Mike Stachurski

Who is this guy who is listed as a sophomore on defense and last played junior in finland, can someone bring me up to date ?????

I can only answer half the question. Stachurski was recruited for the class of 2007, and was on the roster for most of the first semester last season. He left the team sometime around early December 2003.

He is from Winnipeg and was an exchange student in Finland, where he played for the Espoo Jr. Blues.

Like you, I was very surprised to see him listed on the preseason roster. Does anyone know how this came about?

mike stachurski quit the team before last season after some problems on the team.

I don't think Stachurski is on the preseason roster:
[www.uscho.com]

[Q]Avash '05 Wrote:

I don't think Stachurski is on the preseason roster:
[www.uscho.com][/q]
He's no longer listed on the 2004-5 roster at cornellbigred.com either, but he was there when this thread was started. I suspect someone carried over his name from last year's opening roster in error.

I heard from one of the players that when Mike Stachurski came to Ithaca he was very arrogant and high up on himself. He told one of the players that he would definitelly be drafted after his freshman year and that Cornell was just a stepping stone for him into the NHL. Because of his arrogance, lack of team play, lack of skills, and dirty hits on other players in practice others on the team began to hate him. Supposedly Hornby (as well as Schafer) were very irritated by his (Stachurski's) physical play and dirty hits on others leading to scuffles between him and Hornby. Eventually Hornby's physical play against Stachurski led him to quit the team.

aha

Sounds like Hornby to me.

hornby broke stachurski's nose in one of the fights that ultimatly led to him quiting the team.

That guy was defenitely not schafer-like nor lynah-like

You guys are so dumb. It amazes me how you guys know everything about Schafer and his program. It makes me sick, like this little fellow:



Call me a troll if you must, but I don't think Schafer would tolerate fighting on his own team. If Hornby broke his nose, and Schafer let it happen, Schafer isn't protecting the very same student athletes he sought to protect (rumor has it, his players also swear during games and practices). Further, if he can't get his team to get along, he is a bad coach. There is something to be said about team chemistry, which I think we can all agree was lacking this past season.

I will say this, however. Most players use collegiate hockey as a stepping stone to the pros. Even our own Mike Schafer in the "AHCA Ask the Coach" section on uscho.com said he wants to coach in the pros.

[www.ahcahockey.com]

Talk about arrogance. Conversely, I give Mike Stachurski credit for being so adamant about his professional goals and having the drive to make it to the highest level. We can all take a page from Stachurski's book. If players like Ryan O'Byrne and Greg Hornby had half the drive as Mike Stachurski, Cornell would be the team to beat year in and year out.

Who are you to call into question the drive of Hornby and O'Byrne? And, if Stachurski was so determined to make it to the NHL, why would he quit a top D1 program just because someone was picking on him?

Please...How can you question Hornby's drive? If there's anything that kid had, it was drive. O'Byrne looks like he could benefit from a little intensity infusion, but come on. How can you applaud a locker room cancer for putting his selfish goals over the team's. Personal goals are great, but they come second when you're in a top-flight program.

[Q]Facetimer Wrote:
Call me a troll if you must, but I don't think Schafer would tolerate fighting on his own team. If Hornby broke his nose, and Schafer let it happen, Schafer isn't protecting the very same student athletes he sought to protect (rumor has it, his players also swear during games and practices).[/q]
Who said he tolerated it? Not expelling everyone who fights is a long way from "tolerating" something. I don't even accept as fact that Hornby broke Stachurski's nose. (No offense, walker, but this is the first I think anyone here has heard the story.)

[q]Further, if he can't get his team to get along, he is a bad coach.[/q]
That's right! Every time there is a personality conflict on a team it is the coach's fault. That makes it so easy to evaluate. Thanks for the thoughtful analysis. I know that a neutral observer would think that you have an axe to grind with Schafer, but this kind of reasoning makes it clear that you are just being impartial.

