Cornell at Rensselaer

The beat goes on: nine Cornell penalties in the first 30 minutes.

2-2 midway through, lots of penalty trouble.

Also trouble passing and setting up plays. Doesn't look like the team that played RPI in January.

Seemed like a weak major call on Miller.

J. Devin deflects another M. Devin shot. Wow!

BigRedHockeyFan
J. Devin deflects another M. Devin shot. Wow!

I think it was Patrick Kennedy. Not that it matters much, still a big 2 points!

Rita

BigRedHockeyFan
J. Devin deflects another M. Devin shot. Wow!

I think it was Patrick Kennedy. Not that it matters much, still a big 2 points!

Patrick reacted like his team had won the game. Joe reacted like he had scored the goal.

Dartmouth winning handily. According to Jason we are alone in 4th.

Have to hand it to them; that was an enormous win.

marty
Also trouble passing and setting up plays. Doesn't look like the team that played RPI in January.

...until the third period. We did look better in Ithaca against these guys.

Isn't it amazing that Union and RIP are (were) tied in the pairwise? I suppose it is because the Engineers have won so many games in which they were outplayed this season.

[www.collegehockeynews.com]

Joe Devin now has three overtime goals.

Colgate leads Union 2-0 after 1. From the opinions on USCHO the Dutchmen didn't show up for the first period. Now why couldn't they have done that against us?

Trotsky
Colgate leads Union 2-0 after 1. From the opinions on USCHO the Dutchmen didn't show up for the first period. Now why couldn't they have done that against us?

Yale leading Clarkson 3-1 after one. Union's reign could be brief.

Al DeFlorio

Trotsky
Colgate leads Union 2-0 after 1. From the opinions on USCHO the Dutchmen didn't show up for the first period. Now why couldn't they have done that against us?

Yale leading Clarkson 3-1 after one. Union's reign could be brief.

Union scored 5 unanswered goals against Colgate.

And Yale up 6-2 at Clarkson. So the top of the standings will be:

29 Union
28 Yale
--------
24 Dartmouth
22 Cornell
21 RPI
20 Princeton

If Cornell can hold serve against Harvard it sets up a battle for 3rd place Saturday night.

still a bit confused by the penalty on the break away in OT.. he hit the RPI goalie but he was also clearly faking the severity of the contact almost jumping backwards into the cage. we could have made the game a bit easier had we put home 1-2 of the breakaway type chances..

ACM

Rita

BigRedHockeyFan
J. Devin deflects another M. Devin shot. Wow!

I think it was Patrick Kennedy. Not that it matters much, still a big 2 points!

Patrick reacted like his team had won the game. Joe reacted like he had scored the goal.

I think the radio and ECAC website highlight announcer from RPI said Kennedy, but box score says Devin.

upprdeck
still a bit confused by the penalty on the break away in OT.. he hit the RPI goalie but he was also clearly faking the severity of the contact almost jumping backwards into the cage. we could have made the game a bit easier had we put home 1-2 of the breakaway type chances..

When you look at the play it is obvious that Bailen pushed Collins into Merriam. It was Bailen who was called for the matching penalty. So the ref calls both penalties?

And coach Appert complains about the officiating by stating that he doesn't complain about the officiating and diving. An old tradition.

upprdeck
still a bit confused by the penalty on the break away in OT.. he hit the RPI goalie but he was also clearly faking the severity of the contact almost jumping backwards into the cage. we could have made the game a bit easier had we put home 1-2 of the breakaway type chances..

And what was RPI's interference penalty? I was at the other end of the ice. As an aside I hate the rule to switch ends in OT. Seems like it penalizes the home team.

Jim Hyla

ACM

Rita

BigRedHockeyFan
J. Devin deflects another M. Devin shot. Wow!

I think it was Patrick Kennedy. Not that it matters much, still a big 2 points!

Patrick reacted like his team had won the game. Joe reacted like he had scored the goal.

I think the radio and ECAC website highlight announcer from RPI said Kennedy, but box score says Devin.

Replay looked like Devin to me. (After watching several times.)

marty

upprdeck
still a bit confused by the penalty on the break away in OT.. he hit the RPI goalie but he was also clearly faking the severity of the contact almost jumping backwards into the cage. we could have made the game a bit easier had we put home 1-2 of the breakaway type chances..

When you look at the play it is obvious that Bailen pushed Collins into Merriam. It was Bailen who was called for the matching penalty. So the ref calls both penalties?

