ELynah Forum

Exit PWR. Enter NPI:
https://bsky.app/profile/schlossmangf.bsky.social/post/3lzyqxwzwvc23

Quote from: BearLoverThere's a strange fixation on this forum about Q's questionable academic standards when in reality almost every school in the country, including almost every D-1 hockey school and some in our own conference, has a similar lack of standards, especially for those on the hockey team.

I think it is born, at least in part, from the ECAC's traditional positioning as a conference of schools that take academics seriously. Adding Q rather than RIT or Holy Cross undermined that positioning.*

That's at least in part because Q is so insufferable in it's marketing of itself. If the university positioned itself more as a serious school and not as a boarding school for wealthy kids to drink in new haven (or was quieter generally), it'd probably be less of an issue too.  My experience in fairfield county is that it's not taken super seriously and is wildly too expensive.  They run billboards bragging that they were included in USNWR rankings. Not where they rank just that the magazine includes them. It's be great if they improved their academic profile but for a lot of folks they'll always be seen as the diploma mill Trotsky sees.

*- yes I know it wasn't strictly a choice of those three at the time to replace UVM. But the perception at the time was that RIT and HC would be better cultural fits for the conference than Q.

Quote from: stereax

Quote from: Chris '03

Quote from: stereaxGot an email blast from Coach Jones announcing the news.

Press release.

Here's Coach Jones's wording:

Now I've got some exciting news - In case you haven't heard, Mike Schafer will be inducted into the Cornell University Athletics Hall of Fame! Read the press release here. It's a huge honor for Mike and for the Men's Ice Hockey program. The Inductee Class of 2025 will celebrate on campus the weekend of November 21-22 while we are home versus Union and RPI.

One other key date to put on your calendars will be our Cornell Hockey reunion weekend which this year will be January 23/24 with Dartmouth and Harvard coming to town.  We will honor the '86 and '96 ECAC Championship teams that weekend.

So circle those dates

So no recognition at homecoming in two weeks?

Not for the Hall of Fame. They might do a different recognition at homecoming tho.

I was under the impression it was homecoming every year. Here's last year: https://cornellbigred.com/news/2024/7/29/general-cornell-athletics-elects-11-into-hall-of-fame-as-class-of-2024.aspx

Quote from: stereaxGot an email blast from Coach Jones announcing the news.

Press release.

Here's Coach Jones's wording:

Now I've got some exciting news - In case you haven't heard, Mike Schafer will be inducted into the Cornell University Athletics Hall of Fame! Read the press release here. It's a huge honor for Mike and for the Men's Ice Hockey program. The Inductee Class of 2025 will celebrate on campus the weekend of November 21-22 while we are home versus Union and RPI.

One other key date to put on your calendars will be our Cornell Hockey reunion weekend which this year will be January 23/24 with Dartmouth and Harvard coming to town.  We will honor the '86 and '96 ECAC Championship teams that weekend.

So circle those dates

So no recognition at homecoming in two weeks?

Quote from: Trotsky

Quote from: wolcomaEvery year I buy season football tickets and donate to the program.  Then I sign up for ESPN +.   It just drives me nuts I can't even stream or listen to the game on Saturday night.   Meanwhile Homecoming is just over two weeks away and I have not received any e-mails or snail mail from the athletic department.   Like I said, Cornell does not make it easy to be a Big Red fan.

At least the SID and AD listen now.  This is much better than prior regimes which regarded their relationship with the fans with a piquant mixture of smug superiority and hapless technical ineptitude.

Contact them.  Cite a specific issue and why it is a problem for fans.  I believe the present regime is actually trying, and judging from the evolution of the SID's products they have far more functioning synapses than their antecedents.

Perhaps a good topic for the zoom town hall today?

https://cornell.zoom.us/webinar/register/5617577054996/WN_UIKZKol_TXeJZHdTJ1z0tw

Quote from: Trotsky

Quote from: BearLover

Quote from: Trotsky

Quote from: BearLover

Quote from: VIEWfromK

Quote from: arugulaAnyone so long as Pierre McGuire is not involved

https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/penguins/2025/09/10/nhl-penguins-radio-pierre-mcguire/stories/202509100079

The notion that Pierre McGuire is worse than the local ECAC announcers was certainly one of the crazier views expressed on this forum lately

McGuire has National Hockey Media Syndrome: the affectation that college hockey is an "appetizer" to the NHL, driven in turn by Sports Insecurity Syndrome, the desperation of many sports media types to be taken seriously despite their existential vacuity.  He has such hyper-specific pre-college knowledge it's actually become a joke.  May be retired by now.  Or dead.

A few national national hockey media figures escape this, like Buccigross and the USCHO and CHN folks.  But pretty much everybody on the national Derp Circuit has it bad and that aint good.

I actually think Buccigross is the single biggest offender. A huge portion of his announcing and broader college hockey coverage is in reference to the NHL.

I might be confused -- who is the guy who famously can rattle off where every New England player went to prep school, who his coach was, and then who went there 20 / 40 / 60 years before ?

I hear New England prep school and immediately flash to Bob Norton.

Quote from: Chris '03

Quote from: chimpfoodDonahue out at Penn

And hired by Saint Joe's to be associate head coach. Staying in Philly.

And now head coach as Billy Lange takes a job with the Knicks.

Quote from: BearLover

Quote from: adamw

Quote from: BearLover

Quote from: adamw

Quote from: BearLoverOverall, I prioritize fairness and excitement. On-campus regionals are more fair and more exciting.

on-campus Regionals may be a lot of things - but more fair is not one of them.