[q]There is something to be said about team chemistry, which I think we can all agree was lacking this past season.[/q]
Don't speak for me. The team performed about as I expected with a frosh in goal. They actually performed better than I expected given all of the defections. I would have liked better results after I realized that McKee was pretty damn good for a freshman, but I wasn't displeased with the season. And I certainly won't blame something as amorphous as "chemistry" when things like "injuries" and "major roster overhaul" are better reasons.

[q]Even our own Mike Schafer in the "AHCA Ask the Coach" section on uscho.com said he wants to coach in the pros. ... Talk about arrogance.[/q]
Or honesty. I don't see what is so arrogant about wanting to reach the very top of your chosen profession. He was answering a question. A question that was asked, incidentally, because his record of success warrants asking him if he is looking to move up. As much as I love Big Red hockey, the NHL is obviously a move up.

Either you irrationally despise Schafer despite his record of success (both on the ice and in the recruiting wars) or you childishly like to bait the fans here. Either way, you are a bore. A tedious, repetitive bore. Please find another hobby.

Oh my God, it's Page Six North. I couldn't get the board to be this gossipy if I tried. Bengy, whoever you are, congratulations, you have a bright career ahead of you. And please don't think I am being snappy; I see you are writing from Canada, so that automatically means I like you. No, really, I think my friends are sort of quietly counting the days until I move to Toronto.
OK kids, as you were...

no need to pursue this highly anger-filled thread.... i was just asking who this guy was...no need to fight....
case closed...

Way to provoke a fight for no reason Bengy. You have ruined what otherwise is the most friendly internet college hockey chat site I know. I thought Canadians were supposed to be peaceful

[Q]Facetimer Wrote:

Way to provoke a fight for no reason Bengy. You have ruined what otherwise is the most friendly internet college hockey chat site I know. I thought Canadians were supposed to be peaceful
Edited 1 times. Last edit at 08/12/04 09:59AM by Facetimer.[/q] This is why I don't want Facetimer's posts to become blah blah blah.

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. blah blah blah blah, blah blah. blah. blah blah blah blah blah blah.

CASE CLOSED !!!!!!!

Wow! Nearly a thousand hits on somebody who was up for a cup of coffee.

So we know where Mike Stachurski isn't (playing for Cornell). But where is he? Did he unmatriculate? Turn pro? Get a job modeling? (His Cornell PR photo looked kind of California surfer-ish.) Does he have some unrealized dream of playing still in Lynah (for the home team)?

If Stachurski couldn't catch on at Cornell yet he was sure he was headed to pros, that's one more story about a guy who wasn't about to be stopped from reaching for the stars just because others didn't believe in him as much as Mike believed in himself.

I mean, look at William Hung and his Inspiration CD. Others said he couldn't sing, he was too short, he couldn't act and yet - and yet - ...

He still goes to Cornell and is playing for the club team.

[Q]CU Fan Wrote:

He still goes to Cornell and is playing for the club team.[/q]


I know it definitely hasn't happened recently, but has a player from the club team ever moved up to the varsity? I'm guessing that the answer is no, but just wondering....

[Q]Avash '05 Wrote:
I know it definitely hasn't happened recently, but has a player from the club team ever moved up to the varsity? I'm guessing that the answer is no, but just wondering....
[/q]
Wasn't emergency goalie Nathan Hicks from the club team. He never actually got any ice time, although I think he dressed for a few games.

Wasn't Hicks a real player from a Michigan junior or HS team before coming to Cornell? some records show him on the 1996-97 roster just not with any playing minutes. Whether recruited or not, it wasn't as if Schafer put pads on the chubbiest undergrad he could find, explained to stand up on skates, and wedged him between the pipes.

Brian Cropper in 1970 was backed up I believe by by Bob Rule the lacrosse goalie. I don't know if Rule had previous hockey experience.

[Q]Avash '05 Wrote:

I know it definitely hasn't happened recently, but has a player from the club team ever moved up to the varsity? I'm guessing that the answer is no, but just wondering....
[/q]

Until 1993 or 1994, Cornell used to have a junior varsity team. Players on the varsity roster who were routinely healthy scratches would play in JV games. In addition, JV players not on the varsity roster one season would sometimes earn a spot on the varsity roster in a future season.