And coach Appert complains about the officiating by stating that he doesn't complain about the officiating and diving. An old tradition.

Thanks, that is what it looked like to us. I yelled "If he interfered with Collins, (pushed,) how can Collins get a penalty?". Tomorrow I'll watch the replay.

One last thing before bed. If you're going to have two games like this weekend, it sure is nice to finish with this one.

Jim Hyla

upprdeck
still a bit confused by the penalty on the break away in OT.. he hit the RPI goalie but he was also clearly faking the severity of the contact almost jumping backwards into the cage. we could have made the game a bit easier had we put home 1-2 of the breakaway type chances..

And what was RPI's interference penalty? I was at the other end of the ice. As an aside I hate the rule to switch ends in OT. Seems like it penalizes the home team.

Brutlag was in Cary's way as Cary was skating backwards on the Cornell side of the neutral zone. This is likely where Appert thought there was a dive.

Jim Hyla
One last thing before bed. If you're going to have two games like this weekend, it sure is nice to finish with this one.

A sentiment shared by many of us, despite one post saying it would have been better to play RPI first ... as a warmup for Union? The bus ride back must have been a lot happier this way. And the team actually gets back at a decent hour.

Jim Hyla

marty

upprdeck
still a bit confused by the penalty on the break away in OT.. he hit the RPI goalie but he was also clearly faking the severity of the contact almost jumping backwards into the cage. we could have made the game a bit easier had we put home 1-2 of the breakaway type chances..

When you look at the play it is obvious that Bailen pushed Collins into Merriam. It was Bailen who was called for the matching penalty. So the ref calls both penalties?

And coach Appert complains about the officiating by stating that he doesn't complain about the officiating and diving. An old tradition.

Thanks, that is what it looked like to us. I yelled "If he interfered with Collins, (pushed,) how can Collins get a penalty?". Tomorrow I'll watch the replay.

I yelled pretty much the same thing at the TV, Jim. Makes no sense.

And for what it's worth, I don't think Merriam was "faking the severity of the contact." Collins is a big guy, and had a good head of steam when he hit him. I think Merriam got legitimately flattened.

Jim Hyla

marty

upprdeck
still a bit confused by the penalty on the break away in OT.. he hit the RPI goalie but he was also clearly faking the severity of the contact almost jumping backwards into the cage. we could have made the game a bit easier had we put home 1-2 of the breakaway type chances..

When you look at the play it is obvious that Bailen pushed Collins into Merriam. It was Bailen who was called for the matching penalty. So the ref calls both penalties?

And coach Appert complains about the officiating by stating that he doesn't complain about the officiating and diving. An old tradition.

Thanks, that is what it looked like to us. I yelled "If he interfered with Collins, (pushed,) how can Collins get a penalty?". Tomorrow I'll watch the replay.

You see that sometimes when the pushed player tries to get a free shot at the goalie (although I'd think that would be called charging), but it really didn't look like Collins did anything avoidable.

Tough, hard played game in both directions.
Cornell really looked clueless on the Power Play until the overtime session. No set plays, paucity of shots. Guys couldn't decide whether to shoot the puck in and chase or carry the puck in and then set up the play. We looked much better playing 5-5 or 4-4 then man up.
Overall, we shut down their power play, limited the changes in momentum against us and cleaned up in front of the net when Iles gave up some big rebounds. Great to come out of a weekend against 2 ranked teams with 2 points and control of our destiny when it comes to first round bye for ECACs.

MattShaf
Tough, hard played game in both directions.
Cornell really looked clueless on the Power Play until the overtime session. No set plays, paucity of shots. Guys couldn't decide whether to shoot the puck in and chase or carry the puck in and then set up the play. We looked much better playing 5-5 or 4-4 then man up.
Overall, we shut down their power play, limited the changes in momentum against us and cleaned up in front of the net when Iles gave up some big rebounds. Great to come out of a weekend against 2 ranked teams with 2 points and control of our destiny when it comes to first round bye for ECACs.

Right.

Despite all our griping (mine included), a sweep next weekend at home (no easy task, for sure) puts Cornell into third place in the ECAC. Not bad for a team known for blowing late third-period leads, taking numerous and sometimes stupid penalties, being often outshot by grotesque margins, struggling on its breakouts with egregious turnovers leading to easy goals, and having a frequently "clueless" power play.

Next two weekends will be interesting.

