Home Playoffs

FYI, with last nights results, Cornell has clinched a home playoff series.

Even if we lose all four remaining games, the worst we can finish is 7th. That will require both Harvard and Yale to win out, which IMO is rather improbable. If we get two points, and Harvard only gets 6, we move up to 6th. And improbable though it may be, we can still finish in first, too.

I won't go through all the permutations, but I think we most likely will get the 1st round bye, especially if Dartmouth loses to Brown on closing night. This is even more likely if Yale gets a win against RPI or Dartmouth. Boola Boola!

Hang on tight...it's going to be a bumpy ride!

JH

A lot more bumpy for those wearing the uniforms.


We can just sit back and watch.

And hopefully, enjoy the result.

JH

Regarding the Ivy title implications, Cornell has done everything in its power the past two weeks, defeating Dartmouth, Yale and Princeton.

Now for Cornell to get a share of the title, Dartmouth has to defeat Brown and have at least one more loss against Princeton, Yale or Harvard.

Fortunately, the Dartmouth/Brown game is on the final night of the regular season, and we'll know whether we have to root for Dartmouth (to get a share of the Ivy Title) or for Brown (to get a first-round bye over Dartmouth, possibly).

The most important thing is their destiny is completely in their hands. Of the four remaining games, three are against average or below average teams (Union, Clarkson, St. Lawrence) and there is absolutely no reason why they shouldn't win all three of those games. The other game will have the biggest effect on the positional outcome of the season. The RPI game Friday night is a HUGE game. With Colgate and Brown cooling down, Cornell and RPI are the two hottest teams in the ECAC. I think the ECAC Post Season Championship will go to either Cornell or RPI.

What I want to see (And a few side effects have to cause this)... Is

If Cornell sweeps all of its remaining games, and Brown and Dartmouth lose once this weekend. Then The Brown/Dartmouth games determines our choice of titles! a D win gives us the Ivy, while a B win gives us the bedpan.

Lots of stuff has to happen before this is can come to fruition, but its an interesting thought.

Felix Rodriguez wrote:

What I want to see (And a few side effects have to cause this)... Is

If Cornell sweeps all of its remaining games, and Brown and Dartmouth lose once this weekend. Then The Brown/Dartmouth games determines our choice of titles! a D win gives us the Ivy, while a B win gives us the bedpan.

Lots of stuff has to happen before this is can come to fruition, but its an interesting thought.

Is this right? We're three points behind Brown. If Brown goes 3-1 (and beats Dartmouth) then they still finish one point ahead of us (32 to 31) for the Cleary (assuming we win out) and they win the Ivy title outright. Brown has to lose twice for us to take the Cleary.

Bill,

Felix said... "If... Brown and Darmouth lose once this weekend", so the B/D game would then be a second loss for one of them.



Post Edited (02-15-04 15:24)

DeltaOne81 '03 wrote:

Bill,

Felix said... "If... Brown and Darmouth lose once this weekend", so the B/D game would then be a second loss for one of them.



Post Edited (02-15-04 15:24)

True but it doesn't mean we win a title which is how I interpreted Felix's original statement. I accounted for a loss this coming weekend, assuming Brown and Dartmouth each go 1-1. If Brown then beats Dartmouth and also beats Vermont that means they go 3-1 for six points. With a three point lead they still beat us by a point for the Cleary, even if we take eight points, and they take the Ivy title with 17 points (we have 15 and are done with Ivy games. Dartmouth would finish out 2-2 and finish with 13 Ivy points). He's right in that if Dartmouth goes 3-1 in its final four games (all Ivy games) including a win over Brown then Dartmouth, Brown, and Cornell all tie with 15 points and we share the Ivy title. In this scenario Brown will have gone 2-2 and assuming we go 4-0 we would pass Brown in the standings. I haven't factored in Colgate or RPI in this. Felix said, "while a B win gives us the bedpan". The way I see it Dartmouth must beat Brown for us to get the Cleary as well as lose at least one of the next three games - or Brown could beat Dartmouth (and get the Ivy title) while losing two of the next three.

Maybe I'm missing something but your post didn't clarify it for me (and I say that with no disrespect). Or maybe I should have had a third cup of coffee and a remedial math course.

I had three semesters of calculus and that still doesn't help

If we win out, we finish 1st, 2nd, or third depending on Brown and Colgate. Reason: if we win out, that means we beat RPI, so we're at least 2 points up on them. Also even if Dartmouth wins out, we finish ahead of them if we win out.

