Skills competition @ "Skate with the Big Red"

[Evan \'02]

I was at the "Skate with the Big Red" event at Lynah this evening.
Read here if you aren't familiar with this:
http://cornellbigred.ocsn.com/sports/m-hockey/spec-rel/121102aaa.html

Great turnout and it was a lot of fun. Sam Paolini was the MC

If you didn't know this year they had a skills competition similar to the All-Star game.
The results of the events were as follows:

Fastest Skater Travis Bell, one lap of the rink from a standing start in 12.1 seconds.

Most accurate shot Charlie Cook, needed only the first 6 of the allowed 10 shots to hit all 4 corner targets setup in the goal.

Hardest shot, no surprise here Doug Murray. The official number given to the crowd was 96 MPH, but after the competition when talking to a few people in the rink several of us thought that we heard 99 MPH and that Paolini may have misheard the number from the radar gun. Baby was 2nd Knoepfli 3rd I think.

Last man standing breakaway competition winner was Ryan Vesce.
Every player skated in on a breakaway from the far end and those that scored advanced to the next round until one remained.
Todd Marr and Louis Chabot rotated in goal every three shots. After one round only 6 skaters scored then three the next round then only Vesce.

The goalies looked good, Marr especially. It was tough though because some of the players were showboating big time.

I think it was Vesce who pulled a between the legs shot/drop pass to himself similar, but not exactly like this:

http://www.vu.union.edu/~berardc/files/hemmingwaygoal.mpeg

But the most amazing shot (by crowd reaction anyway), even though Marr blocked it, went to Chris Abbot who kind of re-enacted the famous Michigan Wolverines, pick the puck up onto your stick and shoot it like a lacrosse ball move.

http://media.ebaumsworld.com/hockeyscore.mpg

Abbot did this on the backhand though and shot it around his back from in front of the net. Very cool to watch.
There were a good amount of amazing fake moves all around by other players too.

Was anyone else there that can vouch for the amount of flashy moves in the breakaway competition?

I hope to see the skills competition again next year. There were many happy kids getting autographs and pictures with the team. I would like to think that Loaves and Fishes were able to get a good amount of donations from the happy kids' parents.

[Jordan 04]

[q]http://www.vu.union.edu/~berardc/fi...[/q]

Wow.


[q]http://media.ebaumsworld.com/hockey...[/q]

WOW!

[Ben Doyle 03]

See 1988 NCAA Semifinal game clip entitled "Air Gait I"

::worry::    http://www.laxpower.com/videos/88/1988.htm  ::worry::


Now illegal in in the field game the "air gait" has obviously had an impact outside the game of lacrosse. As a former DI lax player I have to say pulling an "air gait" on the field is much more difficult than the albeit very cool looking UMich move.

[Evan \'02]

Very ironic that you should post that lacrosse move. As I watched Abbot's move tonight I seriously thought of the Gait Bros.

[Al DeFlorio]

I was fortunate to have been in the Dome to see that goal.  

Probably the most disappointing thing about that game was that Penn, playing a remarkably disciplined game against a much more talented team, had Syracuse beaten until a late game collapse.  Else Cornell might have had another national championship in 1988.

[Ben Doyle 03]

Yup, those were some of the first lacrosse games I ever saw. Guess they got me hooked. . .

[DeltaOne81]

How did I not hear about this at all? I woulda loved something hockey related tonight... oh well, I guess those videos'll have to hold me 'til early January... at least the Hemmingway one was new :-).

-Fred

[rhovorka]

Well drat.  I was going to go, but the threat of icy weather kept me from making the hour drive.  Great to hear there was a good turnout.

[Evan \'02]

I should add that Jeremy Downs was a very close 2nd in the speed portion of the event, but he stuttered on the start.