Yale/Princeton thoughts

With the sweep, the seniors preserve a perfect record against Yale and Princeton at Lynah: 12-0-0 (8-0-0 RS, 4-0-0 PS).

look at what yale did today against colgate, with those players that were DQ'd. my gut tells me that yesterday's game would've been a lot closer had higgins et. al. been playing

Nice - now if we can just work on the Dartmouth thing.....

It'll happen this year. It has to happen. Our guys are due.

I agree...great game tonight...their goalie played pretty well considering.
Anyone know what happened to Iggy who did not return after the second period. Or why Pegararo was not in the lineup? Adam may have said it on pre/post game, but I missed those. BTW, section G was back to its orderly self as Gene came over and regulated

Indeed. I didn't witness a single person being ejected from G or thereabouts tonight. I guess things are truly back to normal...for now...

no, but you missed like 10 people being ejected from section A, as i was last night

-mike

For what?

So what do we make of Travis Bell centering one of the lines (at least according to the CornellBigRed box score)?

supposed use of profanity during "we're gonna beat the hell out of you" at the beginning of period 3 on friday

-mike

I always wondered how close they'd have to be listening to you to actually get away with that... I mean, couldn't you just say "I saw you were watching closing so I held my tongue out of respect" or some cr@p like that... I guess they'd probably just toss you anyway. But what if they actually were wrong? If they picke someone who didn't say it. There's no way they could know for sure.

Guess that's why all this is bull$#!^.

Whoops, sorry Age, am I kicked off the board?

funny thing is a got yelled at once too yet i have been saying "rough em up" ever since we were asked to change from f em up. so i told the guy that i said rough em up and the person next to me said that i did so i didnt get booted. of course nowadays i would have been caned for talking back

about the game, where was supermom! i was disappointed b/c i was hoping to point her out to some friends. that stinks.

as for the game 2nite:
PU did a great job clogging the middle --> good defense for the first half of the game or so. they did not get much pressure until later in the game but had some good chances. lenny was tested once or twice but a lot of the princeton opportunities were stopped by good defense or bad plays by the PU forwards...
cornell played well except looked chippy at times. vesce has some wheels and it was good to see him using his speed to motor around 2nite.
the team amazed me coming out the corners 2nite. i thought last year they were good at it and i guess i took the performance vs york for granted but the red were coming out of corners 1v2 with the puck. it was amazing.
i think that the shot that "hit the post" in the (third?) by i think vesce was in the net - it hit the back upper corner and came out - there was no ding off the cross bar. would have been a hatty if it was vesce.
team looked good even though PU was clogging the middle.
the goal on cam's assist was SO sweet. he left the puck on a drop pass and faked the shot --> goal from behind him. so sweet.

so that is all from me as it is now 1am and i need some sleep.
nite all

Supermom's son, Sharam Fouladgar-Mercer, wasn't dressed tonight, for whatever that's worth.

Somewhat related point: When he has played, the back of his jersey has read "Sharam." I wonder why this is, especially considering that the full last name of Neil Stevenson-Moore appeared on the back of his sweater tonight. Just food for thought.

yeah matt i was calling neil stevenson-moore "long named guy" all night, which I guess wasn't much shorter than his real name. i was not sure if sharam had graduated or not since the stinkin programs sold out before i could get to one thanks for the info

For those who watched tonight's game: Did we dress and play seven defensemen and eleven forwards? As Al mentioned, Travis Bell was listed as the fourth-line center on the box score on the cornellbigred.oscn.com site. Was this merely a quirk of the box score software assuming teams dress the standard six defensemen and twelve forwards?

Yes. I certainly don't recall Bell centering any lines. We dressed 7 D-Men.

. . .Murray, McRae, Bell, Cook, Downs, Wallace, and Gleed.

Mike wrote:

supposed use of profanity during "we're gonna beat the hell out of you" at the beginning of period 3 on friday

Of course, if you said "hell", that was profanity. If you also said "fuck", that wasn't additional profanity, it was vulgarity. (Try telling them "fuck" and "asshole" are not profane next time. )

She was there, albeit on crutches. Was actually talking to some Cornell people above section B at the start of the game and I believe was behind O later(?). Anyway, she was there.

crutches again?
I remember seeing her last year at Princeton and her foot was in a cast or something, and she had crutches.

FWIW,

Sharam's full last name was on his home jersey when I saw PU play No Dak last weekend.

Any comments from anyone on the play of Trevor Clay in nets for Princeton? I saw him once last year against Notre dame and he looked good. Hoping to see him next weekend against RPI.

Shafer may have used 7 D-men because Downs was playing forward on the penalty kill. He has dramatically improved his skating over last year and is really an excellent penalty killer - similar to Shane Palahicky. It is awesome to see that Shafer has the confidence to play almost anybody on the penalty kill, including all 7 of the D-men at some point!

I wonder how much pressure the Cornell coaching staff puts on players to improve their fundamental skating abilities each summer? Shafer made some comments about Vesce's improvements and those seem to be the things that are making a big difference in certain players - Cook, Hornby, Vesce, Downs, Bell.

Any thoughts on most improved player thus far - I say Downs?

Downs was already a pretty solid player last year. I think he saw action in pretty much every game, and was a defensive force. Its great that he's improved his skating though...hopefully he can find the back of the net a few times while also helping dougie anchor the blueline.

[q]Shafer may have used 7 D-men because Downs was playing forward on the penalty kill.[/q]

Was that the whole game?

I only noticed it until the last few minutes, and then I thought it was in an attempt to assure a shutout for Lenny.