Therefore, the final results depend on Brown and Colgate. If Brown goes 2-2 we can pass them. If Colgate loses to RPI we jump them.

And AFAIC, the Ivy title is irrelevant. Nobody cared about the Ivy title when I was in school - the only thing that mattered then and matters now is winning the conference tourney.

JH

The players and coaches might view the "irrelevance" of the Ivy title differently. I believe it's one of their "4 B"s.

Winning a share of the Ivy title was a pretty big deal when I was in school (82-85), but for most of that period ECAC honors were unthinkable so it may have been con-sol-ation.

Ivy update here: [members.cox.net]

The schedule is weird -- Dartmouth has one game remaining against each Ivy except us. Judging from Princeton this past weekend, that is a Dartmouth win. To think about a share, we have to posit a Dartmouth win at Brown -- certainly not impossible, especially the way Bruno layed down this weekend. So, Dartmouth then needs to cough up 2 points combined against Harvard and Yale. Yale is actually pretty hot and might take care of that all by themselves.

It is a team goal and therefore important, and it's still possible.

BTW, note Yale's shizophrenic season: 1-8 vs Ivies, 9-0 vs non-Ivies, including a sweep of Colgate.

Greg, I also get the sense that the Ivy title was something of a consolation that developed during the down years.

Additionally, up until the early 80's the consistent strength of the ECAC was usually Cornell, Clarkson, BU, and UNH. The rest of the Ivy League was usually so weak, it wasn't that much of an achievement to win the Ivies. It was essentially a given that Cornell would be the Ivy champs or at least be #2.

Besides winning the Ivies didn't get you anything. Winning the ECAC got usually got you a berth in the NCAAs.

JH

Jeff Hopkins '82 wrote:Additionally, up until the early 80's the consistent strength of the ECAC was usually Cornell, Clarkson, BU, and UNH. The rest of the Ivy League was usually so weak, it wasn't that much of an achievement to win the Ivies. It was essentially a given that Cornell would be the Ivy champs or at least be #2.

Not sure about #2, but Cornell won a share of the Ivy title only twice in the nine seasons between 1974 and 1982: [members.cox.net]

It's important enough to get a banner in the rafters. I think that says plenty.

Bill, you're totally right - I don't know what I was thinking...

Brown is guaranteed the Ivy title right now. They can only share if they lose to Dartmouth. And even if they lose once this week, they can still take the spitoon if they win all other games.

Since 2000-2001 Harvard has owned Dartmouth - kind of like how Dartmouth has owned Cornell. Dartmouth is 1-6-2.

11/08/2003 T Dartmouth 2 Harvard 2 ot
03/21/2003 L Dartmouth 3 vs Harvard 5 ECAC Semifinals
02/21/2003 L Dartmouth 1 Harvard 4
11/08/2002 L Dartmouth 2 @ Harvard 5
11/10/2001 T Dartmouth 3 Harvard 3 ot
11/04/2001 L Dartmouth 2 @ Harvard 5
03/17/2001 L Dartmouth 2 vs Harvard 3 ot ECAC Consolation
02/09/2001 W Dartmouth 7 Harvard 0
11/11/2000 L Dartmouth 2 @ Harvard 5

i say that give the ivy title a name and a piece of hardware and every team will (or begin to) find it relevant!

Sorry, Age. I look at those banners that say "Ivy Champs" and go "so what." It's like all the "Patrick Division Champion" banners in Philly. Meaningless.

If you were the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, would you remember that you lost the Stanley Cup or would you feel the pride of winning the Western Conference?

JH

It is a good reminder of an accomplishment - maybe not a productive accomplishment in providing an autobid, but one that says we're better than Brown, Sucks, Dartmouth, Princeton, and Yale on a given year. We are a group of schools, and we want to be the best one out of them.

IMHO, winning the Ivy championship last year was quite a feat. 5 of the top 6 teams in the leauge last year were Ivy, as was the whole ECAC final four. Namely - nobody in the leauge could have touched the Ivy title if they had wanted to. Maybe it doesn't mean that much EVERY year, but certainly it's picking up meaning as the ivies become more consistently good every year.

after all the ivy league was designed as a sports league...

And ivysport.com has put out some nice championship shirts the last couple of years. We had to wait until this season to get the ECAC champion gear from PSP.

