1969-70 memories

We're doing an article for CHN on the 50th anniversary of the perfect season. If anyone has any reminiscences of that season, of any kind, feel free to share. If we include it in the article, we'll quote you by name. So, if you don't mind using your real name with it, and it's not obvious from your handle, feel free to include that as well. It will mostly be comments from players on that team - but I want to sprinkle in fans/alums thoughts as well.

Be wary of anyone reminiscing about Dryden's best season ever.

Just got this email about celebrating the team.

The 1969-70 Undefeated Men's Hockey NCAA Championship Team
Saturday, January 25th, 2020
Biotechnology, G10
5:00-6:45 P.M.
Before the showdown in Lynah between the Big Red (#3) and the Harvard Crimson (#17), join us for appetizers, drinks, and some Cornell hockey history.

Guest Speakers include:

John Hughes '70, Cornell Hall of Famer & Tri-Captain of the 1970 Undefeated NCAA Championship Team (29-0 record)
Corey Earle '07, CU Historian and member of the Faithful
Andy Noel, The Meakem*Smith Director of Athletics and Physical Education

Adult Ticket: $15
Child Ticket (12 and under): $10
Appetizers and Cash Bar
REGISTER HERE
SEE WHO IS COMING
Cornell vs. Harvard
Ticket Information

And now this:

ANNUAL PHON-A-THON: Cornell Hockey's annual phon-a-thon event is back again this year! Our players will begin to make phone calls at 7:00 P.M. (EST) on both nights of the phon-a-thon. These are two of the most important nights of the year in ensuring the continued success of Cornell Hockey. The contributions from the phon-a-thon event are absolutely crucial in allowing us to hit our annual fundraising goal. The evenings launch us towards achieving the goals set for our program and these funds are used to meet our annual operating costs for our hockey program.

1970 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP CELEBRATION: Join us on January 24th and 25th, 2020 as we celebrate the 1970 Undefeated National Champions 50th Anniversary! We will be hosting Dartmouth and Harvard in ECAC play that weekend. The 1970 team will be introduced on the ice at the Harvard game (Saturday, January 25th, 2020) during the 1st intermission. The players will be wearing these commemorative jerseys on Friday night (Friday, January 24th, 2020) against Dartmouth.

The game-worn jerseys will be sold afterwards. If you are interested in this celebratory jersey, you can visit the link below and have it delivered right to your house! It would be fun to see the Lynah Faithful wear these jerseys or hoodies for the games that weekend.

Here is the link to the Cornell Hockey 1970 Championship 50th Anniversary Store: [hockey-innovations.com]

ALUMNI WEEKEND: Cornell Hockey will be hosting an alumni celebration the weekend of February 14th-15th, 2020! On Friday night (February 14th, 2020), we will be introducing the 2010 ECAC Championship team and on Saturday night (February 15th, 2020) we will be introducing the 1980 ECAC Championship team. Though these two teams will be specifically honored, we invite all alumni to come back and enjoy a weekend of Cornell Hockey and rekindle friendships! To register for the weekend please check out this link:

[cornelluniversity.imodules.com]

Mike Schafer
mcs14@cornell.edu
607-327-1069

Thankfully my memory of the details of RPI's loss to Cornell at MSG has faded over the years. The loss to BC the next night wasn't much better.

Can't we just have some rich asshole I mean hero drop $100M Pegula-style on the program and fund it for the next fifty years?

I mean, I thought some of you people were successful?

Trotsky
Can't we just have some rich asshole I mean hero drop $100M Pegula-style on the program and fund it for the next fifty years?

I mean, I thought some of you people were successful?

C'mon, Trotsky. Don't equate success with money!

I was tailoring the message. You have to know your audience.

Just a few initial thoughts from a guy who saw 22 of the 29:
1) My most everlasting memory of the '69-'70 team is just the incredible will to win that the team had. Every shift was skated as if it were the most important shift the players had ever skated. Shift changes were greeted with a round of applause or even a standing ovation, for the hard 50 seconds that group had put in.
2) After we beat BU 4-1 in the Syracuse Tournament on Jan.2, one of my friends said to me that he thought we had an off night. I replied - imagine how BU feels - that's a great BU team and they just got handled very well by Cornell. I said that my conclusion from the game was "I think we're going undefeated."
3) People look back at history, and look at the Cornell teams as if they had great talent. But the overriding factor was that Ned was a great motivator. It's often said of good motivators that players will try to run through a brick wall for them. For Ned, they wouldn't just try, they'd find a way to do it.
4) I think it's often assumed that Ned parlayed the undefeated season into getting the Red Wing job - but that's not the case at all. The night we won the Syracuse tournament, I found out through a confidant of Ned that Ned had signed a contract with the Detroit Red Wings right around Christmas, but it wouldn't be announced until after the Red Wing season ended. I was told that Bob Kane knew but virtually no one else, and the Wings did not want it disclosed. So unlike most others, I watched the remainder of the season knowing it was Ned's last.
5) Everyone remembers Dan Lodboa's third period hat trick in the NCAA final, and I vividly in my mind can still see the plays developing for both the shorthanded and the power play goal. However, in a different way, I think Lodboa's third period against Wisconsin was equally good. I remember exclaiming to my friend sitting next to me "Lodboa won't let them get past the blue line." Literally every time Wisconsin tried to enter the Cornell zone, Dan took the puck away and started the play moving in the other direction. Wayne Thomas made some incredible saves in the first two periods, but we got two past him in the third. Third period shots on goal in the rink were announced at 15-1, although I've seen different box scores since, some of which showed 0 shots for Wisconsin.
6) Before the NCAA final, a friend and I spoke with the PA announcer at Lake Placid. We asked him if he could please start his announcements with the words "Good Evening Hockey Fans" which we knew the Cornell crowd would enjoy, as that's the way things always started at Lynah. He did, and the crowd went crazy.

jkahn
Just a few initial thoughts from a guy who saw 22 of the 29:

3) People look back at history, and look at the Cornell teams as if they had great talent. But the overriding factor was that Ned was a great motivator. It's often said of good motivators that players will try to run through a brick wall for them. For Ned, they wouldn't just try, they'd find a way to do it.

A truly amazing man.. I met him once. He was the most engaging man that I've ever encountered. When he spoke to you, you felt like that most important person in the world.. He made you feel that way. At that moment, I
realized just why those young players would "try to run through a brick wall for him". And, he gave that feeling to me, a person whom he had never before encountered!

Thanks for these. I didn’t know “good evening, hockey fans” wasn’t an ACM thing. I haven’t been to Lynah in ten years and thinking about that still gets me going.

BMac
Thanks for these. I didn’t know “good evening, hockey fans” wasn’t an ACM thing. I haven’t been to Lynah in ten years and thinking about that still gets me going.

And it was gender-neutral ahead of its time.