Cornell - Providence Flashback

[CM cWo 44]

Mentioned in Long Island Newsday's blurb about the Stars-Oilers game

http://www.newsday.com/sports/basketball/ny-spblog315043431jan07,0,4034576.story?coll=ny-basketball-headlines

[Trotsky]

[quote French Rage]Awesome links.

Though for my generation it'll always be the 2003 ECAC final.  Though it was less of a comeback and their season would have continued anyways, one could argue that it was a bigger rival, bigger game, and bigger season.[/quote]

For those of us Tweeners (too young for the Providence game, careworn and jaded by the time of the '03 final) I would say the two most memorable games are the 1986 2ot SF win over Yale at the Garden and, for Lynah moments, the comeback from being down 4-0 in the first 7 minutes of the December 83 Fish N Fowl.

My list of landmark Cornell box scores includes all of the above.

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

Neat picture in the article.

Unfortunately, I'm being blocked by the referee.  :-P

[jkahn]

[quote Roy 82]

In the Alumni in the Pros thread, someone asked why Shark coach Ron Wison doesn't play Doug Murray more. Ron Wilson, a former Friar star hmself, is Randy's older brother. Hmmmmm.:-)[/quote]
Similarly, another opponent, Sharks' VP and Asst. GM Wayne Thomas, was the goalie against us in the '70 NCAA semi-final, where we came back from down 1-0 after two periods to win 2-1.
On the other hand, Ron Wilson's uncle, Johnny Wilson, coached the Red Wings for two seasons working for GM Ned Harkness.

[Al DeFlorio]

[quote Jeff Hopkins '82]Neat picture in the article.

Unfortunately, I'm being blocked by the referee.  :-P[/quote]
Two minutes...interference.**]

[jkahn]

[quote Trotsky]My list of landmark Cornell box scores ...[/quote]
Missing from the list is the other great vs. Providence comeback, a 6-5 win after being down 5-2 in the 3rd in the 1980 ECAC semi-finals.

[georget]

No doubt, this was certainly the most exciting Cornell Hockey game to date, and one of the greatest comebacks in all of sport.  I worked the penalty box for that game, so I had a great view of everything.  I remember seeing, after one of the many unbelievable saves by Bill Milner, someone above section M, in frustration, punch the circuit breaker box on the wall.  This caused the lights to go out, and the time period while the lights were warming back up created an unofficial time-out, giving us a chance to re-group.  I'll never forget Lance Nethery hanging his head in resignation when Randy Wilson skated free with the puck and headed into our zone towards the empty net.  Steve Hennessy followed Wilson, and when Wilson's shot hit a water puddle and went wide, Hennessy said, "Holy f**k, he missed the net!"  This got Lance's attention; he took the pass from Steve who had retrieved the puck; and, you know the rest....  When the fans came onto the ice, it was just complete bedlam.  I tossed the contents of the puck bucket onto the ice; I wonder if any of those pucks are still around?  Thanks for posting the video clip and newspaper articles.  I used to have the Ithaca Journal clippings and a cassette tape of the third period and the overtime, but they are long lost, much as the days of my mispent youth....  Speaking of which, as Arthur Mintz and I reflected upon before the Sacred Heart game, this is my 50th. season of watching the Big Red in Lynah.  My Dad took me to the first game played in Lynah, the N.Y. Rangers vs. the Rochester Amerks in 1957--unbelievable--what a long, strange trip it's been!!  Thanks Again,  "Mr. Timekeeper"

[ebilmes]

I'm in the French Rage generation of the '03 ECAC final. If we hadn't had to miss the second day of Providence the next weekend, the BC game might have been on my list, too.

Please post more often, georget.

[RichH]

I love (re: hate) how espn tried to compare the flubbed EN attempt with '86 WS game 6 on their teaser ad for SportsCenter the following day.  You know what Stars/Oilers had in common with that?  Nothing.  But the brains in Bristol have to reach for a Buckner reference with every gaffe.  It's must be a blue law in CT.  Thank goodness Newsday got it right.

Keith Olbermann has referenced the '79 playoff game a few times.  In the book "The Big Show" he penned with Dan Patrick, he listed the top 10 games he's ever witnessed in person, and that game ranked #2, I believe (only behind the '78 AL East playoff game).  The funny thing was how he had to explain to the college-hockey blind public about how he could possibly list such a sporting event.  Another mention came in a recent Sun interview:  

http://cornellsun.com/node/13424
[quote Keith Olbermann]"There was nothing like that game, and I covered the 1980 Olympics. I was at the Russia game,"[/quote]

Personally, I have temporarily banned myself from watching that video...everytime I do, I waste over a half-hour watching it over and over and over again.  I had no idea the footage from that game exsisted...just gold, especially when coupled with the radio call.

Greg has a nice list of memorable games by decade.  For my era (1993-1996), Schafer's first win vs. Harvard tops my list.  Not many regular season games IN NOVEMBER trigger students jumping the glass and rushing the ice to celebrate.  Greg didn't list the OT playoff win vs. Princeton in '94...as Lopatka skated the length of the ice after his game winner, I think I was sprinting the length of the concourse randomly tackling other celebrating fans.  The only meaningful win in my first two years.