[Q]BTW, note Yale's shizophrenic season: 1-8 vs Ivies, 9-0 vs non-Ivies, including a sweep of Colgate.[/Q]

So, do you think we can finally quell all that "E-Z-a-c" crap we get?



Post Edited (02-16-04 23:35)

dss28 wrote:

[Q]BTW, note Yale's shizophrenic season: 1-8 vs Ivies, 9-0 vs non-Ivies, including a sweep of Colgate.[/Q]

So, do you think we can finally quell all that "E-Z-a-c" crap we get?

Last year, yes; this year, probably not. The ECAC is likely to join the scrub conferences with only a single NCAA representative.



Post Edited (02-17-04 01:19)

We're going to keeping getting that crap until we start winning a respectable number of NC games as a conference.

I don't remember when the last time was that the ECAC had a winning record against the rest of the Big Four. 1988?

bigredapple wrote:
Last year, yes; this year, probably not. The ECAC is likely to join the scrub conferences with only a single NCAA representative.

Unless Brown wins out, only to be upset by Cornell in the the championship game, no?

The ECAC's Non-conference record would look a bit better if we were to count the league games against UVM as NC and discard UVM's current NC games. This sort-of makes sense because UVM is leaving -- then again, they haven't left yet.

min '97 wrote:

i say that give the ivy title a name and a piece of hardware and every team will (or begin to) find it relevant!

Umm... ermmm... Kinda like this one?

Cowbell Guy wrote:

min '97 wrote:

i say that give the ivy title a name and a piece of hardware and every team will (or begin to) find it relevant!

Umm... ermmm... Kinda like this one?

Nice pic. Who is the butcher that scratched in Cornell in 2002? (Or does it look that way because it was "fresh" at the time of the etching?)

John E Hayes '98 '00 wrote:

bigredapple wrote:
Last year, yes; this year, probably not. The ECAC is likely to join the scrub conferences with only a single NCAA representative.

Unless Brown wins out, only to be upset by Cornell in the the championship game, no?

While that is a scenario I would be comfortable with , is Cornell even the team that would give Brown the best shot for an at-large NCAA bid as ECAC runner-up?



Post Edited (02-17-04 10:28)

This was from last season's hockey celebration thing after it was over, and that was from 2002, so it was roughly as fresh as most of the stuff in my fridge.

[Q]is Cornell even the team that would give Brown the best shot for an at-large NCAA bid as ECAC runner-up?[/Q]

The besst shot would probably be losing to a non-TUC in the semis, then beating Colgate in the Consolation.
In fact, Colgate has the best pairwise in the conference now, right? So wouldn't the Raiders really be the team to look to as an at large hope?

No matter who it is, I think if a Brown or Colgate is to make it at large and not win the ECAC, they'd have to do it like Colgate did in 2000, lose the semi, win the Consy. That's because their position is so tenuous in the PWR, that they can't afford another TUC loss. A 2nd place ECAC finish gurantees a TUC loss, whether it's Cornell that beats them or Princeton.

I agree that Ivy champ and division championship banners are excessive, but to answer your question, the Ducks and their fans (I got the verbal abuse of Broduer going in Game 3) are very proud of coming within one game of the Stanley Cup, in spite of the disappointment of not winning. Weren't you proud of our run to the Frozen Four last year? By your logic regarding the Ducks, only NCAA championship banners should hang. Forget those meaningless ECAC titles.

No. Colgate has a decent chance. And they don't necessarily need to win out until the title game. They do need some help from opponents of the other bubble teams.

I disagree that banners for Ivy Championships are excessive. The Ivy League hockey championship predates every existing league or championship in hockey with the exception of the WCHA. If the Pentagonal League is included (as it is on the Hobey Baker Trophy), it is the oldest. This isn't some made up title created to add banners. It's a fifty year tradition. It may not be as important as the ECAC title, but it's still an accomplishment worth honoring.

[Q]Mike Ack wrote:

It is a good reminder of an accomplishment - maybe not a productive accomplishment in providing an autobid, but one that says we're better than Brown, Sucks, Dartmouth, Princeton, and Yale on a given year. We are a group of schools, and we want to be the best one out of them.[/Q]Well some would disagree that winning the Ivy title means that team is better. One only has to look at the times a team did that, but lost the ECAC's. Then my thought is, so what to the Ivy title. Much like winning the regular season but losing the playoffs, who cares? I was much happier when we came from number 8 to win it all, than I'd be vice versa.

