CHAMPIONS!

Dartmouth tied. Cornell has won the RS championship.

...but a disappointing way to do it....

(I'll be happy later. Right now I'm annoyed.)

Yeah! Congrats to the team! Thank you Coach Schafer!

oh, lighten up keith, will you?
cornell's last RS title was before I was born...

other observations... hahvahd continues its downfall; brown and rpi keep moving up; and scary as it is, cornell may face slu again...

what does the dartmouth tie mean for the ivy championship?

Cornell is the first winner of the Cleary Cup. Ain't that a Bit$h .

Dartmouth still can win the Ivy outright with a win over Yale tomorrow. If they tie or lose tomorrow we clinch at least a shre of the Ivy (remember, Harvard can catch us in the Ivy standings by beating Princeton/yale next weekend).

i dont know what happened to lynah..so quiet, pretty much uncreative...seemed like the townie sections were louder than the student sections! and sections E-G werent filled until more than halfway through the first period...it was pretty pathetic.

cornell just hasnt played #8 well ever since the princeton game. we played crappy then, nearly lost/went to OT with to a faster, more agile yale team, lost a hard fought game to dartmouth, beat a really awful vermont team, and now have tied st lawrence... the dominating play that we saw earlier in the year is pretty much gone (esp evident in the first period....the second and third periods were a lot better, we just couldnt capitalize on some chances), it seems. lets hope we find our dominating ability through all periods soon

edit:also, any word on the women's bball game? i saw the end of regulation...how did it go in OT?

The Cleary and a buck will get you a ride on the T.

For what it's worth, Dartmouth should've lost tonight and given you guys at least a share of the Ivy title. Despite outshooting Princeton 45-28 or so, Dartmouth absolutely fell apart in the 3rd and OT and probably the latter part of the 2nd as well. We were fricking lucky to survive and gain the 1-1 tie. I think if it was anyone but Princeton we would've lost, fortunately Princeton was a very bad team that had a great night from a goaltender.

Hopefully we can beat Yale and still win the title outright, but after tonight I'm not nearly as confident as I was after last weekend. Any momentum Dartmouth had following the 2 great games last weekend was definitely lost tonight.

In fact if I were a Cornell fan (which thankfully I'm not ) I'd feel pretty good about my chances of sneaking away with at least a share of the Ivy Title as well.

I'm sure Dartmouth will be all ready for tomorrow. So don't try this reverse woofing on us!

Go Yale!

I am VERY happy to win the RS title... I have been waiting (no exagerration) for 21 years.

I don't think it was backing in. Backing in is getting the title on less than a win on the LAST day. With 3 games to go, it's a solid, dominating title!

It sucks to be so many miles off from the next person who realizes just what this team, as opposed to so many great Cornell teams, has just accomplished.

The regular-season title is a phenomenal achievement, and I'm extraordinarily happy that Cornell won.

The disappointment over tonight's tie, the understated reaction to clinching first place, and the concern over the team's play over the last five games are a testament to another impressive accomplishment: raising the expectations for this team.

Wonderful irony there, since Cornell also ended his head coaching career. Right up there with Clarkson winning the regular season in the first year after the CC rule was repealed but the last year before there was a trophy for the RS winner.

It's a little disappointing to clinch it with a tie, and also as a result of other games played (so the Faithful missed out on chanting opportunities), but of course the fact that it's already wrapped up with three games to play is a testament to this team's dominance of the ECAC all season long.

Now the task is to ratchet the intensity back up and not enter the playoffs flatfooted.

i think with the tie we drop to #11 in pwr/rpi

After all of last night's results, Cornell is tied for 9th in PWR with Michigan and UA-Fairbanks. They are behind both in RPI, so they are effectively 11th at the moment.

A bright spot is that the clumping of PWR rankings occurs immediately above Cornell: 3 schools have 24 pair victories, 1 has 23, 1 has 22, 3 have 21 (Cornell among them). The next team below has 18 pairs. That suggests there may be a lot of fluidity in the ranking from 11th all the way up to 4th. Of course, for Cornell to take advantage, they probably have to win from here on out.

Greg Berge wrote:

After all of last night's results, Cornell is tied for 9th in PWR with Michigan and UA-Fairbanks. They are behind both in RPI, so they are effectively 11th at the moment.

More to the point, they lose the individual comparisons with both.

Some perspective on the title:

[www.spiritone.com]

does anyone know what % of teams that have won the RS have also won the ECAC title?

