Cornell 4 Harvard 3 FINAL

Matt McRae nicked up and sitting out tonight. Hornby takes his place on the Abbott line, Iggulden takes Hornby's usual place.

Coach Schafer quote: "These are the games when you wish you were still playing." Remembering the passion Mike brought to Harvard games, I believe him literally.

Harvard penalty in the opening seconds. Cornell pp at 0:20.

Cornell scores 11 seconds into the pp.

0:31 Cor pp Vesce 14 (Murray, Bâby)

Noah Welch crosschecks one of the Abbotts from behind into the boards. Hornby was about to murder him, held back, and we go on pp#2.

Bâby scores!!!!

Cornell 2x2 on pp and making Harvard pay.

I was hoping they'd come out pissed off and ready to play after Brown last night. Great start. LGR!

Aaron Kim runs LeNeveu but Lenny makes a huge save and covers, and is okay. Bâby has some words with the officials. Still in the first 5:00 of a very eventful game.

3-0 !!!

3-0! I am loving this!

8:34 Cor Pegoraro 4 (Paolini 13)

Wow....I just checked into the thread, and when I saw "Cornell 3, Harvard 0, 1st" I thought it was a joke....or wishful thinking, since it was only 7:13. This is amazing! Keep it up Red! (Oh, what's the game audio link? I most likely won't be able to get it (firewall), but sometimes I can.)

Jordan

The Cornell crowd sounds great.

[cornellbigred.ocsn.com]

www.whrb.org

the whole list of 'em is just under the date at the top left of the elynah forum page...I wish I would have realized it yesterday.

The free link is at [www.whrb.org] . Use the "Regular Feed'.

Cornell pp#3 comin' up.

Nope, just like I thought...site is blocked. Oh well...I guess I'll have to live with the updates on the board. Thanks, though....I'll have to remember the link on the left when I get back home.

"Certainly feels a little bit like Lynah Rink in here..." Harvard commentator

END OF THE 1ST STILL 3-0 CORNELL !!!!

These guys just mentioned the countdown to Harvard ticker on the "Cornell Hockey page"

It feels like Lynah, because it IS Lynah...East. I take it the CU fans are sounding quite rowdy as always. I only made it out to Lynah East once, and I caught a puck, and I took a silver pen and wrote the date, and Cornell-2, Harvard-1....it sits with my other CU collection pucks (3 game pucks from CU games at home...all caught, Nieuwendyk autographed Stars puck, Dryden autographed HOF puck, and a souvinier puck from the NCAA regionals last year). Anyway, I wish I could be there this year.... Let's keep it up Red!

I've been to Lynah East 19 times: 6-12-1, including an 0-9-1 streak immediately prior to Mike becoming coach. It does me very good to hear us playing so well there.

2nd period underway

Jordan, I think my one trip to Lynah East was the same as yours..2-1. I'll never forget how two face-painted Cornell fans barked "Get off our ice!" at Kim (i think) when he lingered around after the pre-game skate. It seemed so loud and demeaning...lovely.

pp#4 -- Tyler Kolarik tries to behead Sam Paolini.

Boooo! You still suck!

"It has awoken the Harvard crowd"

and the Harvard team...

yikes!

awww.....another lost shutout for lenny.... that really sucks...DAMNIT!!

LeNeveu with two great saves. Harvard going on pp.

Bell, Murray, and Bâby all playing great D.

LGR!
LGR!
LGR!

SHIT!!!

"Harvard is far from out of it"

dammit.

10:55 Hvd Packard
14:45 Hvd pp Petit

Harvard pulls to within one.

with 57 seconds to go!! woohoo! Brian Landon (??) two handed his stick over the goal! another assist for Bâby!

LGR!!!

yesss!!! SCCCCORREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE ITS ALL YOUR FAULT!! WHOOT WHOOT

Huge goal!

19:03 Cor Vesce 15 (Bâby 24)

Very, very big boost emotionally. End of 2.

Well, it's nice to at least see them score at the end of the period...I was getting quite nervous there. Let's play a strong 3rd Red!

Many scoring changes between periods. The current tally:

1st
0:31 Cor pp Vesce 14 (Murray 17, Paolini 13)
4:58 Cor pp Paolini 8 (Bâby 24, Mark McRae 15)
8:34 Cor Pegoraro 4 (Paolini 14)

2nd
10:55 Hvd Packard (Moore, Turano)
14:45 Hvd pp Petit (Moore, Nowak)
19:03 Cor Vesce 15 (Bâby 25)

2:19 Hvd Cavanaugh (Pettit, Lederman)

Why???? What is going on here?

screw you Cavanaugh!!

Pettit blows past Cook and Lenny stones him!

Harvard getting the chances now in a very dangerous one goal game.

I'm hoping that Age just got the team fired up...

yikes, this is tense.

5 min left

Just over 3 mins left.

no TO's for Harvard...

1:40 left, faceoff in harvard zone

THEY PULLED THE SEIVE! come on big red! get an empty netter!

WOOHOO!!

WE WIN!!!

We hold on. Whew.

YESSSSS!