[Q]Well some would disagree that winning the Ivy title means that team is better.[/Q]Winning the Ivies means that we were better than the other five squads in a home and home round-robin, which is probably the best format for deciding who is the best team. So it does mean something.

[Q]Winning the Ivies means that we were better than the other five squads in a home and home round-robin, which is probably the best format for deciding who is the best team. So it does mean something.[/Q]And as they used to say, "that and a dime will get you a cup of coffee".

good to know! totally didn't realize that they passed out plaques for ivy titles, aka hockey baker trophies!

Jim Hyla '67 wrote:

[Q]Winning the Ivies means that we were better than the other five squads in a home and home round-robin, which is probably the best format for deciding who is the best team. So it does mean something.[/Q]And as they used to say, "that and a dime will get you a cup of coffee".

To quote Luke Skywalker, "I care." Winning the Ivy title is certainly better than NOT winning the Ivy title. It matters, even if it doesn't result in a tourney bid. When you think about it, winning the NCAA title and a dime will get you that same cup of coffee.

I remember posts where people would chart the "New York" title (Cornell, 'Gate, Clarkson, SLU, RPI, Union) - I cared (though not much) about that also.

[Q]big red apple wrote:

When you think about it, winning the NCAA title and a dime will get you that same cup of coffee.[/Q]Yeah, but it tastes so much sweeter. Sort of like espresso vs regular.

Coffee bad (it'll stain the ice)...Cornell winning hockey banners good (those stains are easier to clean). But we should still try to get all these proverbial cups of coffee anyway.

The front page of cornelldailysun.com has a poll that asks, How far will the men's hockey team go this season?

Among the options are "ECAC Champions" and "NCAA Tournament"

Aren't they one and the same? Or was that your point?

JH

We could win and turn down the bid.

Jeff Hopkins '82 wrote:

Aren't they one and the same? Or was that your point?

JH

I assume that was Avash's point.

However, if the Sun staff doesn't fully understand the PWR, they may think it is possible for us to make the NCAA tourney *without* winning in Albany. After all, that *has* happened in the current undergrad's tenure with our at large bid in 2002 after losing to the Cantab's in that double 2OT. (Damn you Ty Kolarik!)

Nevermind that Whelan has a better chance of winning the Noble Prize this year than Cornell has of getting an at-large bid...

Greg Berge '85 wrote:

We could win and turn down the bid.

Go ahead and laugh, but this happened once. Hopefully those with longer memories than mine can fill in the details, but during the '60s, there was some dispute between the Ivy League and the NCAA which led to the Ivies boycotting NCAA tournaments. Thus in 1963, Harvard won the ECACs and did not go on to the NCAAs. I also thought I read that, had Cornell beaten Clarkson for the 1966 ECAC championship, the Big Red would have stayed home... but I see that Brown went to the '65 NCAA tourney as the ECAC runner-up, so perhaps that was not the case.

SLU was invited in 1964 and chose not to go. Also Clarkson had an undefeated team one year (1956?) that chose not to go because half the team would have been ineligible.

... speaking of clarkson, we haven't seen/heard much form Rich S this season ... any thoughts?

al ... what did you do to him???

[Q]Jeff Hopkins '82 wrote:

Aren't they one and the same? Or was that your point?

JH


I assume that was Avash's point.[/Q]


Indeed it was



Post Edited (02-19-04 20:40)

[Q]Bill Fenwick wrote:

I also thought I read that, had Cornell beaten Clarkson for the 1966 ECAC championship, the Big Red would have stayed home... but I see that Brown went to the '65 NCAA tourney as the ECAC runner-up, so perhaps that was not the case.[/Q]You are right (as much as I can remember), we would not have gone. I thought it had to do with the IVY's not agreeing to the grade point requirement that the NCAA had set up then, but then I don't know why Brown would've gone? So, can you help Al?

edit: Actually, the NCAA site says it was Clarkson and BU in 66, so , I think I'm right about the reason. Although, it wasn't because we chose not to go, rather we were not allowed to go. And I misread that Bill said Brown went in 65, not 66 that I was thinking of. But then I don't know why he brought up Brown in 65 while discussing the 66 tourney?



