intramural hockey gone :(

I know that I'm pretty out of the loop on this, especially since it happened at the beginning of september, but I just found out this weekend that the intramural hockey program got cut in the budget crunch, partly for fiscal reasons and partly because Dave retired. I don't know about anybody else, but that program meant a lot to me, and from the sound of it it probably won't be coming back, at least any time soon. Any good memories so that we can reminisce about students getting to share in the cornell hockey tradition? I know I met my fiance playing intramural hockey and spent my 21st birthday trying to play. Any good stories?

a sad alum

I'll chime in here. One of Cornell's major recruiting tools for their Biochemistry. Molecular and Cell Biology grad program (at least for me ) was their proximity to the rink and their intramural women's ice hockey team, the Biotech pUCs (sorry I do not have any swag to give away to anyone who can explain our team name ).

Our nemesis in the intramural league was the Johnson Business School's team, the Frozen Assets. The B-school always had a few ringers, women who played varsity hockey at Dartmouth, Princeton etc. and then came to Cornell to get their MBA. Those games were a lot of fun and much closer than our games against the sororities.

I met a lot of great people playing IM hockey, and through it, got to meet a lot of other hockey playing people in Ithaca, was part of the Ithaca Sirens womens hockey team, and played with several other recreational/co-ed groups. All that ice time probably added at least 2 years to my graduate school career, but it was definitely worth it and I have nothing but fond memories.

I had missed the bad news. It will take some time to compose a few notes on my fond memories. In the meantime, I found a few links.

Where to sign up if you want to be informed if it comes back
Cornell Sun commentary
A blogger

Okay, I'm confused: what exactly is the funding issue here? Is the issue that Cornell needs to charge for that ice time rather than give it away for free, and not pay for refs? It's not like they melt the ice during the week to save on refrigeration costs: the ice, and therefore the ice time, is still there. The cost to Cornell is opportunity cost + whatever per-game charges they incur. These are not insurmountable.

Is there a problem with those who want to play paying for these things on their own? A 17-week adult league out here costs about $400/season (that's $1200/year for 3 seasons) for a team with 10 players (edit: and it can be done for a lot less by a non-profit organizer). I can't believe such a thing is out of the question, even for a grad student.

I was a member of a different woman's team that liked to beat up the sororities, the Sexy Aggies. My favorite attempt at beating us was when the other team brought in guys to play, since the rules just said that you could be on one coed team, and one single sex team, but nothing about actually belonging to the sex that you played for. The girls still beat them though.

I loved my time at cornell, and intramural games at 1 in the morning are probably my fondest memory of those years on the hill. I had never player (or hell, seen) hockey before I went to cornell, but in the years of intramurals and then the hockey gym classes, I grew to love it, and I met some of my best friends through the program.

I was in lynah this weekend and it was sad. The number of students at hockey games has plummeted, and I'm sure taking away the one real connection that the average student had to the sport probably won't help people understand the game any better.

The sun article in david's posts has their lame excuses for why it got canceled. I want to blame skorton and his hatred of all things hockey, but I don't know thats possible

ajc69
The sun article in david's posts has their lame excuses for why it got canceled. I want to blame skorton and his hatred of all things hockey, but I don't know thats possible

Yeah, I read that. As far as the night manager goes, just add that to the cost of the "officials". It can't be that big a cost when amortized over all the teams in the league. But someone needs to take the initiative and work out a contract with the university that allows this thing to fully fund itself.

I don't think there's any connection between IM hockey and student attendance at Lynah.

As for the funding, it doesn't really make sense. Just like it made no sense that tennis doubles was cut. (It just went more quietly since there weren't that many of us who cared, apparently.) Surely a $10/team entry fee covered the cost of a few cans of balls and the 15 minutes it took someone to create a draw. The courts and nets were set up anyway.

For whatever reason, the Director of Intramural Sports position is essentially unfilled, so the IM staff is half as large as it was last year. My guess is that they freaked out and cut a bunch of sports since there was only one guy left to run everything.

Plus, hockey probably was a major pain in the ass for them. They had to coordinate open ice times and costs with the Lynah staff, and have four students working each game (scoreboard, refs, equipment). And there were always guys showing up drunk, getting into fights, bringing alcohol onto the ice, etc. I'm sure they're happy to see it gone.

I know lots of people are sad about this, but I don't see it coming back until IM hires a new director and we move past this whole budget-slashing era.