At best, Gleed saw limited action. He may have only taken four or five (maybe six) shifts on the night. As for Downs on the PK. . .I think it's safe to say he's giving Vesce a run for his money as the best overall skater on the team. The work over the summer is definitely apparent and will hopefully pay some major dividends for the team.

We played 3 defensemen on the penalty kill a few times this weekend -- so it's not just a question of preserving the shutout. The ability to hustle is definitely an asset on the kill, and it may matter more than the player's regular position. Besides, Hornby can't play the kill when he's the one in the box....

I was thinking that against a weak Princeton team, maybe we would see one of the other goalies. Lenny will miss the Estero tourney and two other games, and I hope Coach is not planning to throw an untested goalie to the wolves (Black Bears).

Did anyone else see T-Bell lined up as a center? I am pretty sure I saw him take at least one FO.

The ref's call in the Patton (#14) and Bâby incident bothered me. Patton deserved to get knocked over. He knows the rules and ignored them. Dougie got his helmet knocked off v. Yale and he came right off. There is no doubt in my mind they sent Bâby to the box as a sympathy call. We get no love.

Patton knew what he had done was a penalty and was acting the whole time while on the ice in front of his bench. . .he screwed up and was just trying to make it easy for Dell to call a penalty on Bâby so both teams would at least be even.

BTW. . .it was Hornby that had his helmet knocked off in the Yale game (to be clear, he knocked it off himself when he missed a check on the end boards).

Hey, at least Dell didn't let Patton score with his helmet off, like that ass from Miami (Ohio) in '96-97.

Beeeej

Ya know, Patton may've been an ass for playing without a helmet (well, he was), but I don't think you hit a guy in that situation. It's bad to disrespect the rules. It's worse to disrespect the health of an opponent. Bâby's lucky he only got a minor, IMHO.

I suspect we'll see Chabot in one of the Western Michigan games, if not sooner.

Mike Schafer, as quoted in Monday's Ithaca Journal: "I thought their goaltender (Clay) played great. He had a phenomenal game."

I disagree with you. The rule was made to protect players; if your helmet is off, then you are out of play. When you knowingly play the puck, you have chosen to reenter active play. Bâby had every right to hit him. In fact there was technically no difference between that guy and another player on the ice for Princeton. The only difference was he dove head first into the boards when Bâby hit him, so it looked much worse. It isn’t Bâby’s fault that the guy dove into the boards. I don't think the guy thought anyone on our team had the balls to hit him. I am glad Bâby finished his check. If Bâby were trying to hurt the guy, he probably would have hit him up high. He wasn’t trying to kill the guy, just check him.

Well I must say I only caught the hit out of the corner of my eye (I was watching Lenny play the puck). My impression therefore was he hit him into the boards. If the whole boards thing was just an act, and Bâby's hit wasn't nearly that rough, then I retract the majority of my statement.

Fair or not, hitting a guy without a helmet is probably asking for a penalty though.

Quick thoughts...

- Downs definitely has improved his skating. He's the only defenseman I've noticed playing as a forward on the PK, and he's been doing it for a while now.

- I don't think Vesce's shot (that would've been his third goal) was in. I can't say for sure whether I remember a ping, but from the way it bounced out, it was post.

- Clay was pretty good. He made one save on Vesce (there's his name again involved in the offense) in the second period where he must've been horizontal and in mid-air.

- Does anyone else get the impression that Doug really wants to put one in the net?

- Let's hope the injury bug isn't as bad as it looks. Moulson, Pegoraro, Chris Abbott, and Hughes all missed a game in which only 11 forwards dressed.

Well, along those points...

- I didn't think Clay was that great. I think he got lucky a lot, especially considering his propensity to go down faster than a drunk puck bunny. As soon as anyone got near the net he was sprawled out all over the ice. If a few more shots made it to the top half of the net, it would have been an ugly blowout.

- Coach commented that the 5-on-3 was a shooting gallery and he didn't want them to get fancy. Well, it's not too surprising that they didn't score with an umbrella PP. Didn't work for much of last year. They seemed to have better success moving the puck and getting it in close in the earlier games. But what do I know?

- I'm pretty sure that Vesce shot didn't go in either. Looked like it went off the top-right corner of the post. Still an impressive shot.

- Moulson's still aiming for the BU series, Pegoraro was probably banged up from that forward flip and landing on his back in the Yale game (shouldn't be too serious), Abbott has a shoulder injury which didn't sound too bad, and I'm not sure about Hughes, but none of them seem like they're too disastrous.

[q]- Does anyone else get the impression that Doug really wants to put one in the net?[/q]

I don't know. Maybe his slamming his stick against the ice after he failed to put home any of his half-dozen slappers during the 5 on 3 was just because his dry cleaning wasn't done in time

Maybe there were some Tiger droppings on it

it wa the Yale game dude. . .

I'm drawing a blank on why Lenny is going to miss Estero, etc. National team obligations?

He'll be playing for the Canadian National (Junior?) team in a tournament. He'll miss the Florida tourney and the North Country games in January.

You think either Marr or Chabot will see some action (either starting or coming into a game that is not close) to prepare them for those games?

Is it certain that Marr is the #2 goalie? Schafer has had some high praise for Chabot and I wouldn't be shocked to see him in net ahead of Marr.

Jordan wrote:

[q]- Does anyone else get the impression that Doug really wants to put one in the net?[/q]

I don't know. Maybe his slamming his stick against the ice after he failed to put home any of his half-dozen slappers during the 5 on 3 was just because his dry cleaning wasn't done in time

Maybe he was mad his parents couldn't watch the HockeyCam?