http://www.uscho.com/news/2004/04/28_008490.php
USCHO ranks the top regular season (non-tournament) games of the season.
None of Cornell's games made the top 25 or the honorable mentions. One thing I note among the games that might play into their decisions, was they selected mainly higher scoring games. All the way down at #21 is the first game including a shutout and #26 includes a double shutout. The rest are mainly high-scoring affairs, which typifies the type of play that wasn't seen in the ECAC this year. Thus, only one ECAC game made the list (the 7-5 Harvard comeback over Yale).
Any suggestions for Cornell's top game (non-tournament, non-playoffs) of the year? How about the rest of the ECAC? I would argue for the 1-0 home win over Harvard because it was the first home win of the year. Honorable mention might be the 7-0 pasting of Princeton with Vesce's 7pts., the 2-1 win at RPI, and the 4-2 win at Dartmouth.
I tried to think of a *really* great Cornell game from last year, and came up blank. That suggests USCHO did the right thing in ignoring the Red.
From just our p.o.v., I'd say the best games of the year were the 4-2 win over Dartmouth and the 2-1 win over Clarkson. The best mutual game? I dunno -- maybe the pair of Ohio State games?
the 1-0 victory over harvard was at Lynah, and it was the first game b/w the two since the 2003 ecac championship game, not to mention the only goal scored in the game came in the 3rd period, and it was a goaltenders' duel...that gives it a pretty good argument for one of the 25 best games of the yr, at least honorable mention, espescially since uscho likes to spread recognition around, but they didnt for this piece.
Since Cornell came close to leading the country in goals-against defense, then a 1-0 duel with Harvard would have made sense to include. OTOH not everyone at USCHO recognizes Cornell's rabid desire to pummel Harvard and remember every dismantling of the Crimson.
The 4-3 OT win over Ohio State was maybe worthwhile because Cornell finally broke the couldn't-win jinx at the Florida tournament it (well, former player Craig Brush) created.
The 7-0 win over Princeton was wondrous if you were a Cornell fan, but didn't mother say it's not nice to pick on cripples? Maybe if Vesce had stayed healthy, made one of the All-America teams, and Cornell had made the playoffs, USCHO would have looked back on this game as the best game by one of the nation's most complete players. (There ought to be an All-America team for guys small enough to play 150-pound football.)
If USCHO were to cite Most Consistent and Sustained Hockey Excellence, how about the month of February when, except for empty net goals, didn't Cornell allow a goal a game for the month?
Actually, if there was a seminal game (or series), it was Cornell's collapse against Clarkson.
The article did not include tournament games of all types. Thus, the Everblades wasn't considered. Having discussed both articles with the author, I'm fairly certain the Everblades final will be included in the next article.
Finally winning the Everglades tournament was nice.
Actually, we would probably consider the loss to OSU a pretty great game if we were looking at it with neutral eyes.