2007 Womens Hockey

1-7 in league so far. Looks like another long year.

The talent pool of blue chip women players is very small, and there are maybe a half dozen teams nationally that get all the good players, and Cornell is not one of them. OK. But what is preventing the Red from skating at least .500 team? It's a storied program -- what is keeping it pinned to the bottom of the league?

Trotsky
But what is preventing the Red from skating at least .500 team?

Not enough Newmans on the varsity squad.

An excellent question. Title IX said women got to play sports, too. Fairness says if your men's team is a national contender in a sport, maybe the women should be, too.

As for the futility of years past: It's not that Melody Davidson was a lousy coach, apparently.

The women's lax team at least has had a couple good seasons recently.

Trotsky
It's a storied program...

No offense to the Cornell women's program, but that's just not true.

Josh '99

Trotsky
It's a storied program...

No offense to the Cornell women's program, but that's just not true.

Under .500 all time record, never advanced in the ECAC tournament, very little Ivy success since the initial stretch in the 70's. Unfortunately Josh is right.

KeithK

Josh '99

Trotsky
It's a storied program...

No offense to the Cornell women's program, but that's just not true.

Under .500 all time record, never advanced in the ECAC tournament, very little Ivy success since the initial stretch in the 70's. Unfortunately Josh is right.

Cornell is an OLD program, with a long tradition of being there. The Big Red was one of the better of the original women's hockey programs, winning several Ivy Titles back when that was just about the only title to win.

Cornell was a top half team in the ECAC just before the western expansion, which meant the team was a top 10 (out of maybe 25 or so) D-I program in the mid to late 90's when Julie Sasner (she was using her married name at the time, but it was her) was coach. She left to start the program at Wisconsin (and subsequently left to take on an assistant coaching position with the U.S. national team - she's now at MIT, I believe, probably at least partly due to having left two D-I programs in the lurch). Cornell spiraled downhill after that, losing a couple of key players and then failing to pick up any top talent in the following years. Sasner's replacement had been the assistant coach at Cornell for years, and by all accounts was a fantastic assistant, but I think she wasn't ready for a D-I head coaching position, and Cornell went from a middle-of-the-pack ECAC team to a bottom feeder within 3 years. The player development wasn't good and the quality of the team play deteriorated, and the talent the team was attracting fell through the floor. Davidson took over a program in shambles, basically, as far as talent went, and from what I saw took a bunch of 4th line players and 1-2 solid D-I blueliners and made them competitive. Cornell was competing in games but could never sniff a win, and although the talent was improving while she was there Davidson left to take over the Canadian national team and never returned. We'll never know if she would have been able to turn the Cornell program around, because she never got the chance.

I honestly think they should have hired Diane Dillon to be the head coach, but maybe she wasn't ready for the position yet. I'm not sure that the current coach has the same credentials, though. His hiring as interim head coach pending Davidson's final decision to stay up north was a bit surprising, but once he was installed it was an obvious move to make his position permanent.

As for why Cornell can't put out a decent squad: good recruits go where other good recruits go. Olympians attract more Olympians, which is partly how Harvard and Dartmouth came out of nowhere to rule the women's hockey world. They picked up a couple of Olympians, and others followed. Cornell won't attract good recruits until the team starts winning, but I don't think the team starts winning until Cornell attracts good recruits. A high profile coach like Mel Davidson will help, but she's gone. Hopefully she'll point any academically inclined national team prospects in the direction of the Big Red.

The really surprisingly bad team this year is actually Brown. They've typically been a top 4 ECAC team, and they're the source of Cornell's lone win. Brown's not struggling, they're self-destructing, and if Digit Murphy is still the coach there then that's all the more incredible.

Trotsky
1-7 in league so far. Looks like another long year.

The talent pool of blue chip women players is very small, and there are maybe a half dozen teams nationally that get all the good players, and Cornell is not one of them. OK. But what is preventing the Red from skating at least .500 team? It's a storied program -- what is keeping it pinned to the bottom of the league?

ursusminor
I know that women's hockey is off-topic here, but it looks like Cornell got a winner in Rebecca Johnston -- playing on the Canadian Women's Under-22 team as a 17-year old is a significant achievement. She seems to have done quite well last week [www.hockeycanada.ca] including the Gold Medal game [www.hockeycanada.ca].

According to USCHO rumors, which tend to be pretty accurate on the women's recruiting thread, Cornell has also picked up a quality player in Hayley Hughes from the Toronto Junior Aeros, so things *may* be looking up for the program. Sometimes one or two top recruits can start a trend, as good players want to play with other good players.

Current recruits list for Cornell, per USCHO's boards (I have no inside information of my own, and most of what's on USCHO appears to be from people close to the program, like parents or friends of players/recruits, or from news reports from local papers).

Rebecca Johnston, Sudbury Wolves
Amber Moore, San Jose Jr. Sharks
Hayley Hughes, Toronto Jr. Aeros

Note on Brown - buzz is that they're in a major rebuilding year and have had some injuries, but could be a dangerous team in the second half.