I'll start a new topic so we don't have to scroll through all the game posts.
Well, I think a good game to get back in shape. No real practices lately. Good effort on the PP and PK. Obviously too many penalties, but coach can work on that. We still need our full compliment of defensemen. Hard to know about McKee but he was good when needed, and didn't seem to make the bad play like he was.
Overall I liked the broadcast. How did it compare to CU home game broadcasts?
Can't complain too much about a shutout. Sure, the penalties given up were horrible, and the sheer timing was outrageous, but the PK came up big when it had to do so.
Given the quality of the feed, it was hard to make out just who was making the excellent plays (though I recall hearing Abbott and Kennedy at certain points). So, for my three stars, I'll go with the obvious from the box score:
3. Scott
2. Pegoraro
1. McKee
anyone know of a free audio/video link for the Maine/UMD game?
[quote RedAR]anyone know of a free audio/video link for the Maine/UMD game?[/quote]
Try clicking on the Free Net Audio link on the left-hand side of the forum.
[quote cbuckser][quote RedAR]anyone know of a free audio/video link for the Maine/UMD game?[/quote]
Try clicking on the Free Net Audio link on the left-hand side of the forum.[/quote]
The UMD station, KDAL, is webcasting audio. Maine leads 1-0 early.
same maine team beat northeastern 5-2 two weeks ago, fyi
The game was sluggish early on. Hard to tell if it was the layoff of a couple weeks or if it just seemed slow because it was an afternoon game with maybe 1,000 people in attendance. Probably both. Day 1 attendance was announced as 6074 for both games which would be only ~2,000 short of capacity. Cornell outshot Northeastern by a ratio of 4-1 in the first period. Actually, that was the shot total, not just the ratio. It ended 19-13 in Cornell's favor.
The defense seemed more sure of itself and controlled the corners (see attached photo of Chris Abbott and O'Byrne) and in front of the net. Northeastern didn't do much on power play. Still, Northeastern had several odd man rushes that shouldn't have happened.
There were some beautiful pass-pass-shoot-score goals like the second goal, Pegoraro from Cam Abbott (see photo). Others were just as beautiful but didn't go in. O'Byrne nearly cut the post in half on a PP slapshot in the third -- the clang was just about heard in the parking lot. At even strength, it seemed at times as if Cornell was on power play. You might have wished for more than 19 shots against the likes of the Northeastern team that played Tuesday.
Cornell and Northeastern were even on penalties but Northeastern seemed to be headhunting in the third once the game was out of reach, perhaps frustrated by their inability to get off many shots (3 in the period).
No surprise as to which team had the most fans. And enough of the pep band made it to render support, too (see photo below). Plus the Cornell Club took over one of the hospitality areas. Too bad there weren't more teams with faithful fans in the tournament such as Notre Dame and Ohio State; Maine fans are good about turning out.
JTW with a beard? ::twitch::
I sure hope there were more Cornell fans than that... I mean, that'd only beat Harvard by three! ::uhoh::
There were a couple hundred Cornell fans congregated just under the Cornell hospitaility suite in the corner. (See photo below, xxx_cornell fans) The pep band pretty much had another section to itself.
But the arena itself was pretty empty (xxx_germain). Which is too bad. It's a nice arena and *everyone* is friendly and helpful. You want to go down in the corner and shoot photos through the plexiglass cutouts, nobody stops you. You just have to share the space with Carl McKee, who is an avid photographer of the games. Try doing that at Madison Square Garden -- or Lynah -- and see how long you last without press credentials.
The local fans don't like the "Red!" part of the anthem, though it was pretty much our house for day one, game one.
[edit: Post moved to CU-UMD postgame thread where it belongs. http://elf.elynah.com/read.php?1,78634,78667#msg-78667 ]
Positives from the UMD game:
- Cornell showed lots of poise on defense.
- Lots of contributions from the freshmen and sophomores.
- Cornell did not back down from a big, bruising CCHA/WCHA style team.
