Interesting thread. I wonder why no one has yet stated the obvious: Cornell smoked this same team earlier this very year. Was Shafer's system to blame then, too? We played them twice, and each team totally outclassed the other once. It happens. That's sports.
As for the pattern of Cornell "failure", let me just amen the context others have given for Shafer's teams. This is my first post to this forum - usually I just quietly follow the occasional thread. But this time I simply cannot remain silent. I grew up in Ithaca, have been watching Cornell games since the early '80s, have been coached by and played with former Cornell players, graduated from Cornell, etc. I've seen Cornell get smoked by Harvard so many times that my loathing for them comes from a deep and ugly place, not from an academic inferiority complex. My dad got me season tickets one year just because Cornell was playing Harvard at home on my birthday - a game Cornell lost, 5-0. And I've seen us rise again and rip their hearts out in equally vicious and delicious fashion. I was at the Weder series, when Cornell scored so many goals I actually felt remorse for an opponent (tempered with much rejoicing). When I was in high school, I got to play a pick-up game with Kent Manderville and Dan Ratushny at Lynah the week after they returned from playing in the Olympics, still wearing their Team Canada gear. Myself a goalie, at one point I stoned Manderville on a clean breakaway, a big thrill for me.
I've seen three head coaches at Cornell and heard about others from my parents, who have followed the team since the '60s. Though one of those former coaches is a family friend, in objectivity I would have to concede that what Shafer has achieved with the program is far above and beyond anything his predecessors (excepting Harkness) have. The halcyon days of being a perennial national title contender resulted from Cornell's blazing the recruiting trail into Canada to find talent. Now everybody does that. And while I'm passionate about New York hockey, the youth programs here simply can't create the same homegrown talent that is found in Minny or Michigan or Mass. So Cornell searches far and wide with a pretty limited budget to find the best it possibly can, and Shafer does an unbelievable job of consistently replacing valuable players with solid recruits who he then develops into the next class of valuable players. Cornell, quite simply, has a tradition that Shafer respects and teaches his players to respect, and he gets as much as humanly possible out of them. Who would have thought that guys like Murray, Moulson, Bitz, O'Byrne, Vesce, etc. would be making contributions in the NHL?! These guys just weren't that talented when they came to Cornell, and now they do enough things to be able to play the game at the highest level. To imagine those guys ascending to that level by way of some other college or junior program is almost unimaginable. Credit Shafer - his "system" produced those players. In fact, his "system" is so good at developing quality forwards that it makes any goalie who dons the Cornell jersey an All-American candidate. Let me say this as clearly as I can: Cornell does not recruit great goalies. Cornell recruits solid goalies, goalies on par with the other players Cornell recruits, and makes them look great because it is that well coached. The evidence? Dadswell, D'Alessio, Crozier, Pelletier, Duffus, Leneveau, McKee, etc. How many All-American goalies has Cornell had that have made zero impact on the NHL? After Dryden (who came, remember, back when we were practically the only college team pilfering Canada's talent) we've had Hayward and Elliot play significantly in the NHL, and both had modest careers at best. The rest have been "great" at Cornell and not so great afterward. Many of those goalies were products of previous coaches, and Cornell coaches have long preached what Shafer does about responsible hockey, but Shafer just does it better than others have. For Cornell to be consistently in the Top 10 is no less amazing now that it would have been in the '80s and '90s, but it is much more frequent.
As far as competing on the national stage with the best of the WCHA, CCHA, and Hockey East, the best way to win with lesser talent is by doing exactly what Cornell does - suffocating forechecking, backchecking, and defending. Nothing wrong with those virtues. When teams from the ECAC, AHA, and CHA win against the big boys, is it 7-6 or is it 2-1? Would you rather try to engage those teams in shootouts or shutouts? The choice is clear. One of these days, one of these not-so-good Cornell teams is going to run the table in the NCAAs the way they just did the ECAC tournament and everyone will recognize Shafer for the genius he is. Or maybe it will never happen. But playing the way we play gives us the best ODDS of winning, not just in the ECAC but in the NCAAs.
I'm just as disappointed as anyone else with last night's performance (it was painfully awful to watch), but it was just one bad game, not reason to throw out a very successful coach with a very successful system. I'm content to bide my time as a fan, knowing that each year Shafer will put on the ice a team with a legitimate chance to go all the way. That's a pretty great feeling as a fan. I've been a Cornell hockey fan my whole life, and there has never been a better time to be one than now. Well, maybe the late '60s. But besides that.