Amusing to hear the Harvard announcers lament the loss "in front of such a large crowd."

Umm...weren't they 1/2 CU fans?

Cornell remains #3 PWR pending results of other games tonight.

In the big picture, it's probably a good thing to have a tough game like this to learn from. The Colgate and Brown games didn't result in two points, but Cornell still seemed to dominate the games. This one should be useful preparing for the tournament and NCAAs.

Schafer is now 7-1 at Lynah East. Also, this is the first regular-season sweep of Harvard in five years.

This is always a great win as the coach set this as one of his goals in the 95-96 season.

Congrats.

Great win! We haven't been outshot many times this season or given up only one penalty. Even though he let in three goals, Lenny really stepped up his play tonight. The Lynah Faithful sounded great also!

I'd really like to hear some thoughts from the guys (and gals) who were at the game--once you're back home and rested, of course!

[www.boston.com]

Some thoughts now that I am back from a great weekend at Lynah East:

We got the 3-0 lead in part to crashing the net and poking at rebonds something we didn't do as much the rest of the game, except for the 4th goal.

The first period we were truly dominant, Harvard had a hard time setting anything up. In part it was the power plays and in part we were forechecking dominantly.

The second period Harvard really brought it to us. Our defense was very tentative, it was as if no one wanted the puck and didn't know what to do with it. Same goes for the third period. harvard outskated us in about every possible way in the 2nd and 3rd period. They used their size a lot to crash the net and pick up the rebounds.

Their goals were all scored in a similar fashion. Slap shots from the point, then crash the net and pick up the rebounds.

Dov made some incredible saves in the 2nd period especially, but we could also not connect. The two I remember was Vesce alone in front in the 2nd and he just missed and then in the third when Moulson couldn't get enough on his backhand to lift it over Dov.

Lenny stood on his head on many an occasion and seemed to save this one for us as the defense in front of him wasn't its normal strong self.

The crowd was amazing...about half must have been Cornellians. And there were some truly disgusting Harvard fans that I can't even describe accurately, I'll leave that to someone else.

I am sure there are other things I could mention, but I have two tests tomrrow so I need to study. All in all a great win for Cornell and I already wish it was next weekend.

From legendary college hockey writer Jocko Connelly:

[www2.bostonherald.com]

And I'm back too.

First of all, the last fifteen minutes of the game were probably the most nerve-racking minutes of a hockey game I've ever seen live. Leneveu made some terrific saves during that stretch, but his save of the night came on a delayed penalty in the second period where he dove to his right to glove a puck headed straight for the net. Too bad the resulting penalty resulted in a goal anyway. Our team really seemed content to play defense during the third period, but there were a couple chances (breakaways by Moulson and Bâby) that could have sealed it.

Harvard gets their power play set up really nicely, and they did the same thing when they played at Lynah in November. Don't know what they do that others cannot against our penalty killing units.

There's plenty more to say, but most of it has already been said in articles, and in other posts, especially on USCHO. Overall, I had a great time, and especially enjoyed the win considering there were Harvard fans very near me calling me an asshole and telling me that, after the game, they were going to "rip my jersey off." Thankfully, I still have my jersey.

By the way, I was the guy behind the far goal (where Cornell shot on during the 1st and 3rd) periodically waving a red Cornell flag

Folks, just back from Lynah East, after a long day of flying (Southwest, PVD-SJC via Phoenix). Will share my thoughts and impressions on the Harvard game (as well as the Brown game from Friday night), on Monday.

Just want to point out that the headlines of the Cornell-Harvard articles in both Boston's newspapers are identical: "Crimson left seeing Red."

Bright Hockey Center was TRULY our house on Saturday night!

[Q]And there were some truly disgusting Harvard fans that I can't even describe accurately, I'll leave that to someone else.[/Q]



HAHAHAH.... MAN BOOBS!! MAN BOOBS!! MAN BOOBS!!!


-W

Most everything I would have said has already been said by others--Harvard dominating the second and third periods, Lenny's amazing delayed penalty save, etc. It's all true.

I'll just add that I was glad to see a significant Harvard contingent in attendance that night. As much as I like to call Bright "Lynah East", I would much rather have the Harvard-Cornell rivalry work both ways, instead of it seeming one-sided. Seeing an evenly divided crowd (from my point of view, it was about 50/50) at the biggest game at Bright of the year is a step towards that goal.

Also, I thought it was funny that Big Ben '03 and I were able to inadvertently scare/bother an older couple of Harvard fans and their son(?) sitting in the row in front of us to scooch down the bench towards the aisle, after we went crazy rooting and hollering in the first period. That was hilarious. I could see they kept talking about us to some other Harvard fans, too--I guess we were just too obnoxious for them.

Thanks guys...the testimonials and funny stories about the crowd and interactions with Harvard fans was what I was looking for. I wish I could have been there!

Another epitaph to HU/CU...I haven't seen Schafer that excited since, oh, long around December of 1990, when he was the assistant whose job unfortunately also included coaching the "P.E." course at Lynah, where all us hockey wannabes strapped 'em up and he tried not to laugh too hard....