The jump from club team to varsity has been much rarer, except for a couple of third-string goaltenders. However, Damian Rocke, a varsity soccer and club hockey player, had the chance to dress and play forward for one game in the 1996-97 season, at a time when the team was ravaged with injuries. Rocke got a major and gfame misconduct for hitting from behind on what I recall was his second shift of the game.

All the players on the Cornell club team played hockey before coming to Cornell.

[Q]cbuckser Wrote:

Until 1993 or 1994, Cornell used to have a junior varsity team. [/q]

Up until 1980, Cornell used to have JV baseball as well. As many know, the Ivies abandoned Freshmen football in the 90's, and the football JV schedule is now just a few games against prep schools. Is this a trend in other sports for sub-varsity squads? What about crew? What about other schools?

Since athletics can be an important aspect in a young adult's education, I think it's sad that this happens since fewer kids get to play a sport they love. Just my 2 cents.

Cornell has a JV Football team as well as the lightweight team??

1) Hot damn! In ten days, 1000-plus hits on a topic of modest conseqentiality. We really are eager for the hockey season to start.

2) There has been a shift in college sports post-Vietnam. Through the mid-1970s in the Ivies, through about 1970 in the major sports world, freshman weren't eligible for varsity play, and since you had some real studs playing freshman hockey or soccer or lacrosse (say, Ken Dryden or Mike French, etcetera), the freshman team was the subject of some discussion and interest and attendance. ("If Julius Erving has been eligible as a freshman, UMass would have gotten as far as the NCAA round of ..." Now you pretty much have to claw your way onto the varsity as a freshman, if only as a reserve, which puts pressure on students to play more in high school. [Interesting thought: Freshmen and others on academic probation in the '60s ineligible to march against the war or cut classes at year's end.]

My memory is vague here, but as freshman-eligibility kicked in, the Ivies tried out both freshman and JV teams, shifted to JV teams quickly (or they perhaps went straight to JV), and as you've seen the JV squads kind of die out.

The one nice thing the Ivies do is have a lightweight or sprint football team for good HS players who aren't physical hulks. Would that there was also a basketball team where the playing height of the team must be under 30 feet tall (eg, you could play Yao Ming and four jockeys).

The result is the varsity level of the sport is everything. It means there are fewer, and fewer meaningful, playing experiences for student athletes, for guys (and women) who might be good enough to make a freshman team and play for a year before the talent pyramid overtakes them.

So maybe what happens if you're a middling talent athlete with good SATs, you look at a D-III school where you've got a better chance to play in your sport. I don't think anybody can complain about the quality of education at Amherst or Bowdoin.

Bill, I can only suggest that those who aren't playing at the varsity level get involved with leagues that are primarily about fun rather than about winning: I was athletically-impaired through age 27, when I started playing hockey for real... but in a local men's league. It's great fun, provides me with lots of exercise, and has given me something serious to look forward to outside of work. All of the above apply to intramural leagues, and don't require the time commitment of varsity play.

Cheers,
Kyle

My recollection of Cornell intrumurals was that for serious sports, eg football and hockey at Cornell, it lumped two disparate groups of players: HS athletes who couldn't make varsity at Cornell and who still wanted to play, possibly for more than just fun / recreation ... and duffers who wanted to play with jerseys, referees, and a bit more organization than just renting ice time or finding an open playing field. I don't know how much Cornell owes that lower caste of athletes, but at the time, it was not well served. I suppose from Cornell's point of view, it would be, "Imagine the chaos, imagine how many people would show up if we created leagues and playing times for people of every skills level." And that would be exactly the point.

At least when you go into Teagle Hall now and see rows and rows of exercise bikes or stair machines (for everyone, I believe, not just the teams), it's clear that Cornell has caught on to how important personal fitness has become. (And how dangerous it would be to ignore that, because if you don't serve all students well, it builds resentment against the money being spent on the non-revenue producing sports, which is just about all of the sports except football and hockey).

