Guaranteed ECAC Title vs Guaranteed NCAA Advance

[Trotsky]

[quote KeithK]I'm also in the minority thinking that the RS championship is more indicative of the better team when you have a balanced schedule.  I've said it here before - having a tournament to decide the champion made perfect sense in the old unbalanced schedule days but not so much now.[/quote]
I don't think many would disagree with you that the round robin competition of the league determines the "best team."  But a tournament is not about identifying the best team, it's about winning a championship in a series of win-or-die situations.

These are two distinct and non-comparable types of competition.  If the "best team" was all that mattered, we wouldn't have any elimination tournies at any level.  Each conference would determine an RS champ by round robin, and then the champions would play a round robin, similar to the CHL Memorial Cup, to determine the national "best team."

If the "championship" was all that mattered, we'd simply bracket up all the teams in November, play elimination rounds, and crown a national champion by Christmas.

[billhoward]

You said it in the fewest words. A good team wants to win the league title. A great team wants to win it all.

Nobody remembers that some putz from Brown tied David McKee or David Leneveu for Ivy rookie of the year.

Okay, every Ivy League and ECAC banner hoisted to the rafters at Lynah attenuates about 0.5dB of sound, which is not bad. But the ones that matter are dated 1967 and 1970, plus the ones the list Cornell Olympians.

I suspect a lot of people would be happy finishing second in the Ivies (independent of whether you advance in the postseason) so long as second place was attained via two victories over Harvard.


C'mon, aren't you frustrated that Cornell hasn't won a national champsionship (in hockey) since before you were born and almost certainly since before you attended Cornell? If you were a Cornell undergrad and saw Cornell win the NCAA title, you're at least, what, 53 years old. Harvard may suck, but Harvard has won an NCAA championship more recently than that. RPI too. Look at the roster of teams that has won an NCAA championship in the last 50 years and look at who has had the longest dry spell ...

[redhair34]

[quote billhoward] Look at the roster of teams that has won an NCAA championship in the last 50 years and look at who has had the longest dry spell ...[/quote]

Collorado College?  I agree with your general sentiment though.

[Will]

[quote redhair34][quote billhoward] Look at the roster of teams that has won an NCAA championship in the last 50 years and look at who has had the longest dry spell ...[/quote]

Collorado College?  I agree with your general sentiment though.[/quote]

I believe we're #2 on the list, though.

[billhoward]

NCAA title is what Cornell should hope for this year, next year, before the decade is out.

More realistically, given the increase in competition (Ohio State was not a threat to Ned Harkness, let alone Miami of Ohio), is making the Final Four / Frozen Four several times this decade. We've done it once, we should have done it twice, we need to do it twice more before 2010 or 2009, depending on when your believe a decade ends.

[calgARI '07]

[quote billhoward]NCAA title is what Cornell should hope for this year, next year, before the decade is out.

More realistically, given the increase in competition (Ohio State was not a threat to Ned Harkness, let alone Miami of Ohio), is making the Final Four / Frozen Four several times this decade. We've done it once, we should have done it twice, we need to do it twice more before 2010 or 2009, depending on when your believe a decade ends.[/quote]

I think that is a good and realistic target and it would effectively put them amongst the elite.  That is if they win one of them which I think they will in the next five years.

[jtwcornell91]

[quote billhoward]Okay, every Ivy League and ECAC banner hoisted to the rafters at Lynah attenuates about 0.5dB of sound, which is not bad. But the ones that matter are dated 1967 and 1970, plus the ones the list Cornell Olympians.[/quote]

I'm pretty damned happy about the ones dated 1996 and 1997 myself.

[Jim Hyla]

All this good team/great team talk reminds me of a statement from Ken Dryden attributed to Coach Harkness. When asked why he didn't go to Princeton the statement was like: Princeton said they were building for an ECAC title, Harkness said he was building for an NCAA title.

[David Harding]

[quote billhoward]C'mon, aren't you frustrated that Cornell hasn't won a national champsionship (in hockey) since before you were born and almost certainly since before you attended Cornell? If you were a Cornell undergrad and saw Cornell win the NCAA title, you're at least, what, 53 years old.  ...[/quote]There are few of us here, and within our lifetimes (if not memories) the Cornell football team beat Michigan.  That does bias my aspirations for the team.