Post-Harvard musing I: Giving $ to Cornell Hockey

Dear Fellow Lynah (and Lynah East) Faithful,
First of all, I am awed by the major snow storm that started yesterday down in the mid-Atlantic region. Boy, am I glad that we made it out of Providence/Cambridge all right! I am sorry to report that it is mild and sunny here in the Bay Area.
A while back I wrote about what I thought folks should do in support of our beloved hockey team. Some of you have withheld your giving to Cornell Athletics as a way to "protest" the fee-based online broadcast policy instituted this past fall. However, I think most, if not all, of us would agree that we want to support Coach Schafer and the team. My wife and I have tried to attend as many Harvard-Cornell games as possible, since we moved to CA. (Proud to say that we have gone to both RS games this year.) I also make a donation (somewhat based on the number of goals Cornell scores) to the team each time they play Harvard. I simply want to encourage you to consider doing the same, by earmarking your donation (which is tax-deductible) for "Cornell Men's Ice Hockey Team." You can choose to disagree with Andy Noel, but there is no reason not to support the hockey team in the process. Your charitable gifts will help Coach Schafer and his staff run one of the best Div-I hockey programs in the country.
PS: If you pay for your donation with a credit card, you may even earn airline miles at the same time. It is a win-win situation!

Here's an idea: How about telling Athletics we'll stop withholding our donations from the team and the University if they bring back the HockeyCam for the last home weekend of the season. There is no good reason we haven't at least been able to see every home game since the end of Novbember (although their unwise decision about the radio broadcasts means we would have been prevented from having synced audio).

Jesh... are we going through this again? Those of us who decided to withhold our donations aren't going to change our minds now.

Personally, I prefer a mediocre team that I can watch than a NCAA contender that I can only keep track of by checking box scores.

[Q] Personally, I prefer a mediocre team that I can watch than a NCAA contender that I can only keep track of by checking box scores.[/Q]

Really?! Wow. I have to hope that you're in the minority on that one. Some of us have actually lived through that situation, several times, and it's actually not that much fun.

I think the key point is there was no good reason for us not to have both this year.

(1) My point was that we can/should support Coach Schafer and the team (whether one has a beef with the Athletic Dept). Look, I don't like the fee-based broadcast anymore than those on this forum, but that should not get in the way of my loyalty and support for the hockey team.
(2) I take a national contender any day. I, too, have lived through those mediocre days, including 0-4 at the Boston Garden where ECAC tournaments were held (and those were the decent years in the early 90s). It is so much more fun (esp. from the West Coast, at a jock school like Stanford ) to follow the No. 2 collegiate hockey team. (Note: Stanford does not have varsity ice hockey; it does have a club team.)

[Q] including 0-4 at the Boston Garden[/Q]

Did you miss the 2OT win vs. Clarkson in 1992, where, IIRC, Tyler McManus netted the winning goal and Parris Duffus kept us in the game throughout?

(Point Of Interest To No One But Me: that was the only college hockey game in which I caught a puck that went into the stands, coming off a Duffus save during the first OT, whereupon dozens of little kids kept coming up to me to ask if they could have the puck)

We've beaten this horse to death. Felix is right - folks here have largely made up their minds on this issue.

I can definitely say that I enjoyed last season more than this one. Yes, it's great to have the #2 team in the nation. I hope the hockey gods don't find any complaints in this. But last year I was able to listen to all of the games broadcast by the Cornell announcers and was able to watch the home games from 2500 miles away. This year I have to look for opposing team's broadcasts with their POV and can check out Age's pictures later. It's not the same.

If a genie offered the choice of free broadcasts with video forever but Cornell perrenially in the middle of the ECAC pack or a national contender that I would follow only through the boxscores, I honestly don't know what I'd choose. But the point is we shouldn't have to choose.

My first year with season tickets was 93-94, one of the "greenest" seasons in the last fourty years. I still had a blast going to games and was completely hooked, even though the team was awful. Being able to "participate" means a lot.

KeithK '93 wrote:

But the point is we shouldn't have to choose.

Exactly right.

We also shouldn't have to be preached to regarding how to spend our money.

[Q]We also shouldn't have to be preached to regarding how to spend our money.[/Q]

Just because you're in the church, it doesn't mean you have to listen to the preacher.

Please let this thread die. Not only are we repeating all of the old arguments (without getting any converts to either side), we are dredging up the same tit for tat eye-poking that this topic caused the first time.

Yup, missed that game. That was the year in which we were undecided about going to the Garden. So we watched the semifinal on TV in Ithaca, then piled into a friend's Nissan Sentra on Saturday to make the drive to Boston.

I do agree with Keith that it is NOT the same this year when those of us who are three time zones behind cannot listen to the good guy's broadcast (for free, that is). The consolation for me personally is that I made the trips to Ithaca and New England, taking in four games. I will get to watch a fifth game in a couple of weeks, as the Cornell Club in Northern CA is hosting a viewing party on March 1. (Keith, you coming??)

I went the year before, when we lost to SLU in the semis. And the year before that when we lost to RPI in the semis. I decided not to go in '92 (and head to Cali for spring break) because we didn't have much of a chance . . .

Still a major regret that I missed the 2OT Clarkson semi and the OT SLU final (even though we lost).

I'm hoping to be there, but it depends on whether I can back in time from a conference I'm attending in SoCal.