Clutch-and-grab: unfair rap on Cornell?

Watch for this kind of article to pop up with regularity in papers writing about Cornell hockey: the belief that Cornell is a clutch-and-grab team, followed by the writer's shock when it's their team, not Cornell, that spends more time in the penalty box.

[www.thecrimson.com]
>>> Going into Cornell’s Lynah Rink, the Crimson probably didn’t expect to draw the whistle more often than the Big Red, though that’s precisely what happened, 7-5. After all, Cornell has historically been the bigger, slower, clutch-and-grab-styled hockey squad, and this year’s Harvard lineup features plenty of small, speedy forwards as well as skaters both large and nimble.

The Crimson posits Cornell is big and slow whereas Harvard has at least some skaters who are "both large and nimble." Hmmm. Did you think Noah Welch was all that fast skating over to the penalty box?

Seems they don't want to acknowledge reality: big skaters who're in position don't need to clutch and grab. They just check you flat on your ass. Boom. It's the little guys, or the lumbering defensemen out of position, who need to grab the jersey when the ref's sight lines are compromised. After four games, both Cornell and opponents have 13 penalties -- thank you, Noah Welch, for single-handedly evening things up -- and Cornell's PP is a bit better, 31% vs. 8%.

I don't think anybody should be worried about an unfair rap. If Cornell's opponents want to spend their time preparing for a clutch-and-grab team, more power to 'em.

Gotta love the use of the word "historically". As in, "within the five or ten minutes that this staff writer has actually watched collegiate hockey"?

[Q]fenwick Wrote:

As in, "within the five or ten minutes that this staff writer has actually watched collegiate hockey"?[/q]
And one even wonders about that.

If you look at our penalties this year, only nine out of 25 have been for obstruction, hooking, tripping, interference, and the like. That's just over two per game, when a "crackdown" is supposedly in effect on so-called "clutching-and-grabbing." Opposing teams have sixteen of the "c-and-g" variety.

Some Harvard bozo wrote on USCHO that everyone will see that we have to "clutch-and-grab" when we play BC. What happens if we don't? Do we have to play Tampa Bay to really prove we're not a clutch-and-grab team?

[Q]fenwick Wrote:

Gotta love the use of the word "historically". As in, "within the five or ten minutes that this staff writer has actually watched collegiate hockey"?[/q]

"Historically" is one of those great hedge words to use when you don't have any decent citations or documentation. I think that's how they teach writing in Cambridge.

Well, based on that article we were looking at yesterday in the Crimson, "accurately" isn't anything they emphasize. So why not go for "historically"?

kill, killer, kill
kill, killer, kill

LOL. Afraid I'd do better on a rugby pitch than on the ice. But I'd still be willing to go one-on-one with that Crimson dude.

There are quite a few Harvard fans, and a few fans of other teams that still try to denigrate the Big Red's success by directly stating or implying that Cornell hockey wins through clutch and grab tactics. Here is a post by a Harvard fan with the handle "fastskate" on the USCHO board commenting on Friday's game:

"Very solid performance by Cornell. They controlled the game but not with the clear domination that Harvard has faced in the past at Lynah. Neither team generated much offense, although Cornell was better in that regard. Harvard will get better but Cornell looked much stronger.
Without question, the new enforcement rules were not "in effect" over the weekend. Hansen was inconsistent and allowed the grabbing and pulldowns in front of the net. He could have called many more penalties. He apparently didn't get the memo or he can't read. Either way it is hard for the teams to play with such inconsistency from week to week. Hansen is one of the refs who needs to be taken to the wood shed for a talk if the NCAA intends to push the new approach. It looked to me as though the concern that old ways would creep back into the game is a reality, at least with Hansen."

I couldn't respond since he was at the game and I didn't see it. How about those of you who were there? Did Hansen help Cornell win by allowing rugby matches to break out in front of the net as fastskate implies? If you saw it differently, let this guy know. It's in a thread called "Brown/Harvard at Colgate/Cornell 11/5 and 11/6" the 3rd page of the Division I board.