I don't think there's really a correlation with attendance either, there will just be fewer people to explain what off-side and icing are to the newbies. I'm more worried that this will never come back, as it is a giant pain in the ass to run, and in a few years nobody will fight for it anymore since everybody will have graduated.

ajc69
I'm more worried that this will never come back, as it is a giant pain in the ass to run, and in a few years nobody will fight for it anymore since everybody will have graduated.

Unfortunately, this pattern of behavior seems to be one of the few things from which we can't protect today's students, whom society tries to protect from just about everything: college life gets lamer and lamer over time, things that were fun or distinctive disappear because of concerns over "safety," worries about litigation, or a screwed up sense of what matters, and they, having grown up in comfortable little cocoons, won't do anything about it and will never know what they've missed.

So it goes.

Scersk '97
Unfortunately, this pattern of behavior seems to be one of the few things from which we can't protect today's students, whom society tries to protect from just about everything: college life gets lamer and lamer over time, things that were fun or distinctive disappear because of concerns over "safety," worries about litigation, or a screwed up sense of what matters, and they, having grown up in comfortable little cocoons, won't do anything about it and will never know what they've missed.

So it goes.

I don't think it's really as bad as all that. Sure, there's this trend motivating in in the form of parents and administrators, but don't forget that there's also a potent force pushing in the opposite direction. As put by Jeremy Piven in PCU:

They're young! They may not realize it yet, but they've got the same raging hormones, the same self-destructive desire to get boldly trashed and wildly out of control. Look out that window! That's not a protest! That is cry for help! They're begging us! Please have a party! Feed us drinks! Get us laid! Aahhhhhh!

The bottom line, as I see it, is that college students want to have fun, will always want to have fun, and will find ways to do so. I don't think the fact that the ways they find to have fun might be different from the ways we had fun necessarily means that college life is getting lamer.

Josh '99
The bottom line, as I see it, is that college students want to have fun, will always want to have fun, and will find ways to do so. I don't think the fact that the ways they find to have fun might be different from the ways we had fun necessarily means that college life is getting lamer.

I hope you're right, but it seems to me that, more and more, "kids these days" are forced "inside" by a society that, for the reasons I mentioned above plus an inordinate concern over appearances, no longer allows them nor is willing to provide support for them to have fun "outside," lest they have fun in a way of which society does not approve or, god forbid, injure themselves even in the slightest. I never spent as much time looking over my shoulder as these kids seem to have to. So they're driven to "explore," party, "recreate"--what have you--where no one can see them.

To me, that is dangerous, to these kids and to society as a whole. People do not need any more reasons to retract, to cut themselves off from the world, or to live private, private lives. When we are all inside staring bovinely at computer screens, whether due to personal preferences or society's dicta, society itself will cease to exist. That's lame.

But, by golly, at least we'll all be safe and it won't cost that much. Huzzah.

(And, yes, I'm getting all hypocritically soapbox-y on my computer, alone, at home. What's your point?!)

Scersk '97

Josh '99
The bottom line, as I see it, is that college students want to have fun, will always want to have fun, and will find ways to do so. I don't think the fact that the ways they find to have fun might be different from the ways we had fun necessarily means that college life is getting lamer.

I hope you're right, but it seems to me that, more and more, "kids these days" are forced "inside" by a society that, for the reasons I mentioned above plus an inordinate concern over appearances, no longer allows them nor is willing to provide support for them to have fun "outside," lest they have fun in a way of which society does not approve or, god forbid, injure themselves even in the slightest. I never spent as much time looking over my shoulder as these kids seem to have to. So they're driven to "explore," party, "recreate"--what have you--where no one can see them.

To me, that is dangerous, to these kids and to society as a whole. People do not need any more reasons to retract, to cut themselves off from the world, or to live private, private lives. When we are all inside staring bovinely at computer screens, whether due to personal preferences or society's dicta, society itself will cease to exist. That's lame.

But, by golly, at least we'll all be safe and it won't cost that much. Huzzah.

(And, yes, I'm getting all hypocritically soapbox-y on my computer, alone, at home. What's your point?!)

Unless you want to stare at a computer screen showing Cornell Varsity sports.

[/quote]

Unfortunately, this pattern of behavior seems to be one of the few things from which we can't protect today's students, whom society tries to protect from just about everything: college life gets lamer and lamer over time, things that were fun or distinctive disappear because of concerns over "safety," worries about litigation, or a screwed up sense of what matters, and they, having grown up in comfortable little cocoons, won't do anything about it and will never know what they've missed.

So it goes.[/quote]

Like when the ushers come down the aisles during penalties and Gary Glitter to see who is swearing?