I do think smaller colleges are a good route for HS athletes who want to play a varsity sport and who don't think they'll catch on at a big school with a nationally competitive sport. But I also don't know how sophisticated a HS senior is in thinking of how good he'll be at Cornell vs. Hobart vs. at Fredonia. Should you reject Cornell for Hobart so you can play varsity soccer? Should you apply to, say, Swarthmore or Wesleyan thinking the quality of academics wouldn't be all that different but you could play on a varsity team?

Some of my fondest hours were spent at Cass Rink downtown post midnight, as well as Lynah late hours, and then after graduation in pickup leagues in Western Massachusetts where the age ranges were 20 to 65 (everyone but Charles Schultz). I found in New Jersey that most people who play past 40 are pretty serious about their hockey, even in non-checking leagues, but maybe I just need to keep looking more.

Whatever Cornell can do to make it a place where every person can find a reasonable matchup in any sport, that's great.

1374 posts and counting for a nothing thread.

Come on, on with the hockey season!

go cu

y r u still talking about mike stachurski or whatever that fuckin losers name is someone start up a new topic im getting board

[Q]billhoward Wrote:

My recollection of Cornell intrumurals was that for serious sports, eg football and hockey at Cornell, it lumped two disparate groups of players: HS athletes who couldn't make varsity at Cornell and who still wanted to play, possibly for more than just fun / recreation ... and duffers who wanted to play with jerseys, referees, and a bit more organization than just renting ice time or finding an open playing field. I don't know how much Cornell owes that lower caste of athletes, but at the time, it was not well served. I suppose from Cornell's point of view, it would be, "Imagine the chaos, imagine how many people would show up if we created leagues and playing times for people of every skills level." And that would be exactly the point.
[/q]

I would imagine the breakdown between HS athletes and duffers varies quite a bit from sport to sport. A year before I showed up, intramural lacrosse was eliminated due to too many injuries, or so I was told. Given the number of overcompetitive CNY/LI guys coming out HS that still wanted to play, it isn't hard to imagine things getting out of control. Also, I seem to remember that intramurals had a limit on the number of varsity athletes, from any sport, that you could have on any intramural team.

Other than 1 year of intramural football in the undergrad league, most my intramural experience (5 or so seasons of ice hockey and floor hockey) was in the grad league so I can't claim it is particularly representative. Anyway things could get rather heated at times. The first year of ice hockey, our team won every game in a shutout before winning the championship in an ugly ugly game where a player on the other team actually threw a couple of punches at one of our guys and was ejected. After the game, the losers filed a complaint with intramurals and we were stripped of the title after the fact. Turns out we had signed up for the wrong league; because we had a mixed team of undergrads, grads and staff on the team, we were supposed to play in the grad league, not the independent league. (The other two leagues being Frat and Dorm.)

Another year, we lost the floor hockey championship to a team from the B school. They were utterly horrible skillwise but were amazingly conditioned and outscored us in the final minutes. After the fact, we found out that 3 or 4 of their guys regularly ran marathons and a couple more played adult league soccer. Still, I have 3 intramural champs t-shirts in my dresser, so I can't complain.

But yes, after all that rambling, I'd agree that intramurals tended to mix casual just having fun players with more athletic, serious players. Other than the fight I mentioned above this didn't usually seem to be a problem as skill levels within a team were more similar or the team had enough good/great players to carry the crummy ones (like me on skates)*. Occasionally, you would have 1 good player on a crummy team that would try to carry team and get frustrated but this wasn't the norm in my experience.

Of course, I also remember friend of mine who was a Sammie brother trying to recruit ex-HS hockey players during rush so they could field a good intramural hockey team. So the frat league may have been completely different.

Maybe Pat ref'd some of those Frat league games and can comment?




*(even when you've never played between the pipes before, getting a shutout isn't that tough when the other team only has one player that can lift the puck.)

[Q]jeh25 Wrote:Turns out we had signed up for the wrong league; because we had a mixed team of undergrads, grads and staff on the team, we were supposed to play in the grad league, not the independent league. (The other two leagues being Frat and Dorm.)[/q]

One can see clearly how a group of undergrads, grads, and staff should be playing in the grad league not independent league. <g>