We're a damn good ...

I just love Coach Taylor's comment to Jason Moy on uscho.com:

"We're a damn good 10th place hockey team."

That sounds like material for the Faithful:

"10th Place Hockey Team" [clap,clap, clap-clap-clap] ....

Wish I could be there to lead the cheer...

- Tom (cuddling his 56 kbps modem tonight)

I can just hear...

"Tenth place... first place... tenth place... first place..."

"Which Team is the 10th Place Team?"

"Which Team is the First Place Team?"

Hey Tom do you get any picture from Hockeycam over the modem? I have asked this of other modem users and don't think I have ever received an answer. (If I did I sure didn't read the reply.)

Tonight of course you can try to catch it on cable or a dish!

Got to admit that I have never tried the hockeycam. Maybe that's a reason to do cable modem sometime soon.

And sigh, I confess that I have other commitments tonight, so for our imminent victory I won't even be hugging my modem (call me PW'ed).

Marty, I tried the hockeycam over the modem last year and it wasn't worth the effort. I have not tried this year because my modem connection is always a maximum of 31k so I figure it's not worth even trying. If you can actually connect near 56k it might be worth the effort, but I can't really say for sure. I have a hard enough time just keeping the audio going. But for tonight, DIRECTV RULES!!!! Go NESN!

Yale is now a damn good golf team.

Beeeej

They are probably just damn good for a 10th place golf team.

In fairness to Tim Taylor, Yale was a damn good 10th place team. We just showed 'em that we are a damn good 1st place team. And 1 beats 10...

And why are we doing anything "in fairness to Tim Taylor"? I'm much happier just busting on him for having the audacity to pretend he had a chance.

Good point.

He did have a chance...and this was hardly a walkover for cornell.

Perhaps you should acknowledge that and give them a dash of credit.

I think we all knew Yale was a scary first-round opponent, given the trouble we had with them earlier in the season. It is getting a little tiresome hearing teams that finished ten points behind us in the standings claim they're better than us.

All in all, it was actually a good series: cleanly played (although not as cleanly as the scarcity of penalties called by D.Murphy might imply), the Yale band were entertaining guests (I really hope the NESN broadcast got part of "Uncle Fucka", and the banter never got mean-spirited. Probably closer than a 1/10 series should have been, but as noted, there was very little difference between #3 and #11, and Yale was a team that matched up especially well against Cornell. Full marks to the Yale organization (although I'll be happy not to hear "Bulldog, bulldog, bow wow wow" for a while), and congrats to the Red for rolling on to the Mecca of American amateur hockey for the league championships. I'll be there Thursday cheering for RPI for a multitude of reasons. (Hard to say what the sentiment will be for the first semi. Ordinarily, the half of the Faithful who like Clarkson would be for them and the half who dislike them would still rather see Harvard lose, but I could see a strategic support of the Crimson a la 1996 to try and set up a Cornell-Harvard final.)

>"Perhaps you should acknowledge that and give them a dash of credit."

Do you mean something like the "credit" you gave Cornell two weeks ago after the win over Clarkson?

"I know the cornell folks are going to scream "whining" about this but the fact is that they have gotten away with a lot of clutch and grab stuff the past two seasons. Last season a number of ECAC coaches complained about their style of play. It doesn't show up in the PMs simply because the officials aren't calling those restraining fouls. Kotyra missed a beauty in the second period right in front on a good Tech scoring chance."

Sounds more like a "whine" than "credit," don't you think?

When I meet Tim Taylor, I will give him a "hail fellow well met" and congratulate him on the sporting effort his team put in.

Until then, when chatting amongst friends in my own house, Tim Taylor and Yale can go scratch.

Woof woof. I DID think Yale had a chance. And you can be damn sure I'll be rooting hard for RPI on Thursday. Let's not be overconfident. In one (or two, or three) games, anything can happen. As we've been telling Clarkson for years, first place don't mean jack. Prove it when it counts.

Sorry, I'm just paranoid.

It's hardly woofing after the fact, Lowell.

If the woofing gods are out, I am Lieutenant Dan in the crow's nest - come and get me!

Al,

I did say quite clearly in more than one place, USCHO and on the Roundtable, that cornell deserved to win that game. They played better than Clarkson did and took advantage of more opportunities etc. Seems you have chosen to overlook that, as usual. I hardly consider commenting on a teams style as whining. Besides, if there was a beef that night, it was with Kotyra, not with the red's play.

I also have said that they will continue to play that style until calls that are "supposed to" prevent it are made! Physical play is fine, I'm all for it. Obstruction in the neutral zone, excessive pinning on the boards??? That stuff "belongs" in the NHL! Thats about the consensus of a lot of comments made the past two seasons Al...it didn't start with me.

