Thoughts of BU-CU & Beyond

[Greg Berge]

I'm pretty sure Schafer discusses the possibility of playing in the nationals with every prospect.  I assume he encourages it -- the higher the profile of Cornell University among recruiting hotbeds, the better.

As an example, which would you rather have: Joe Nieuwendyk returning for the 1988 season, or leaving a year early and then spreading the Cornell gospel for 16 NHL seasons?  Yes, maybe he could have done both, but: if you had to choose.

[RedAR]

DR,

You're kidding about Underhill, right?  Maybe we made it as far as we did last year in part because of solid goaltending by Underhill.

Were you knocking Leneveu after our loss to Dartmouth?

[DR]

No I'm not kidding, Underhill was not the better goalie last year, he had a penchant for giving up terrible rebounds, and not making big saves when it counted. I'm not sure which loss to Dartmouth you're referring to, but I'm not criticizing Underhill on the basis of one game.  Look at the BU game he played in last year; he also gave up some bad goals and bad rebounds, leading to the coining of the phrase "Underskill Rebound."  Frankly, the fact that Leneveu as a freshman was playing every other game last year is indicative of the fact that he was a better goalie than Underhill.  If Schaefer had the guts to start him in the playoffs, we would have beaten UNH.

[bigred apple]

If, with a courteous amount of notice, I asked for time off to work for my country on a special project that required a substantial amount of volunteer lawyering, my firm would welcome me back after it was over.  Life is complicated, and "employers" that think the job is all that their employees have will usually find it tough to keep employees.  

I think Schafer knew that he was recruiting a player that might need time off to represent Canada, and still (thankfully) felt that it was worth it to bring him here.

And, for the record, for hockey purposes, LeNeveu doesn't need Cornell that much. He could have played at any school in the country.   And he would have had better competition out west.  And he certainly would have had better competition and a higher profile if he just stayed in Canada and played major juniors.

[gwm3]

Lenny got shelled by Dartmouth at Lynah last year.  Many of us were pretty down on him after that.

I think a lot of people realized that Leneveu was the more talented of the two goalies, but I think most also agreed that Underhill deserved to start.  He was more experienced, he had paid his dues for four years, and he was pretty damn good by any objective standard.  Leneveu will be a better goalie in the long run, but Undy was justifiably the guy last year.  I don't think we could have thrown a freshman in there every night and expected him to win us the national championship.

[jtwcornell91]

Also, even just looking at their postgame body language, I got the impression Undy was a good mentor for Lenny.

BTW, it should be taken as a sign of how good we have things that people are actually griping about Underhill, who was one of the two or three (depending on whether you count JMP) best goalies to play at Cornell between Paris Duffus and David Leneveu.

And where is Blonde, anyway?  Last year she bawled us out for frank and non-insulting appraisals of Ian Burt; some of the comments above about Underhill are much more deserving of that reaction.

[tml5]

Bill, one thing you're missing here is that Cornell (the institution, not the hockey team) encourages its athletes to take these opportunities.  It's good for the school in terms of name recognition, prestige for the athletic department, and alumni donations.  I would argue that by playing for the Canadian team, LeNeveu might be doing *more* for the university than he would have by passing on the opportunity to stay with his team for a mere 4 games on a 32 game schedule.  In this case, it's not as clear cut due to the lower prestige of this event as compared to, say, the Olympics, but I think this point is still valid.

Universities have armies of people devoted to product placement (that's not what the schools call it, but that's effectively what it is) and couldn't be more pleased when free opportunities for positive publicity present themselves (I'll stop practicing my alliteration now).  This is good advertising for Cornell.  If you have any doubts about this, next time you make it to Lynah note the "Olympians" banners.  Also note that Cornell put a list of Olympians on the athletics website and named them in alumni newsletters.  Cornell was so eager for any claim to Olympic greatness that Dana Antal, who never graduated and has been attending a school in Canada for several years while training with the Canadian women's national hockey team, was listed.

[Liz]

Yes, maybe Lenny was a better goalie last year. But I for one am glad that Schafer played Underhill. He was a senior, had paid his dues, and gave a lot to Cornell. It was the cap on his career (unfortunately spoiled). :-/  We're a school, not a pro team. That's what makes cheering for Cornell so great, IMO. :-)
Liz

[nyc94]

Whoa, I never implied that Schafer should prevent him from going or even ask him not to go.  Everything I said was about him choosing to stay with the Cornell team for the last big nonconference game.

I just feel that this year could be something really special and I would like to see the whole team out there.

As for loyalty between school and country, sure country is the choice to make.

[Adam \'01]

Am I the only one who thinks that Cornell stands a great chance of winning those 4 games even without Lenny?  We have a killer defense and are actually scoring goals this year.  Sure, it would be great to have Dave's incredible skills between the pipes, but I really don't think it has to be a make or break proposition.

[jd212]

No you're not. I asked the same question in another thread.

[ugarte]

No.  I think everyone thinks we can win all four games without LeNeveu.  But I also think everyone here believes that we would definitely win all four games with Lenny. (Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but only a slight one.)

[nshapiro]

And having someone step onto the ice to be the goalie for their first minute of College Hockey against Maine is not ideal.  

That is why I have been hoping that in some of these lopsided games, Coach would put in one of the other goalies.  

I don't buy the argument that "you cant pull the goalie because he has a shutout".  I think the right thing to do is to get Marr and/or Chabot playing time before they are thrown to the Black Bears.   The team should come first, and getting Lenny another shutout should not be a factor.

[CowbellGuy]

That's a good way to piss a goalie off. You don't want that either. Especially since he's on pace to break Cornell's single-season shutout record.

[nshapiro]

Well, The Vermont game was 5-0 after the first period.  If pulling the goalie then would piss him off, then would he be pissed off if the coach picked another goalie to start the game?  After all, if he doesn't play every game he plans to attend, then that will hurt his chance to break Cornell's single-season shutout record!

Seriously, do you really think pulling a goalie to give a backup some playing time, which is for the benefit of the teams future - given the fact that the backup has to play in some games because the starter opts not to be there is something that would piss Lenny off because he'll lose his chance at a shutout?