Do you want to own a Yugo or test drive a Porsche?"

That said, I'll take the national respect that goes with making the NCAA Frozen Four (although I would love another night at Mudpuddles!!!)

I too would pick the NCAA"s tho choice A isn't bad either from the perspective of someone who hasn't seen a LP win and thus hasn't experienced the joy of Mudpuddles

somehow i posted this under "venting" dont know how i did that.

why limit yourself to only two options?

C) Win Ivy Title, Cleary Cup, Placid and make it to the Frozen Four? Being a little GREEDY is a GOOD THING. What does this get us? Its simple, we know other schools will say "easy AC", so dominate the regular season (ivy and cleary) play well against better competition (yes same teams, but the DRIVE of the playoffs kicks in) and win placid, solidifying the team's claim as a dominant force. Then march into NCAA's, pull off a first round win, then take it as far as you can go, and no matter what play with respect. Nobody outside of Lynah and the Faithful EXPECT the team to do anything better than win Placid.

D) same as C), then call out the spartans and BC and see if they want to play a little non conference action next year. Go into their barns, and show them that the previous season was no fluke. A chip on your shoulder is ALSO a good thing (all in moderation)

i'll take the frozen four but a Passat any time of the week...

on a related note, i noticed that a few had assumed that Cornell would play in the first round of the NCAAs... what about our chances of getting a bye if Cornell does win the RS and ECAC titles (knock on wood)?

The reason that it is limited to two options is because if the choices are (A) Frozen Four, (B) ECAC Tourney, and (C) both, everyone will choose C.

Now stop being a sissy and make the tough choice.

so big red apple are you saying that you CAN NOT have your cake and eat it too? All things being equal (unlike the olympic judges for skating) i'd go B. one misstep, like losing a close ECAC championship game (wait ) we have done that recently, this is not fair. Call me spoiled but i still want both Placid and a good run in NCAA. The team has worked very hard (and for the most part consistently) all season, and deserves the ECAC RS and Playoff title. True losign in placid and making a run in NCAA is like the ravens last year winnning the super bowl as a wild card team, yes you accomplished the goal.......i just think that repeatedly through the season the team has stressed that they have many goals, the cleary cup, the ivy title, placid and a run in NCAA. i would like to think that showing consistency and dedication would be better "attractions" to recruits then just making NCAA. Either way toxicology has clogged my brain, and i need to get back to studying. IMHO its out of our hands anyway, lets not live in the past or the future, but rather the present! GO RED

You can have your cake and eat it in your dreams. It just doesn't make any sense in a thought experiment. Since I waffle a little in my answer also I won't give you a further hard time, but I still don't know what you would choose.

Of course all of here wants Cornell to win both the ECAC Championship and the NCAA Championship... There's no reason to even pose that as a question, as nobody on this board (except maybe Rich S) wouldn't want that.

The point of this was purely hypothetical... IF we had to choose, which would you choose?

I'll take b. That will be especially true if they go to 16 teams with 4 regionals, that way we win a regional to go to the Frozen Four. However, even this year I'd take NCAA. After all, we can always say "been there, done that" if someone says we didn't win ECAC.

In regards to

Would you rather drive a Yugo or a Porsche.

, I'll take my Toyota Supra anyday.

Wow, I'm surprised at the near-unanimity here, so I'd better speak up with my dissent: I choose (a) without hesitation. This team deserves a championship! (And do we really want to emulate the 1996 UVM team?)

Blast. JTW beat me to the UVM card.

The choices here are almost exactly the difference between the '96 Cornell team and the '96 UVM line...err...team. Do you pick the team that wins the hardware, or the team that got to participate in the Slushy Four in Cincinnati (losing the semi in 2OT)? For the following season, it was so easy to drive Cat fans nuts by mentioning our banner and throwing the word "Champion" around. On the other hand, I was somewhat jealous of hearing of the UVM fans making news at the Big One. Funny thing about that season is that the 2 teams tied twice, so neither team had "scoreboard" over the other. Had CU been able to get by LSSU in the regionals, they would've faced off against UVM, and there were many of us that were pretty sure that CU had UVM's number.

OK...my choice. Although I'd go to the Frozen Four(tm), and buy out the souvenier stand with anything that suggested the color Red...gosh it pains me to say, but I'd feel a little empty inside if we lose the Semi and still not have won the Whitelaw. It would mean 2 straight painful tournament endings. For me to select (b), you'd have to change it to winning a semi and losing the National Championship game. The 48 hours I'd have after winning a semifinal game, along with being able to watch my team play *2* games at the Frozen Four(tm) would probably offset the loss of the Whitelaw. Not to mention the attention and respect that comes with the Final, even with a loss.

Otherwise, I go with (a), have the memory of the party in Placid, and be able to look at this team with the word "champion" next to it for the rest of time.

By the same token, UVM would have faced Cornell in the ECAC final the previous weekend if they'd gotten past Harvard. That was the year of unfinished business for Cornell and UVM.

BTW, a better analogy for choice (a) would probably be Clarkson in 1999, since that team won both the RS and the ECACs and was the ECAC's top representative in the NCAAs.

My instinct is to choose "A." I hate it that NCAA-obsessiveness has lessened the importance of the conference titles, and I think the old system, in which the conference titles were festivals and the winners got to the NCAA's as another prize, was much more fun and healthy. But then again, I think that having meaningful, conference-linked college bowl games and a mythical national championship is far, far better than a playoff -- it's more about aesthetics (read: having them).

But perhaps the real question is: which would help the team more in the long run, and the answer to that is probably "B." Cornell will always win its share of recruiting battles against other ECAC teams because of its history -- going one up on them yet again would be nice, but would not add that much. On the other hand, getting to the Frozen Four would help Cornell in their national recruiting battles against WCHA, CCHA, and HE teams.

So, the older romantic in me picks "A," while the younger pragmatist picks "B." Today is my mid-point birthday (39), so I choose both the ECAC title and the Frozen Four. "It's my party..."

Happy birthday, Greg. What's the standard deviation on your age?

Beeeej

Shootin' for 78, eh? Let's not over-reach, now! )

(BTW, I am also in the "heart chooses ECAC, head chooses NCAA" camp).

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
ché la diritta via era smarrita.

But don't worry about that; just have a happy birthday.

I went back and forth on this one for a bit, before realizing:

1. I haven't seen Cornell win the ECAC championship in five years.

2. I have never seen Cornell advance to the NCAA Frozen Four.

B it is.