I saw only the last 5 minutes of last night's game on NESN and heard Bob Norton comment at the time of a late cornell penalty, something like..."when you play the style cornell does, you're going to be called for interference penalties...." I think he summed it up pretty diplomatically there...

I see no need to rehash this Al...just am hoping for a Clarkson-cornell matchup next Saturday in LP. Both teams have work to do to get there.

As for Tim Taylor's comment, I have no problem with it...do you folks really expect him to downgrade his own team? I don't see why you should be critical for his approach. No one really expected Yale to pull an upset, I don't think, but certainly they made the red work hard for their two wins and that's what the playoffs should be about!

> Sorry, I'm just paranoid.

Well, I'm not sorry, and I'm just as paranoid.

All the games at Placid are going to be close. The other four teams are closely matched, and while Cornell's had a much better season than they have, the Red aren't the kind of team that blows anybody out.

It is certainly possible for a PIG winner to win the next night -- Princeton won it all from the PIG in '98, and they weren't anywhere near as good as either RPI or Dartmouth are this season.

Certainly we start out with a *slightly* greater chance of a title -- we have to play a tired team and Cornell is the class of the ECAC right now. But:

+ Dartmouth has our number.
+ RPI is on a tear and has reason to hate us.
+ Harvard-Cornell games are always close.
+ I have no idea what to say about Clarkson in the PS when Cornell wins the RS.

Nobody should be cocky. If it was so easy to win as the favorite in the ECAC's, then Cornell probably wouldn't have rolled up titles in 80, 86, 96, and 97.

>"I did say quite clearly in more than one place, USCHO and on the Roundtable, that cornell deserved to win that game."

Nope. Not true. Nothing but the usual whining on the Roundtable. Another RichS fantasy.

Gee that's funny Al...I seem to recall you even paraphrasing if not directly quoting my comments to that end.

I'm not going to look for it again or repost it...that's ancient history. Why are you so adamant about me saying over and over..."yeah, you're good"! Have already said it and anyone looking at the results thus far can tell...

Suggest we look ahead rather than back, eh?

On USCHO yes, on the Roundtable no. Whiners-only on the Roundtable.

Am I the only one who wants to see a rematch with Dartmouth (other than the Cornell hockey team)? We shouldn't be "scared" to play a good team for the ECAC title. I think it would be most justified if we win the title knowing that we beat every team in the league at least once. And when it comes to the playoffs, RPI is just as much of a threat anyway. If you were an athlete, wouldn't you want to play Dartmouth again too, just to show them which win counts the most? Gosh, that would be such sweet revenge.

From Monday's Sun"

"I don't care. Doesn't bother me who we play," Schafer said."

Al,

Too bad you couldn't find it...it's there!

Onward and upward....please.

I'm sending Al and Rich to the sandbox with matching majors.

Are we DQ'd from the games in LP? Wait, I didn't throw a punch...I SWEAR!!!

>"Too bad you couldn't find it...it's there."

Must be this:

"I did clearly see cornell's # 7, Cook, slashing at a Tech player who's # I could not see in front of the net. Was it Poapst or O'Flaherty...I've read both? (Cook got away with a number of infractions during the game...a few right in front of us)...Kotyra looked right at it and did zippo...he should have blown the whistle and sent them both off! A few seconds later the scrum broke out...surprise, surprise!

"He also missed Murray's 2 nasty cross checks to the back of a Tech er who was down on all fours in front of the Tech bench earlier in the third period. That could easily have been called an intent to injure penalty...and perhaps any call at all might have prevented the melee later.

"My brother, a former D1 and D3 lacrosse ref, and I, were "marveling" Kotyra's lack of calls earlier which predictably led to his losing control of the game. He probably blew the call on the waved off cornell goal, missed a blatant hook/trip on a Tech player coming in alone on Underhill in the second, and called Latulippe for taking town Murray who outweighs Jay by 65 pounds after Murray took a dive. Thats just a sampler!"

Real credit, pal. I prefer our comments on Yale and Taylor. Thanks for the lecture. Try some brie next time.

> Am I the only one who wants to see a rematch with Dartmouth (other than the Cornell hockey team)? We shouldn't be "scared" to play a good team for the ECAC title. I think it would be most justified if we win the title knowing that we beat every team in the league at least once.

I absolutely agree. Championships are about proving you are the best by beating the best. Whichever team comes out of the PIG is by definition the 4th best team in the conference, and has earned the right to play the Red. Whoever they are, bring em on!

I'm sure the players are neither scared nor worried. "Quietly confident" and "businesslike" is how someone at the afterglow described them. Schafer has coached them well -- they've known how to act as underdogs, and now apparently they know how to act as favorites.