[Larry72]

George et al:

 Great post from that fabulous game.  That evening I actually had to leave the game after the beginning of the 2nd period to develop and transmit a photo of the game for the Associated Press.  I didn't think much about the outcome of the game until I was finished at the paper and turned the radio on in my car.  It was the middle of the 3rd period and Cornell had just scored its third goal.  I went back to Lynah with my cameras and was in the press box right next to radio box where Roy Ives was announcing.  Lynah  was as loud as I ever heard it and Roy was just screaming in the mike when Lance scored the tying goal.  Definitely the most exciting college hockey game I've ever witnessed.

Larry '72

[Beeeej]

[quote RichH]Greg has a nice list of memorable games by decade.  For my era (1993-1996), Schafer's first win vs. Harvard tops my list.  Not many regular season games IN NOVEMBER trigger students jumping the glass and rushing the ice to celebrate.  Greg didn't list the OT playoff win vs. Princeton in '94...as Lopatka skated the length of the ice after his game winner, I think I was sprinting the length of the concourse randomly tackling other celebrating fans.  The only meaningful win in my first two years.[/quote]

I would have to nominate Cornell vs. Brown, Nov. 8, 1997 as a serious omission from any list of memorable games at Lynah - that's the comeback victory memorialized on the first "Live at Lynah" Pep Band CD.  Down 3-1 with 6:20 to go, and we won 4-3 without need of overtime.  It's the only time I've ever been aware, in my twenty years of following college hockey, of both teams pulling their goalies in the same game (*).  (IIRC, Arthur told me the only other instance he knew of was Cornell vs. Brown sometime in the 1970s, with Brown the victor in that earlier contest.)  And we had only four defensemen that night.

(*)EDIT: ...with the last-ditch purpose of attempting to make up a deficit at the end of the game, anyway.  Obviously, plenty of games feature delayed penalties for both sides.  Go 'way, pedants.

[Trotsky]

[quote jkahn][quote Trotsky]My list of landmark Cornell box scores ...[/quote]
Missing from the list is the other great vs. Providence comeback, a 6-5 win after being down 5-2 in the 3rd in the 1980 ECAC semi-finals.[/quote]

And you are just the man to send me the box score.

[Trotsky]

[quote RichH]IGreg didn't list the OT playoff win vs. Princeton in '94...as Lopatka skated the length of the ice after his game winner, I think I was sprinting the length of the concourse randomly tackling other celebrating fans.  The only meaningful win in my first two years.[/quote]

IIRC, that completed a hat trick for Lopey.  If you can find the box, I will duly enshrine it.

BTW, I am *very* gradually building a library of box scores for every Cornell game in history, both as static pages and, eventually, as dynamic reports generated from a fully-populated DB.  Anybody who wants to hang around the SID's office or Olin Library making copies of Ithaca Journals can email me privately about which seasons I need.

A hint for people who want to overachieve: everything prior to 1957 (which is actually a surprisingly few games).

The site topic index includes season-by-season indices which link to schedules which are linked when a box is present.

[Beeeej]

[quote Trotsky]BTW, I am *very* gradually building a library of box scores for every Cornell game in history, both as static pages and, eventually, as dynamic reports generated from a fully-populated DB.  Anybody who wants to hang around the SID's office or Olin Library making copies of Ithaca Journals can email me privately about which seasons I need.[/quote]

Doesn't this kind of duplicate the ELynah DB that's been in progress, at least a little?

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

[quote Larry72]George et al:

 Great post from that fabulous game.  That evening I actually had to leave the game after the beginning of the 2nd period to develop and transmit a photo of the game for the Associated Press.  I didn't think much about the outcome of the game until I was finished at the paper and turned the radio on in my car.  It was the middle of the 3rd period and Cornell had just scored its third goal.  I went back to Lynah with my cameras and was in the press box right next to radio box where Roy Ives was announcing.  Lynah  was as loud as I ever heard it and Roy was just screaming in the mike when Lance scored the tying goal.  Definitely the most exciting college hockey game I've ever witnessed.

Larry '72[/quote]

I missed the first and second periods because of a Chem 208 prelim (we tried to get it moved but the asshole prof refused).  At the exam, I let the TA's know that I was upset I was missing the game.  Turns out they were as pissed as I was.  As they passed out the exams, I hummed "O Canada!" for luck, which got a chuckle from those who recognized it.  I finished the exam quickly, got an "enjoy the game" from the TA, and ran up to Lynah to get in before the third period.  

I got there during the outage while they fixed the lights, so it was still in the middle of the second.  I had to wait outside until the second period was finished and the ushers let me in.  When I got down to my seat, my friends said "You shouldn't have bothered coming" because at that point the score was already 3-1 PC.

You know the rest.

And in case you're wondering, I aced the exam. :-D