Al DeFlorio

MattShaf
Tough, hard played game in both directions.
Cornell really looked clueless on the Power Play until the overtime session. No set plays, paucity of shots. Guys couldn't decide whether to shoot the puck in and chase or carry the puck in and then set up the play. We looked much better playing 5-5 or 4-4 then man up.
Overall, we shut down their power play, limited the changes in momentum against us and cleaned up in front of the net when Iles gave up some big rebounds. Great to come out of a weekend against 2 ranked teams with 2 points and control of our destiny when it comes to first round bye for ECACs.

Right.

Despite all our griping (mine included), a sweep next weekend at home (no easy task, for sure) puts Cornell into third place in the ECAC. Not bad for a team known for blowing late third-period leads, taking numerous and sometimes stupid penalties, being often outshot by grotesque margins, struggling on its breakouts with egregious turnovers leading to easy goals, and having a frequently "clueless" power play.

Next two weekends will be interesting.

Who amongst us would have thought we'd be in this position after getting swept at home against Yale and Brown? I thought even home ice for the first round would have been a long shot. Al's recitation of the team's deficiencies is spot-on; I'm not exactly sure how they're getting it done (well, the RPI complainers will say it's all due to our "diving", but somehow, someway they've put themselves in position for a bye.

Both teams staggered into Saturday night and for the first 2 periods staggered thru it. Cornell at times seemed to think the puck was a curling stone. Swipe near it but don't touch. Defensemen engaged in a hockey version of she loves me, she loves me not. Should I cover this man, should I cover that man? Then both, but especially CU, got their mojo back for the 3rd.

Appert is a very emotional coach. Schafer is steady, unperturbable. Each team was reflecting its coach. RPI couldn't quite overcome the the depression of Friday night, while CU was readier to confront the task at hand.

Union was just too much for us. They have to be one of the top 5 in the country. Forget about that loss. RPI isn't a top 10 even but is still a very good team. After the 2nd we outplayed them at their place. With the tie at Dartmouth and comback win against SLU, CU is proving to people and more importantly to itself that reports of its demise were premature.

marty

Jim Hyla

upprdeck
still a bit confused by the penalty on the break away in OT.. he hit the RPI goalie but he was also clearly faking the severity of the contact almost jumping backwards into the cage. we could have made the game a bit easier had we put home 1-2 of the breakaway type chances..

And what was RPI's interference penalty? I was at the other end of the ice. As an aside I hate the rule to switch ends in OT. Seems like it penalizes the home team.

Brutlag was in Cary's way as Cary was skating backwards on the Cornell side of the neutral zone. This is likely where Appert thought there was a dive.

RPI ran the same neutral-zone "pick" play at least 3-4 times before getting called. They pick one defender using 2 flanking players right at the blue line so Polacek can enter the zone with a full head of steam untouched & do what he does best. They had it set up for the Engineers' first goal (check the video on the ECAC website), but since our guys decided to be spectators, there was no interference that time, & Polacek just skated around the group of 3. It's a play ripe for interference, but since it's generally away from the puck, it doesn't get seen/called as much as it should. It finally got called in OT, and the RPI homers cried bloody murder, but it was interference.

I'm also amused by the "aquatics center" quote Appert made about diving, considering I saw 2 pretty obvious cases of RPI embellishment that resulted in RPI PPs.

Cornell has a better record than both Yale and Dartmouth for the New Year.

8-2-2 Cornell
8-3-1 Dartmouth
9-4-0 Yale

A big advantage that Cornell has heading into the end of the season is depth at goalie, with two good players. Rondeau (Yale) and Mello (Dartmouth) both play >80% of the time and that becomes an issue as the season wears on. I think Cornell could beat either team, Dartmouth at home being much more likely than Yale away. Note that Cornell beat RPI this weekend when Allen York was not available (he recently had a concussion).

BigRedHockeyFan
Cornell has a better record than both Yale and Dartmouth for the New Year.

8-2-2 Cornell
8-3-1 Dartmouth
9-4-0 Yale

And Union at 11-2, with losses to Bemidji and Dartmouth, making it 11-1 in ECAC.

Al DeFlorio

BigRedHockeyFan
Cornell has a better record than both Yale and Dartmouth for the New Year.

8-2-2 Cornell
8-3-1 Dartmouth
9-4-0 Yale

And Union at 11-2, with losses to Bemidji and Dartmouth, making it 11-1 in ECAC.

8-2-2 would be much more impressive if Union hadn't handed the team such decisive losses.