Yeah... the McRae brothers ate with us at the Afterglow and seemed both happy and confident. Among other things we talked a little bit about the COTY "controversy" and they agreed that nobody, including Schafer, seems to care about winning COTY as long as the team accomplishes what they set out to do.

Beeeej

I've also heard the team thinksthey have a shot at a bye if they can win the title. Frankly, I think that's... improbable (being charitable here), but he I wouldn't complain...

Actually, I know the team isn't "scared." I was referring to some of the people on the forum. Maybe scared isn't the best word, but you know what I mean.

I can come up with a number of entirely plausible scenarios that would put Cornell in the top 4 come next Sunday. Josh found some as well. Now if you believe the committee will award byes strictly by the numbers then it's very possible though admittedly not likely.

Aside from the obvious advantage to having a bye I would absolutely *love* to hear all of the howling from out west if Cornell and 2 HE schools were to get byes.

I've done a little history checking on the TBRW's webite (thanks, Greg Berge) and here's what I found:

a) Since 1988, when the NCAA tourney expanded to 12 teams, ECAC RS winners who also captured the ECAC tournament crown were awarded byes in the first round (1990 Colgate, 1994 Harvard, 1999 Clarkson and 2000 SLU). The notable exception was the 1991 Clarkson team.

b) Also since 1988, all ECAC RS winners made it to the NCAA tourney if they at least made it to the ECAC final four/five. The 1992 Harvard and 2001 Clarkson teams were upset in their QF series, and thus were not invited to the NCAA tourney.

c) Point b is interesting/surprising because, from a historical point of view, the eventual finish of the RS winners in Placid does not seem to matter for the NCAA tourney selection. The 1998 Yale team went 0 for 2 in the tournament, but still got an at-large bid.

Having said so, I acknowledge the inductive logic used here, and the fact that I am overlooking so many other factors at work (i.e. PWR, strengh of schedule, strength of conference, poll position, team's overall record, rule changes, etc.). Nothing is ever certain given the subjective nature of the selection process. But if this Cornell team goes 2-0 in Placid (let's all pray to that), then I think that a bye in the NCAA tourney is not that uncalled for if we only look at the precedents...

KeithK '93 wrote:

Aside from the obvious advantage to having a bye I would absolutely *love* to hear all of the howling from out west if Cornell and 2 HE schools were to get byes.

Wow, did you find a way for Cornell and UNH and BU (or Maine, I suppose) ALL to get byes? Man, the western posters on USCHO would BITCH about that.

Also remember that from (I think) 1995 to 2000, all regular season champions were automatically given tournament bids (not technically auto-bids, but the difference is irrelevant) thanks to the "Colorado College Rule".

And from 1997 to 2000, anyone who won a RS and tournament title automatically got a bye.

Assuming I didn't type in the games incorrectly, here's what I did: Cornell beats RPI and then Clarkson, BU beats UNH in HEA. CC beats Minn in WCHA and UM over MSU in CCHA. Pretty sure that left UNH, BU, Minn and Cornell as the top 4. Cornell would then win comparisons with Denver and St. Cloud due to the TUC category.

Of course, this was using the manual script so I could've made a mistake and also the file of scores I used is at home and I'm not.

Like I said, if it could happen I would absolutely LOVE to see it.

KeithK '93 wrote:

Like I said, if it could happen I would absolutely LOVE to see it.

Except that then Cornell would probably wind up going west. BU is the host, so they have to stay east, and with UNH being #1 in PWR now and probably still being #1 at the end of your scenario, the committee would have a hard time sending them.

At lease, I GUESS that's the way it'd wind up working out.

Yeah, we'd definitely end up as West #2 in the scenario I drew up. Which isn't quite as nice as being an east bye but I'd take it. And it would be great in term's of upsetting the westerners.

> Nothing is ever certain given the subjective nature of the selection process

It's really not at all subjective anymore. Going by the PWR and then the seeding logic recreated in programs like John Whelan's, the field and even the seedings have been nearly perfectly predicted the last few years.

Historical trends in selection mean nothing. If Cornell finishes in the top 4 in PWR, they'll get a bye, otherwise they will not. If Cornell doesn't get an autobid and they finish close to the top 7 in PWR among other at large contenders, and they win the comparisons with the teams around them, they'll get a bid. Otherwise, they will not.

> Wow, did you find a way for Cornell and UNH and BU (or Maine, I suppose) ALL to get byes?

That would be the funniest damn thing anyone has ever seen. Good lord, everybody west of T-burg would be reaching for their shotguns. Now I definitely have something to root for!

Greg Berge wrote:

It's really not at all subjective anymore. Going by the PWR and then the seeding logic recreated in programs like John Whelan's, the field and even the seedings have been nearly perfectly predicted the last few years.

Of course, they have always found a way to surprise at least me. But not with respect to assignment of byes, which is the point here.