On-campus regionals seems quite a bit fairer to me than the current system. Under the current system, we have 4 seeds hosting 1 seeds, and we have teams being paired to maximize attendance rather than based on seeding. With on-campus regionals, hosting is based on an objective criterion (computer ranking), rather than which schools paid to host or where the committee wants to send you to make more money.

An imperfect (far from perfect) "objective" criterion is not necessarily more fair - any more than something being legal automatically makes it legally right. As I've written about approximately 11 billion times, the whole reason many neutral site Regional proponents like it is because of the inequity with home ice Regionals. You take flawed math and you compound it by giving that team home ice.  Note: "flawed" does not mean bad.  It just means that you take meaningless differences, based upon arbitrary weightings, and give a team an enormous advantage.  It's wildly unfair.  I've heard all the arguments the other way a zillion times.

"Well, NHL teams do it" ... a) the NHL has fully objective standings with relatively balanced schedules against similar competition ... and b) the NHL gives best-of-7 series where 3 of the 7 games are played at the lower seed. In college, the proposal is that all 3 games be played at the higher seed. Big difference. ....

"Well, it's good enough for selecting the teams" ... another hollow argument that I've addressed a ridiculous amount of times. The difference between selection and seeding is clear ... with selection, the alternative (very flawed humans deciding) is far worse than any computer algorithm. However, with seeding, we have an alternative to granting home-ice - which is the current neutral site system.  This difference is glaringly obvious, yet I hear this trope repeated constantly as a way to "zing" me. Nope.

As for the inequities you describe -- I am on record as saying that those things should never happen either.  They are relatively rare.  I believe those issues can and should be solved. The solution is not to throw out the system and do something even more unfair to everyone.

Many arguments can be made in favor of on-campus Regionals. Fairness is not one of them.

If you could get rid of regional host schools, and not allow the committee to pair teams based on maximizing revenues, then I would agree with you that such a system would be fairer than on-campus regionals. But until that happens, I believe on-campus regionals are quite a bit fairer than the current system. I understand PWR* is imperfect, but it's a math formula that is a function of win percentage and strength of schedule. Those are the right inputs, even if they may be weighted incorrectly. And so basing home ice off of that is infinitely fairer than basing it off of other factors like which school is hosting, or which matchup would maximize revenue. Given Cornell has been screwed by this several times in the last couple decades, it's not as rare as you say it is.

*or whatever new thing we have now

The host stays home bit is imperfect. But it's not as if they host in their own building (anymore). I think they should be required to stay at a hotel and not have access to team facilities like was the case with PC. But that is solvable. If the screw job is that the host team has a fans advantage, the number of teams for which that creates a material difference feels relatively small and less significant that the home ice issues Adam points out.

Quote from: TroyfanIs the time between when the seedings come out and the regionals are played sufficient for TV crews, visiting teams and fans, etc.?  Also, will local hotels and restaurants have enough time to raise their prices?

I suspect that in a world with eight first round campus games, the "TV" would be ESPN+ and host school crews or campus video with off site play by play from Charlotte or something. I don't see ESPN sending crews to eight random campuses.

I continue to back regionals. And continue to think finding (imaginary?) fixed sites to host eight teams would solve many of the issues. At a minimum, having conferences host and putting conference champ at "home" would eliminate some of the host unfair advantage argument.

Quote from: RichH

Quote from: CU2007

Quote from: TrotskyGrady is outstanding.

"No doubt about it"

No question about it.

I just realized that this also means the end of our favorite local ads.

Pour one out for the East Hill Car Wash jingle.

But RC Holmes will surely continue to jump up to get that ball.

Keith Allain has retired. Effective immediately.
https://www.collegehockeyinsider.com/p/end-of-an-era-allain-retires-at-yale?utm_medium=bluesky

I guess he couldn't take the new sound system.

Jane McNally on the issue for the Sun: https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/08/cornell-athletics-cuts-ties-with-longtime-men-s-hockey-broadcast-partner-whcu-undergoes-changes-to-espn-broadcasts?fbclid=IwQ0xDSwMDDslleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHlsqIJafAGFgS51FcLmsMW1-nm_V_Qo2WK_dhqegilJjvwX_15O2Yrmp4oZK_aem_krziAIDNU5pmopGkXQ9uKA

Quote from: upprdeckmostly you cant stream espn+ over seas.  I'm sure Cornell knows that....

There are lots of places where driving I could reliably get the hcu stream but the ESPN plus with video was just too much for the cell service.

Brown has settled and seems to be inviting future enforcement action if its admissions policies aren't acceptable to the administration among other things.


https://president.brown.edu/president/brown-and-us-government-reach-agreement


https://www.brown.edu/sites/default/files/brown-and-united-states-resolution-agreement_July-30-2025.pdf

Quote from: BearLover

Quote from: TrotskyWell I for one am shocked, shocked that an entity run to generationally perpetuate the dominance of the wealthy has no problems sacrificing every core democratic and human value to suck up to fascists.

I mean, who would have ever guessed that would be the result of universities aligning with big business?

I know you have to satisfy your quota of rants against the system, but you clearly don't understand the power dynamic here. Colleges have no choice. Research universities are reliant on government funding.  Harvard, which is far richer and far more powerful than Cornell, tried resisting, realized they couldn't win, and now they are in a far worse position than if they had acquiesced from the start.

I think we need to define "far worse position" here. The schools that cave will pay a bribe and get their precious research dollars. And hand over their independence and soul. And then in six months get shaken down again. And again. Because it's never one time. Ask Columbia.

All while prospective students and current and future faculty who are leaders in their fields go elsewhere. And alumni donations dry up.

Sure standing up for yourself is hard. But sometimes that's what is needed.