Post Edited (02-19-04 22:43)

There was a pissing match between the Ivies and the NCAA that I think only lasted a year. The details have faded, but the essence of what I remember is that the NCAA wanted to enforce a standard minimum GPA for player eligibility across all schools for the first time. The Ivies already had a higher minimum, and the NCAA wanted them to lower the academic eligibilty standard. You can imagine the negative reaction to that one in the ivory towers. So, the Ivies were out of tournaments for a year until people at the NCAA came to their senses and backed down.
From the NCAA web site (http://www.ncaa.org/ ->about->history->NCAACenturySeries->timeline)
[q]January 1965 The Convention adopts the "1.6 rule," which sets an academic floor for the award and retention of financial aid based on a prospect's ability to predict a grade-point average of at least 1.600.

January 1966 Convention rejects attempts to weaken or delay 1.6 rule.

May 1967 Compliance with 1.6 rule noted by 93.5 percent of the membership.[/q]

Jim Hyla '67 wrote:
edit: Actually, the NCAA site says it was Clarkson and BU in 66, so , I think I'm right about the reason. Although, it wasn't because we chose not to go, rather we were not allowed to go. And I misread that Bill said Brown went in 65, not 66 that I was thinking of. But then I don't know why he brought up Brown in 65 while discussing the 66 tourney?

I mentioned Brown because I was under the impression that the dispute David Harding talked about had applied to Harvard in '63 as well, and I was wondering why Brown accepted the bid in '65. But since this dispute apparently affected only the '66 tournament, I'm dazed and confused again. Did Harvard turn down a bid in '63, as I've always thought, or did they not get one in the first place? Inquiring minds want to know...

I think David Harding's got it right.

As best as I can remember, the 1965-6 season was the only one affected, and it cost us an NCAA appearance. That team could have done some damage, as it routed BC 9-0 and BU 8-1 in the ECAC quarters and semis before a really terrific Clarkson team with the late Terry Yurkiewicz in goal stoned 'em in the finals. Clarkson went on to beat Denver in the NCAA semis but lost to Michigan State in the championship game.

FYI, everything I've seen online about the schedules says that Dartmouth is at Brown on Friday, the 27th. They finish at Harvard on Saturday, the 28th. Not sure what impact that has, but Harvard probably won't sell out for Dartmouth, so if any Boston-area fans want to catch that one...and root for Harvard for once (can you imagine?)...you might give it a shot.

The Sun and the CU Library has embarked on a project to digitize the Sun's archive. (http://cdsun.library.cornell.edu/)
They have some samples up as they look for donations to fund the project. One of the samples is from 3/14/66. There's an aricle about ECACs that year and how despite being #2 in the East, Cornell was staying home from the Nationals because of the Ivy boycott and it seemed pertinant to this old discussion.

My favorite quote in the article might be, "BU beat Brown for third place Saturday, 5-2, and at any mention of the NCAA there was a great deal of booing."

Those Sun articles are great fun! Harking back to the discussion of goalies, I was interested by these two about the freshman team in the spring of 1966:
[dpr.oclc.org]

25 February 1966

The unbeaten freshman team was preparing to face Colgate again: “Just one month ago, the frosh walked all over the Red Raiders in Lynah, blanking them behind George Swan’s goaltending, 16-0. Ted Coviello racked up an unbelievable six goals in that contest. stevens plans to split the goaltending between Ken Dryden and Chris Elwell. Swan will play the final game against UCC next weekend."

17 March 1966

Looking forward to the following year: “All-Ivy goalie Errol McGibbon will graduate, but experienced Dave Quarrie returns. Ken Dryden and George Swan will probably have to fight it out for the other position. Harkness may keep all three, however.”

Could you post what dates these papers were? Everytime I click on the links, it just sends me to the main page... Thanks

[Q]Bio '04 Wrote:

Could you post what dates these papers were? Everytime I click on the links, it just sends me to the main page... Thanks [/Q]
I believe March 14 is the Monday after the ECACs. Wednesday the 9th would be the day after the 9-0 first round win over BC, after which Ned said he'd never seen a team play so hard.

From the 14th:

Harvard Squidgers Outscore Red Team

The Cornell tiddlywinks team dropped its first match to a strong Harvard team last week.

I've edited my post to add the dates.
25 Feb 1966 and 17 March 1966
I wasn't paying enough attention to notice that they weren't linking to URL's but actually returning results from a lookup. I had done a search for 1966 articles incluing the words hockey and NCAA.

[Q]marty Wrote:

From the 14th:

Harvard Squidgers Outscore Red Team

The Cornell tiddlywinks team dropped its first match to a strong Harvard team last week.

[/Q]
Yes, but only by having one player squop while the other squidged.