I have never seen a game where a "rugby match" or something like it did not take place in front of the net. Every coach worth his salt will tell a player that he's not doing his job if he's not beating up the guy on top of the crease. Cornell's defense is no different from that of any other team.

[Q] Neither team generated much offense [/Q]

Fastskate is full of crap. 34 Cornell shots vs 17 Harvard shots does not translate into a defensive or turnover-filled game like he suggests. And 17 SOG is not the ref's fault, ever.

I don't really think it's worth it to respond to someone like him. [Ludicrous hypothetical situation] If Harvard had somehow won, he wouldn't be bashing Hansen...he'd be boasting about Harvard's great PK. [/Ludicrous hypothetical situation]

Cornell generated a lot of offense and could easily have potted 3 or 4 more goals -- Hyphen had a good night and made at least one unbelievable save. As for it not being as dominating a performance as in the past, I'd say just the opposite -- although the Red have been highly successful against Harvard, they have eeked out most of their recent wins, with both teams playing well. This was a dominating performance in the style of the '96 team -- Cornell looked great, while they (or Harvard) made Harvard look pretty bad.

[Q]Greg Berge Wrote:

Cornell generated a lot of offense and could easily have potted 3 or 4 more goals -- Hyphen had a good night and made at least one unbelievable save. As for it not being as dominating a performance as in the past, I'd say just the opposite -- although the Red have been highly successful against Harvard, they have eeked out most of their recent wins, with both teams playing well. This was a dominating performance in the style of the '96 team -- Cornell looked great, while they (or Harvard) made Harvard look pretty bad.



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 11/10/04 07:18AM by Greg Berge.[/q]
My impression as well. While I was unable to watch the entire game, what I saw was completely one-sided.

Even one of the Harvard stalwarts admitted on USCHO that his team had a difficult time getting across the Cornell blue line for much of the game. You don't get taken down too often in front of the opposing goal if you haven't managed to get into the offensive zone.

One could make this observation of any team at any time when it doesn't score, but in the parts I did hear of the weekend's (Harvard-Brown) games, the announcers once or twice observed that a player with an apparently clear shot on goal elected to pass off, and the pass did not result in a goal.

That does seem to be a thread running through Cornell's scoring efforts, certainly last year, certainly on power play last year, when Cornell's click-click-click passing was so wondrous and precise and in control that Cornell, ah, forget to turn any of the passes into a blistering wrist shot on goal. And so the penalty would expire with Cornell controlling the puck for say 100 of the 120 seconds in the attacking zone and having two shots to show for it.

Somewhere there's an alternate site, perhaps eSioux.com where the fans are grousing that the players shoot-shoot-shoot and never make passes that get the high-scoring opportunity.

Another observation by the announcers that seemed to make sense: Regardless of the score after 30 minutes of play, Cornell had more lines out there playing well, and Harvard / Brown was relying more heavily on fewer players skating more shifts, so by the second half of the game, Cornell was even more in command.

[Q]Greg Berge Wrote:
This was a dominating performance in the style of the '96 team -- Cornell looked great, while they (or Harvard) made Harvard look pretty bad.[/q]
That's interesting - perhaps it's only because I missed the November game at home in '95-96 (dammit), but I don't remember Cornell dominating Harvard at all that year. In fact in the 1996 ECAC finals, Harvard scored on us less than a minute into the game - and although that was the only goal they got, we only got two, and it was a pretty evenly matched struggle down to the wire.

Beeeej

[Q]Beeeej Wrote:
In fact in the 1996 ECAC finals, Harvard scored on us less than a minute into the game - and although that was the only goal they got, we only got two, and it was a pretty evenly matched struggle down to the wire.[/q]

We got three! That interference penalty was bogus! Bogus, I tell you! No, seriously, Lopatka was in front of the net with his back to Tracy, who skated into him just as Wilson fired one in from the point.

But it was a struggle indeed, as was the crazy see-saw battle at Bright that saw both teams change goaltenders. I think that was the first game I ever listened to on the internet.