The incident in particular I have in mind is Schafer seeing me (I was one of the goalies) standing unawares in front of the net. The giddy joy Mike showed Saturday night as the Red left the ice was akin to the twinkle in his eye moments before he launched a slapper that whizzed by my left ear. (Didn't go in, though.) Eesh.


ZD

Three Harvard students were standing in back of me through the 1st period into the 2nd. About 5 minutes in, noticing there are seats available, the following exchange takes place:

1st student: Hey, there are seats, lets's sit down.
2nd student: OK, but I don't want to sit a Cornell section
3rd student: Are you kidding, this whole place is a Cornell section!

Avash '05 wrote:

Harvard gets their power play set up really nicely, and they did the same thing when they played at Lynah in November. Don't know what they do that others cannot against our penalty killing units.

It seems to me that Harvard's able to do this because they have more comprable size to us than other teams we've faced and thus are able to curb our usual dominance along the boards.


I felt we didn't control the boards as well as we have in the past, there seemed to be an awful lot of Harvard passes sliding through our slot that came from the corners or from behind Leneveu.


And can anybody tell me the significance of Harvard having their #4 retired?


-Mike

According to the Harvard program, #4 is "the retired number of former Crimson skater, hockey coach, and Director of Athletics Bill Cleary...the only number -- of any of Harvard's 41 varsity sports -- ever to be taken out of circulation."

Bleh.

Cleary as in the Cleary Cup?

Yep.

And as in the 1960 USA Olympic champions. And still the holder of Harvard season records for goals scored (42) and total points (89), back when the team played only 21 games.

I miss Bill Cleary. My wife loved the "Your coach is bald" cheer. Bill had the good humor to rub his head when the Pep Band and Faithful serenaded him with that cheer.

When Cleary and Adessa (RPI) met for the final in '85, the Cornell crowd alternated pointing and yelling "bald... fat... bald... fat..." We got the whole Gahden crowd laughing, including Adessa. Cleary was not amused.

I respect Cleary a lot and have a standing offer that on the day I become dictator of the universe, I am appointing him ECAC commish.

I assume you "respect Cleary a lot" because of his hockey knowledge (and talent on the ice); but I sure hope it's not on a personal level, given your own story about his reaction to teasing. The following year was my freshman year and a similar chant was taken up in Lynah (where we lost 11-3 to an incredibly talented team and Schafer shot the puck "by accident" into the Harvard bench) and he scowled yet again. My experiences with him showed him to epitomize the elitist Harvard attitude, particularly with respect to Cornell -- he refused to acknowledge any sort of rivalry, in part because he believed his teams were vastly superior to ours (and they were, for the most part, during late 80s and early- to mid- 90s) and yet it galled him to no end that his coaching career ended with a loss to Cornell at Lynah in ECAC quarterfinals.

Given his "power" within USA Hockey and NCAA hockey, he was a good man if you were on the right side; but if you were on his bad side, watch out.

[q]yet it galled him to no end that his coaching career ended with a loss to Cornell at Lynah in ECAC quarterfinals.[/q]

...the year after he'd won the national championship, no less.

I respected him a great deal as a coach, right up until those last quarterfinals. After Cornell won the second game, he skated his team off the ice, refusing to let them shake hands with Cornell's team. He may have power and hockey wisdom, but that showed a horrible lack of class. The day after Greg becomes ruler of the universe and appoints Cleary ECAC commish, I hope Cornell moves to Hockey East.

Beeeej

A little late, but I gotta disagree with the end of this thread. Cleary is one of the classiest guys in hockey and in amateur sports, and not because my uncle played against him at Belmont Hill and thought that he was an amazing guy off the ice too. He's in the US and International Hockey Hall of Fames for a reason, and not just because he led the US to silver and gold medals. I don't know about the RPI game in '85, but the Sports Illustrated articles on him always talked about what a great sense of humor he had, including patting his head for the 'bald coach' chants.

CULater'89, I don't know what experiences you've had with him (certainly sounds like no personal ones), or how you are able to tell what galled him to no end... My Harvard friends *still* talk about how pissed off they are that Shafer took a slapshot at him standing on the bench during a blowout, but I don't know if that had anything to do with him walking off in 1990 - coaches do that pretty often, and we rarely find out why. Either way, it makes us look kind of small if we can't respect one of college hockey's greats, especially if your arguments are that he "scowled" and that "he believed his teams were vastly superior to ours (and they were...".

Not any more! 4-3! LGR!!

FWIW, my experiences with him were face-to-face, over the phone and second-hand from reporters covering college hockey and players and coaches who played and coached for and against him. It was the conversations I've had with him and the information I got from others that led me to make my statements above. BTW, none of the examples you cite as to why he is a classy guy seem to be from personal experience, just things you read about in Sports Illustrated or a USA Hockey Hall of Fame press release.

I don't think anybody here is disrepecting him for his abilities as a hockey player or as a coach/recruiter. But personally and in his dealings with others, he could be rude, humorless, defensive, vindictive and, dare I say, a bit snobbish, sometimes with cause but sometime without.