Only 15 out of 40 top seeds have won the ECAC tourney (provided I can count, which I can't), but I think the numbers from before the final five format won't matter as much, due to the various flaws in the final five system that stack the deck in favor of the top seed. Since the final five was instituted, 2 out of 4 #1 seeds have won the ECAC title. However, 3 of 4 #1 seeds at Placid have gone on to win the Whitelaw since 1998.

Of course, 4 tournaments isn't what I'd call a big sample size. Still, it is nice to know that *if* Cornell gets to Placid, then a) there will be 2 Cornell games, regardless of outcome, and b) Cornell gets a tired opponent in the SF game.

The bigger concern at this point is who Cornell will face in the *first* round. Yale and SLU are scary, although given the choice I'd rather see Yale. I think SLU has more depth and an edge in goaltending.

And Cornell has won four out of five as top seed (but long ago); Clarkson, three out of ten, for comparison.

Except for the 1-3 PIG-avoidance advantage over 4-5 (barring upsets), and the 1-5 home ice advantage over 6-10, the seedings don't mean much--especially with the balance from 2 through 11 this year. I just hope the "RS title" business hasn't taken the team's usual focus off the tournament.

Having the last line change throughout the ECAC Tournament will be helpful, as will facing the play-in-game winner in the semifinals.

Hard to say. Depends who wins the PIG.

I think there are 3 distinct advantages to being #1:

1) We get to play on Friday afternoon against a team who had to play the night before - It doesn't matter who it is that comes out of the PIG, they're going to be a tired team, and that will give us an advantage... I can't think of any team that would PREFER playing Friday afternoon after playing Thursday night as opposed to playing Friday afternoon with almost a full week of rest.

2) Assuming we make the finals, we will have more rest than the team we play... The # 1 team gets to choose which of the Semi-final games (Friday afternoon or Friday night) they get, and I can't remember the # 1 team ever choosing the later game... It may not be much, but it does give the # 1 team a few more hours of rest

3) Line changes - # 1 team is the home team throughout, and gets to make the last line change before a face off, therefore they can always get the line combinations they want

About #2, I thought they decided the #1 teams plays #4/5 on the Friday Night game always. I remember someone telling me that they decided that it was too much to have the play-in winner play in the afternoon.

I know I remember that we played Harvard last year Friday afternoon... and SLU had the home ice on that one.

On #3. How does that work? I didn't know home ice worked that way.

I may be wrong on #2... I know that before the Final Five, and the PIG, the #1 team got to choose which of the Friday games they wanted... But, now that I'm looking at the ECAC home page, it appears I was incorrect on that point, so I apologize...

So, it appears that the # 1 seed actually does have less rest on Saturday (which is more fair overall, since it gives the PIG winner a bit more time to rest), but since it's only 3 hours, I never really considered it that big a deal...

As for face-offs, the home team (in both college and the NHL) gets to make the last line change before a face off... So, when the whistle stops play, the visiting team makes their changes, and then the home team can match-up with their own changes... This way, if we know we want a certain line against, say, the top scoring line of another team, we can ensure, for the most part, that we get that matchup...

They stopped allowing the #1 seed to choose (and they always chose the early game Friday) after the first year of the PIG when it was clear that this was more of an unfair advantage than the league wanted to give the top team (the league wanted the #1 to win back then to take advantage of the Clarkson rule).
Probably they'll go back to giving the top seed the choice next year when the PIG is gone.

I could be wrong, but wasn't 1998 the first year of the PIG (i.e., the year that Princetoin swept the PIG, SF, and F (in double overtime)?

Correct.

I am stoked. ECAC Regular season champions. Ivy League Champions. What a great damn year. I couldn't care less who we play in the tournament. We are the best team in the league this year, and it shouldn't matter what order we play the other teams in. Either we will win, or we won't.

LET'S GO RED!!!

Either we will win, or we won't

The sage has spoken. Talk about hedging your bets on predictions. . . )

OK, it's Sunday and we beat Clarkson to make it a 3 point weekend. Now I can be really happy. WE'RE #1!!!

With the guaranteed 5 point lead by season's end, you'd have to go back to the 93-94 season (i think) to see a team that had such a large lead at seasons end. If we maintain our 9-point lead with wins against RPI and onion, you'd have to go back to 89-90 when colgate had a 9 point lead over RPI at season's end to find such a large points lead at the end of the season...how's that for another accomplishment! Or maybe its completely meaningless

Incidentally, I predict we'll beat union and lose to RPI next weekend. Just a hunch.