Thanks

Thanks first and foremost to the Big Red hockey team (players and coaches) for giving us a fun season to follow. You were great.

Thanks to Age Manocchia for providing this forum for all the Lynah Faithful (and Kyle previously for CHDF).

And thanks to posters on the Forum for your insightful observations during the season.

How many days until the 2002-2003 season starts?

We gotta get a schedule for next season first .

-Fred, DeltaOne81 '03

TAK SKAL DU HAVE!!! AND PLEASE DOUGIE...COME BACK FOR SENIOR YEAR!!!!!

Before I dive into catching up from the weekend, which I'll try to do tomorrow , I felt I had to say one or two things before slogging off to bed. A long drive home gives you chance to think about things...hopefully they will come out right. I'm exhausted...slightly from the drive, but mostly from an emotionally draining and vocally straining day (which it would've been win or lose).

1) This team deserves better than what they will get historically. This has been the best damn team I've seen suit up for the Red. A lot of sports cliches will be thrown around over the next few weeks. "No reason to hang our heads, we played the #1 team tough, what a great ride" yadda yadda yadda. This season we only got to the same point that we did in '97, and in that case, we were definitely beaten by the better team in eventual Champion North Dakota. Well, it's bullshit to look at this one that way...this one is different. We were good enough to go all the way. Let me repeat that. We were good enough to go ALL THE WAY. It isn't going to be the same watching the Frozen Four on TV knowing that. Against New Hampshire, what I took away was that we played well enough to win. Yeah, yeah, coulda woulda shoulda. I know, I know. But we had the talent and skill to have forced the UNH fans to have been the one's doing the shell-shocked drive home tonight. Doug Murray had a quote in the USCHO game report about not caring about "moral victories", and I'm damn glad that that seems to be how team feels. It's a great example of what this team was about. They deserve better, dammit.


2) I don't think I can express how much thanks I want to give this team. I wish there was a way besides this forum to express and extend my gratitude to them. I hope they heard our "thank you" chants over the din of the UNH/Hockey Least drones following the handshakes. They have talent, they worked hard, and they had heart. I love this team. Period.

3) I'm damn proud to be a fan of this 2001-2002 team. Let's go Red.

Will, I missed something here--Bob Norton mentioned also that Murray might not be coming back--what's happening?

You're right, this was totally different than 1997. That team hung in as long as possible and lost respectably to a substantially better team. Yesterday we played UNH even, in a battle of college hockey powers which had to take the naysayers by surprise.

I fear we will forever be playing the "what if" game about this season. What if we had pulled out the ECAC final against Harvard, winning the Whitelaw and then drawing BU in the quarterfinals?

Murray is, of course, prized for his size and skills at the next level (here or back in Sweden even) and so, coming off an excellent season in which he will likely be named an All-America East defenseman (or at least second team), his negotiating leverage is at a relative peak. So he might take the route of Nieuwendk, Dadswell and Duffus and turn pro prior to hs senior season. Although this would make sense, I don't know that there have been any actual quotes from him indicating that he was considering his options.

As far as whether this team was good enough to win it all (and so we should all have lots of regrets), this team ended up fairly far from actually winning it all. What was clear to me from this game was that the team is good enough, when it's on top of its game, to keep games close and give itself a chance to pull out a win. So although it was certainly possible that the team could have done it, the reality seems to me that even if we had won this game, the next two would have been repeats (assuming we could keep playing like in the 2nd and 3rd periods against UNH) -- i.e. close contests that could go either way, unless we let down even a little, in which case the more offensively skilled opponent would jump all over us.

I'll be interested to see UNH versus the western representative in the finals (assuming they beat Maine again, of course). The sense that I got from the western games I saw this weekend was that, as usual, they play big and fast out west, a bad combination for UNH (and Cornell) to face.

The best thing about this weekend is that it made it clear to the rest of the hockey world that this is a solid team with a solid system that can be built upon. Reputation means a great deal in terms of getting respect (and more importantly, recruits) and I look forward to seeing Schafer attempt to bring in the stronger skating and scoring forwards we need to balance out the tight defensive system.