Record's Weaver makes comments on both sides of penalty questions at RPI (pro Cornell comment concerning boarding major on Miller at the end of the third). Also assails Paul Stewart for likening reporter to Appert.

Troy Record's Cranky Old Man

Found some video of the game shot from the stands. Hoping to see some from the tv broadcast come up soon.

Some may find this blog piece interesting [www.withoutapeer.com]. It is certainly relevant. No comment from me since I would probably be banned from here if I did truthfully.

marty
Record's Weaver makes comments on both sides of penalty questions at RPI (pro Cornell comment concerning boarding major on Miller at the end of the third). Also assails Paul Stewart for likening reporter to Appert.

Troy Record's Cranky Old Man

I'm not sure I'd say calling the "major" aspect of Miller's penalty "controversial" necessarily makes it a pro-Cornell comment. In any case, Weaver's a whiner just like Appert.

ursusminor
Some may find this blog piece interesting [www.withoutapeer.com]. It is certainly relevant. No comment from me since I would probably be banned from here if I did truthfully.

Must be a whining epidemic in the Cap Cities. Wah wah wah.

ursusminor
Some may find this blog piece interesting [www.withoutapeer.com]. It is certainly relevant. No comment from me since I would probably be banned from here if I did truthfully.

I didn't get past "once crashing into goalie Bryce Merriam at full speed," which I presume refers to the incident where the RPI defender shoved Collins into Merriam at the conclusion of a breakaway.

First, I think the officiating was horrible for both teams. RPI fans would inevitably flee to the calls/incidents that benefit them, but they do not discuss the numerous interference/hitting from behind infractions that were committed by the Engineers and not penalized. If RPI won Saturday, we would not be having this discussion right now. I know Cornell fans will not harass ECAC officials after any game, no matter how bad the calls are, and then write an angry diatribe that is clearly biased and unproductive.

Second, RPI is simply not that good. There were plenty of RPI power plays throughout the game and they failed to convert on many of them. Although the penalty calls were sporadic and inconsistent, I do not think the refs were lenient to either team. If we meet RPI during playoffs again at Lynah or HFH, I think we have a good shot of beating them again in a three game series - and RPI fans know that.

Ursusminor, thanks for the link. After reading it, I can't say that I'm that impressed with Mr. Klump, however. He's too personal in his opinion/attacks to win over my sympathy and seems to go out of his way to cast the Cornell program in a poor light in an article that isn't (ostensibly) about Cornell. For example: "So, on Saturday, Cornell started gooning it up right from the drop, routinely mugging and instigating RPI players after whistles, once crashing into goalie Bryce Merriam at full speed." Can't say I saw that and if the full speed crash he's talking about is the one in OT, please, the CU player was shoved in the back which changed his trajectory. So if he's just going to throw that statement out there without specifics/examples, I don't see what the point is. It's a feeble basis to then say the officiating was poor. I do agree that the Cornell player wasn't strong on his feet for the second interference call (the one in OT) against RPI's Brutlag, but it may still have merited an interference call even if the player had stayed on his feet (there isn't a great shot of it from the broadcast, so it's hard to say if the Cornell player knew Brutlag was there and whether Brutlag lined up the Cornell player). The first interference on Brutlag I thought was completely merited; it looked like he put himself on a path to intercept the CU player and jolted him hard enough to send him to the ground. And all the talking of diving by CU is just not moving me as I thought the most egregious dive was by RPI's Kennedy on the major penalty. I watched that over and over at regular speed and slow mo and Miller barely makes any contact with Kennedy or transfer any force to Kennedy. And Kennedy clearly (to me) lifts and folds his legs under himself to fall forward into the boards --there's no other way to explain what happens with his legs, they retract like landing gear. The crazy thing is he ends up hitting the boards dangerously because of it. To me, that was a borderline minor penalty made into a major b/c of the dive.

Jordan 04

ursusminor
Some may find this blog piece interesting [www.withoutapeer.com]. It is certainly relevant. No comment from me since I would probably be banned from here if I did truthfully.

I didn't get past "once crashing into goalie Bryce Merriam at full speed," which I presume refers to the incident where the RPI defender shoved Collins into Merriam at the conclusion of a breakaway.

It's clear from the slo-mo replay at the Youtube link given above that the RPI kid shoved Collins into Merriam. Klump's an

ursusminor
Some may find this blog piece interesting [www.withoutapeer.com]. It is certainly relevant. No comment from me since I would probably be banned from here if I did truthfully.

