ELynah Forum

Quote from: ugarteI am still annoyed at their terror at any forecheck and we have ONE player on the team who likes - actually likes - to shoot the puck (Bancroft) and every time he's on the wing with space, whoever is passing it to him handcuffs him so he can't one-time it. Morgan Barron would have killed someone by now.

Cornell has had real trouble with breakouts against any decent forecheck for... I don't know... the past ten seasons? For about half the games each season, you'll see them stuggle on this, and I've asked myself for years now why other teams don't exploit it more.

My only working theories:

1. Cornell doesn't regularly play amazing teams, and it's hard to put up a consistently decent forecheck. So most teams just can't pull this off consistently against Cornell?

And/Or...

2. Most D-1 hockey teams are at a quality level that they'll struggle against a decent forecheck. We're all in the same boat, there's nothing unique about Cornell on this, and I just notice Cornell's struggles more.

Quote from: BearLoverMy two cents for the Sun's coverage of the hockey team: in today's age, it's easy to find video and stats of games, so summarizing the action isn't what makes the Sun's coverage so valuable. Rather, what makes the Sun so valuable is its access to the players and the coaches. The quotes from Schafer and the players after the game are always very interesting, and they're hard to find anywhere else. I enjoy the game summaries, but the key is to supplement those with plenty of reactions from the players and coaches. For the same reason, I would love profiles and interviews of the players and coaches. Brandon Thomas used to do a Freshman Friday feature when he was part of the Cornell communications department, but that has vanished. It would be amazing for the Sun to do something like that. Maybe an interview with a player each week, or something to that effect.

This is pretty much it. You want the right blend of Filling A Gap and Actually Achievable.

If you had someone who REALLY knows their stuff, and can find a way to write great in-depth explorations of things that can't be gleaned by Scouting the Stat Line, fine. But even most folks who think of themselves as Real Xs and Os types don't know what they're talking about most of the time. Pulling that off is unlikely.

So instead the focus should be on being the best student reporters you can be. The coverage can be serious of fun, hockey-focused or otherwise... but it should be different from what a bunch of fossils can manage on their own from Googling and an ESPN+ subscription.

Yes, Brandon Thomas's Freshman Friday pieces were great. Mimic them if you can get access to the players.

The Bed Red Hockeycast podcast was useful (for fans of the Men's team) its first season when they interviewed players on the Men's team. It wasn't because the two guys yakking on it were talented or insightful or knew-anything-about-hockey. They really, really didn't. So their recaps of the previous weekend were wastes. But they had an actual interview with a player each week and got a chance to ask a lot of questions. So even with most of the questions being dumb, there'd still be at some least good answers yielded. What's more, the "student perspective" was actually really great to have! It just happened to be limited to the two dumb students who happened to host that podcast. Something broader would be even better.

Quote from: BearLoverSullivan Mack reminds me of Kyle Betts. A forward who is reliable on defense and the penalty kill, smart and always knows where to be on the ice...but can never bury his chances.

I mean, they're both likable, I guess. But Kyle Betts was a Top 6 forward and one of the team's leaders, and Mack (I'm rooting for him... like all Cornell players) will only turn out that way if all our talented freshmen turn into pumpkins.

Betts always put up a decent number of points, had a hat trick early in his Cornell career, and (being the fastest player on the team) created lots of breakaways and odd-man rushes (of the kind fans go gaga over O'Leary doing these days). It's true that Betts didn't have some magic scoring touch, so if you want to ding him for not finishing on most of those chances... be my guest. But "reliable" is also underselling Betts on his defense, when he was the best penalty killer (forward or defenseman) during his upperclassman seasons.

Would love to see Mack make the type of leap before his senior year that compares, but between his ceiling surely being lower and the lack of chances he'll get with so much more talent around him... one shouldn't bet on it.