Interestingly, in the USCHO writeup, Murray is described as "Cornell senior defenseman Doug Murray".

Am I missing something here? Do you automatically become a senior after the junior season is over, or do you have to be a senior by the university academic standards?

Rich. . .agreed on all points! This team had (has) the horses and WILL definitely will be a contender next year! Every single UNH fan that I spoke with in my journey out of Wustah's damn parking garage said they thought we gave them one of their top two or three games of the season. I know this is no consolation to most (myself included) but now we know for certain this team can stand toe-to-toe with the "big boys," there's doubt about that. I want to thank the Boys for a kick-ass season. . .they showed us how a team that trusts one another can become one hell of a force. GREAT SEASON!!!
To Age. . .Thanks for the forum (and everything else, the ladder included), I know all comers will agree you have put in a huge effort! To The Faithful: I want to say thank you to everyone who packed Lynah night after night and thanks to those who made road rinks home rinks, you are the best!!! It is a wonderful thing when a team has fans like the RED. . .I'm proud to say I'm part of this special group!
So. . .until next fall we'll just have to reminisce about past and dream about the future.

Take care
~Ben Doyle '03~


***edit*** To The Band: You guys RoCk(and no I am not following you)!!!. . .the offer for NEVER AGAIN playing Macho Man is still on the table; just let me know what it's going to take)

Thanks to Grady Whittenburg, too, for a great job calling the jobs.

Tom

Yes,

Thanks Grady and thanks Pete Tufford. The only way we can improve on these two is to talk Pete into doing more of the games. There is nothing like a player and I mean a real player like Pete making comments that mean something. This is the best broadcast team in college hockey.

I also would like to thank Coach Schafer for making the players into a team. It starts during recruiting then lasts for more than four years. From shining the old hardware to acting like gentlemen at the many alum and supporter functions he sets the standards that mold the team into something that we can all be proud to watch.

Each player is expected to grow during their years in school but to accomplish growth you need a great teacher. Coach Schafer is such a person. He exudes all the qualities that make the team what it is. We are blessed.

Sports are funny. I'm a 50 year old fart who can't skate worth a damn. Why I love watching college hockey so much is beyond human comprehension. Why I stood up and yelled at every Cornell goal on Sunday when I was at a family birthday party is part of who and what I am. It gives life joy.

Thank you, thank you, thank you all.

Well-said, Marty.

There are a LOT of people whose efforts help make Cornell Hockey a program of which we can all be proud.

Thanks all -

Ken '71

Thanks to all for appreciating the broadcasts of Big Red hockey...believe me, I try to twist Pete's arm (mostly on the air, but even that doesn't shame him into changing his schedule!) into doing more of the games.

I've got the most enjoyable hobby of all: getting paid to watch a Top 10 hockey program and bringing the action home to those that cannot be amongst the Traveling Faithful...I tell ya, it doesn't get much better than that!

I'm just a fan that gets to call the game and hopefully the excitement you feel live at the game comes through in the call on the ones you cannot make it to. I don't always get it right, but the passion is there and I love what I do!

Special thanks to all of the listeners that have taken the time to e-mail, phone, or chat in person (while I'm at the grocery store or at the rink...). The support you show for your team (and your radio guy) is amazing and I'm privileged to be a part of that mix.

Bring on the Red/White!!!

thank you big red, age, grady and everyone else for a great season.
it is also great that newy is a devil now!

Whoops, can't even seem to thank Grady properly. There was a co-worker who barged in on me in mid-thanks on the previous message. Thanks, Grady, for a great job calling the *games*.

And, indeed, thanks to Coach Schafer for making an Ivy, non-scholarship team into a year-in, year-out contender.

Thanks to the players, whose real job is to get an education and end up giving us so much fun with their extracurriculars.

Thanks to Kyle and Age for keeping us in touch with each other this season.

Thanks to the forum regulars like Greg and Keith and John and Rich, always ready with some interesting statistical minutiae to keep the forum readable.

And thanks even to my girlfriend, who doesn't much like sports but understands sometimes a fellow just has to scratch the Lynah itch.