Hard to understand how such a prick could be without a peer.

ursusminor
Some may find this blog piece interesting [www.withoutapeer.com]. It is certainly relevant. No comment from me since I would probably be banned from here if I did truthfully.

If there's a blogging Pulitzer for Typing, this guy has an inside track.

billhoward

ursusminor
Some may find this blog piece interesting [www.withoutapeer.com]. It is certainly relevant. No comment from me since I would probably be banned from here if I did truthfully.

If there's a blogging Pulitzer for Typing, this guy has an inside track.

Tom Reale or Jason Klump? Most of that was Tom posting what Jason originally wrote.

BTW, for those who don't know it, "without a peer" is a phrase from the RPI Alma Mater.

After watching the game on TV, I definitely don't share the RPI complaints about the officiating. In fact Cornell incurred more penalty minutes in the game.

CAS
After watching the game on TV, I definitely don't share the RPI complaints about the officiating. In fact Cornell incurred more penalty minutes in the game.

Yep. But facts don't matter to homers. It reminds me a little of one game close to twenty years ago when Princeton came into Lynah and acted like a bunch of thugs, followed by their coach (Toots Cahoon at the time) throwing a huge tantrum, and the final score was something like 8-3 in our favor. Some Princeton homer on Hockey-L posted a rant about how referees shouldn't be determining the outcome of the game, and too many calls had gone against the Tigers - at which time I responded by pointing out that two of our goals were short-handed, and suggesting that if he could find a way to blame those goals on the officiating, I would shake his hand and buy him lunch.

I probably still have that e-mail thread at home, in fact. I might entertain myself tonight by reading it again.

CAS
After watching the game on TV, I definitely don't share the RPI complaints about the officiating. In fact Cornell incurred more penalty minutes in the game.

The fact that Cornell received more penalty minutes than RPI has very little bearing on whether or not the Refs treated RPI unfairly. I would think that someone with an elite education would realize that. The difference in penalties consists of 15 to Greg Miller for an incidemt which a blind man would have called, and some would say should have caused him to be arrested for assault

If you back out Miller's 10 minute misconduct, Cornell still incurred more penalty minutes. I believe RPI actually got the better of the calls, despite Appert's constant complaining.

A long time ago, a college hockey coach who shall remain nameless told me that coaches always have, and always will, complain about officiating when they lose. He told me confidentially that he thought 98% of the officiating in college hockey was extremely good and internally consistent within each game - but the officials are easy targets when you lose, so the complaining will happen regardless, and losing coaches will occasionally report the game to the league, himself included. His final point was that there's one and really only one way to know for certain if the officiating in a game was bad - that the winning coach thought it was bad enough to report it to the league.

ursusminor

CAS
After watching the game on TV, I definitely don't share the RPI complaints about the officiating. In fact Cornell incurred more penalty minutes in the game.

The fact that Cornell received more penalty minutes than RPI has very little bearing on whether or not the Refs treated RPI unfairly. I would think that someone with an elite education would realize that. The difference in penalties consists of 15 to Greg Miller for an incidemt which a blind man would have called, and some would say should have caused him to be arrested for assault

I though Miller's "hit" was an accident caused by him losing his balance; the end result was certainly bad (and I'm glad Kennedy was able to get on his feet), but I sure didn't see it as a "dirty" play.

I thought that Miller's stick was somehow being held............why else would he crash into the boards and get shaken up himself? Unusual play for sure, I don't think there was intent but that's just my speculation. I watched it a couple of times, horrendous timing for a major. And as you said, glad that Kennedy is ok.

marty

ursusminor
Some may find this blog piece interesting [www.withoutapeer.com]. It is certainly relevant. No comment from me since I would probably be banned from here if I did truthfully.

Hard to understand how such a prick could be without a peer.

Simple... No other prick can match his prickiness.

marty

ursusminor
Some may find this blog piece interesting [www.withoutapeer.com]. It is certainly relevant. No comment from me since I would probably be banned from here if I did truthfully.

Hard to understand how such a prick could be without a peer.

I think it's a typo. It should be "Without a peter."

Hagwell has fined Stewart for his altercation with Klump [www.dailygazette.com].

Edit: Confirmed by ECAC Hockey [www.ecachockey.com]

ursusminor
Hagwell has fined Stewart for his altercation with Klump [www.dailygazette.com].

Edit: Confirmed by ECAC Hockey [www.ecachockey.com]

But I like this as well:

Klump was let go by CHN on Monday.