As for the pattern of Cornell "failure", let me just amen the context others have given for Shafer's teams. This is my first post to this forum - usually I just quietly follow the occasional thread. But this time I simply cannot remain silent. I grew up in Ithaca, have been watching Cornell games since the early '80s, have been coached by and played with former Cornell players, graduated from Cornell, etc. I've seen Cornell get smoked by Harvard so many times that my loathing for them comes from a deep and ugly place, not from an academic inferiority complex. My dad got me season tickets one year just because Cornell was playing Harvard at home on my birthday - a game Cornell lost, 5-0. And I've seen us rise again and rip their hearts out in equally vicious and delicious fashion. I was at the Weder series, when Cornell scored so many goals I actually felt remorse for an opponent (tempered with much rejoicing). When I was in high school, I got to play a pick-up game with Kent Manderville and Dan Ratushny at Lynah the week after they returned from playing in the Olympics, still wearing their Team Canada gear. Myself a goalie, at one point I stoned Manderville on a clean breakaway, a big thrill for me.
I've seen three head coaches at Cornell and heard about others from my parents, who have followed the team since the '60s. Though one of those former coaches is a family friend, in objectivity I would have to concede that what Shafer has achieved with the program is far above and beyond anything his predecessors (excepting Harkness) have. The halcyon days of being a perennial national title contender resulted from Cornell's blazing the recruiting trail into Canada to find talent. Now everybody does that. And while I'm passionate about New York hockey, the youth programs here simply can't create the same homegrown talent that is found in Minny or Michigan or Mass. So Cornell searches far and wide with a pretty limited budget to find the best it possibly can, and Shafer does an unbelievable job of consistently replacing valuable players with solid recruits who he then develops into the next class of valuable players. Cornell, quite simply, has a tradition that Shafer respects and teaches his players to respect, and he gets as much as humanly possible out of them. Who would have thought that guys like Murray, Moulson, Bitz, O'Byrne, Vesce, etc. would be making contributions in the NHL?! These guys just weren't that talented when they came to Cornell, and now they do enough things to be able to play the game at the highest level. To imagine those guys ascending to that level by way of some other college or junior program is almost unimaginable. Credit Shafer - his "system" produced those players. In fact, his "system" is so good at developing quality forwards that it makes any goalie who dons the Cornell jersey an All-American candidate. Let me say this as clearly as I can: Cornell does not recruit great goalies. Cornell recruits solid goalies, goalies on par with the other players Cornell recruits, and makes them look great because it is that well coached. The evidence? Dadswell, D'Alessio, Crozier, Pelletier, Duffus, Leneveau, McKee, etc. How many All-American goalies has Cornell had that have made zero impact on the NHL? After Dryden (who came, remember, back when we were practically the only college team pilfering Canada's talent) we've had Hayward and Elliot play significantly in the NHL, and both had modest careers at best. The rest have been "great" at Cornell and not so great afterward. Many of those goalies were products of previous coaches, and Cornell coaches have long preached what Shafer does about responsible hockey, but Shafer just does it better than others have. For Cornell to be consistently in the Top 10 is no less amazing now that it would have been in the '80s and '90s, but it is much more frequent.
As far as competing on the national stage with the best of the WCHA, CCHA, and Hockey East, the best way to win with lesser talent is by doing exactly what Cornell does - suffocating forechecking, backchecking, and defending. Nothing wrong with those virtues. When teams from the ECAC, AHA, and CHA win against the big boys, is it 7-6 or is it 2-1? Would you rather try to engage those teams in shootouts or shutouts? The choice is clear. One of these days, one of these not-so-good Cornell teams is going to run the table in the NCAAs the way they just did the ECAC tournament and everyone will recognize Shafer for the genius he is. Or maybe it will never happen. But playing the way we play gives us the best ODDS of winning, not just in the ECAC but in the NCAAs.
I'm just as disappointed as anyone else with last night's performance (it was painfully awful to watch), but it was just one bad game, not reason to throw out a very successful coach with a very successful system. I'm content to bide my time as a fan, knowing that each year Shafer will put on the ice a team with a legitimate chance to go all the way. That's a pretty great feeling as a fan. I've been a Cornell hockey fan my whole life, and there has never been a better time to be one than now. Well, maybe the late '60s. But besides that.