Reffing the sorority games was always fun. You could call offsides every 20 seconds and they wouldn't even figure it out by the end. Also, my freshman year I broke a sherwood by trying to stop myself in the corner by the zamboni door and the stick blade slid under the door and snapped the stick in half. I was shocked and didn't know what to do, so I skated around with the top half of the stick for a few seconds as everyone yelled at me to drop it.

Jacob '06
Reffing the sorority games was always fun. You could call offsides every 20 seconds and they wouldn't even figure it out by the end.

Ooh, boy, I know a few Cornell sorority alumni who'd be upset with this generalization.

I wonder how big a specified gift would be needed to restore the program.

Can anybody tell me what the format for intramural ice hockey was in recent years? In my day (1968-1978) the interest was high enough and the general demand for ice time high enough that they just ran a single elimination tournament. Half the teams only played one game. A few teams played a bunch of games. It wasn't a league with a fixed number of games for a fixed fee. That model would work better if you were charging. My fraternity's team was not good, but we had lots of enthusiasm. So it was one and done. My team in grad school (physics) was reasonably good, But in both cases most of play was informally arranged games on rented ice time, not intramural competition. The ice time situation sure got better when Cass Rink opened in 1972!

Counting costs. The Lynah site says ice rental is $175/hour. If they haven't replaced Dave as night manager, I wonder whether the rental hours have been cut back dramatically, too. They still advertise overnight skate sharpening.

Again from my day, there were so many casual players in the intramurals that they provided close to full equipment for everyone. I could be wrong, but I remember helmets, sweaters, pants, shin guards, and gloves. That cost adds up.

David Harding
I wonder how big a specified gift would be needed to restore the program.

Can anybody tell me what the format for intramural ice hockey was in recent years? In my day (1968-1978) the interest was high enough and the general demand for ice time high enough that they just ran a single elimination tournament. Half the teams only played one game. A few teams played a bunch of games. It wasn't a league with a fixed number of games for a fixed fee. That model would work better if you were charging. My fraternity's team was not good, but we had lots of enthusiasm. So it was one and done. My team in grad school (physics) was reasonably good, But in both cases most of play was informally arranged games on rented ice time, not intramural competition. The ice time situation sure got better when Cass Rink opened in 1972!

Counting costs. The Lynah site says ice rental is $175/hour. If they haven't replaced Dave as night manager, I wonder whether the rental hours have been cut back dramatically, too. They still advertise overnight skate sharpening.

Again from my day, there were so many casual players in the intramurals that they provided close to full equipment for everyone. I could be wrong, but I remember helmets, sweaters, pants, shin guards, and gloves. That cost adds up.

At least when I was there (02-06) the format was a set number of games and then I believe a playoff at the end of the season. They did give out full equipment for those players that wanted it until they ran out. This equipment is all pretty much surplus equipment or old equipment from the hockey team, and the worst job as a ref was working in the equipment room and dealing with that stench. I find it pretty believable that hockey was by far the most expensive IM sport per game b/c they couldn't run games simultaneously and they generally had scorekeeper, 2 or 3 refs, equipment room person, and supervisor working each game. All of those people got paid, and then there is the issue with paying for the ice time and the zamboni.

Sad news. I loved playing intramurals and playing pickup hockey both at Lynah and, since it was so hard to get ice time at Lynah, at Cass Park. I still cannot believe my girlfriend came out to watch me play at 1 a.m. on a weekday in February. Even when we were terrible, there was those Walter Mitty moments when someone slipped and, in falling, slapped at the ice with the stick for balance, the puck was just ahead of the stick, and the puck wobbled in for a goal. Priceless.

Based on our playing crappy intramural and pickup hockey (us, not intramurals), one of my fraternity brothers went on to play crappy adult hockey and coach youth hockey in the Binghamton area for a couple decades. It was the combination of seeing Cornell's varsity play AND personal participation that led him down the path of teaching hundreds of grade schoolers how to play less crappy hockey than we did.

Speaking of priceless, $175 an hour seems pretty cheap for ice time, at least in the world outside Ithca. How late is Lynah open now and how hard is it to get ice time? The barebones Lynah site doesn't list hours. I recall that Lynah had slots as late as 1 a.m.-2 a.m.

Has anyone considered paying an intramurals hockey surcharge to support it? If the true cost including ice time, gear, and referees is $250 an hour, if particpants paid half that amount and Cornell the other half? Or is the prevailing wisdom that $50,000 is high enough and everything ought to be included? Maybe student volunteers could help Cornell administer to cut the administrative overhead.