- If David McKee took a junior month abroad, he's back. Or McKee and the defense are back.
- Cornell did it without Pokoluk.
- O'Byrne did not turn the puck over in front of the Cornell net during the shootout. (Sorry, cheap shot.) He was solid. And my ears finally stopped ringing from the post he hit Friday night in the third period. If it was the Liberty Bell O'Byrne fired on, it would have two cracks now.
- Cam Abbott was awesome.
Disappointments:
- It went to a shootout to determine the champ, which means for post-season ratings purposes it was a 1-1 tie.
- Scary brief defensive lapses including more near breakaways allowed than should happen in a month of games.
- UMD figured out the Cornell power play, mostly by pressuring the point players.
- After Bitz missed a near-breakaway goal early in the OT, Cornell went flat and only had a few solid rushes and was lucky not to have given up a goal.
- Evan Barlow comes out of the penalty box, gets his hands on a home run pass, skates in alone ... and a UMD defender catches up and breaks up the play.
- For the weekend, two even-strength goals. Sheesh.
- Most of all, as the Cornell defense ratchets down the goals-allowed, the offense seems to ratchet down its goal production. Maybe they're related.
- We're at the midpoint of the season and Matt Moulson has, what, two (?) even-stength goals. Even blind squirrels finds some nuts. He's due. He also drew I believe three penalties on the weekend IIRC, which doubles his season total.
- Cornell seems to have an inordinate amount of almost/coulda/woulda/should opportunities that don't go in.
- Dumb / stupid / un-Schafer-like penalties against UMD: Abbott's retaliation after getting flattened in the first that negated the pending power play, and a Cornell player getting ejected for a dangerous play. OTOH, Cornell was invincible on PK over the weekend. The opponents were something like oh-for-eighteen including Cornell successful kill of the overlapping minor and five-minute major.
If listeners/webcast views got the sense it was a slow game – no, that was the first day. This was not high scoring and there were lots of penalties, but it seemed there was more hockey played, too.
Overall: This seems like a much improved team from a couple weeks ago. December's GAA is 0.73 (3 GA in 4 games plus 5 minutes of OT). The younger players are coming into their own, there's lots of poise on the ice, the defense is crisp (except for those near breakaways), PK is solid. So we're back to the circa 2003 and 2004 problem: If you only score 1-2 goals a game, you better have a darn solid defense. Plus the PP is no longer quite so scary to the other guys.
About the 2006 Florida tournament: If it's Cornell, Maine, plus UNH and Western Michigan, the tournament is 1 or 1-1/2 teams shy of a solid field in terms of attendance. But you've got 3 solid, likely top 20 teams playing. Bring back Ohio State and Notre Dame. They have nutso / loyal fans too, mostly old graduates, and they fill the arena. The UMD fans were decent but there weren't many of them. It would have been better for attendance if Maine was in the final.
[quote billhoward]About the 2006 Florida tournament: If it's Cornell, Maine, plus UNH and Western Michigan, the tournament is 1 or 1-1/2 teams shy of a solid field in terms of attendance. But you've got 3 solid, likely top 20 teams playing. Bring back Ohio State and Notre Dame. They have nutso / loyal fans too, mostly old graduates, and they fill the arena. The UMD fans were decent but there weren't many of them. It would have been better for attendance if Maine was in the final.[/quote]
Meh. tOSU and ND just had fans because people had heard of their football teams. The WMU folks were pretty impressive in Kalamazoo a couple of years ago; I'll be happy to see them again. tUMD seemed to have a similar support base to us: a half-dozen lunatics (a couple of whom were suspiciously wearing red and white for the Maine game; hmmmm...) and a hundred or so older alums. It should be noted that tUMD and Cornell had alumni receptions, while Maine and NU did not.
[quote billhoward]It's a nice arena and *everyone* is friendly and helpful.[/quote]
Plus there's a sports bar inside the rink, and if you have lunch and beers pre-game there you can park for free. Now if we could only get them to play the right fight song... (Or have Section A Banshee and her minions there all the time :-D)