Quinnipiac @ Cornell, Game 2 Postgame

[Jordan 04]

So where was Bill Howard when we needed him most?

[Oat]

owned again.  :-/   I want to cry.

[billhoward]

Sadly fitting that Cornell dies by the power play since special teams has been such a vexing issue all year long. (And notwithstanding we actually did get a PPG this game, and notwithstanding that we spent almost a third of the game killing penalities.)

(Where was I? I've been on the road in California and Switzerland, thus offline a lot, and right now in the vicinity of Estero, Florida (as in the Florida Holiday Classic), celebrating my anniversary and covering a new car launch. I got to watch an extra-jerky, Verizon broadband wireless version of the game. I don't know if anything could have helped the Big Red this past weekend, certainly not my presence as thread-keeper.)

[edit add] Not to play what-if (which means, let's play what-if), I think St. Lawrence would have been beatable in the ECAC quarters [edit correction: semis not quarters] and Clarkson in the finals and, who knows, we could have gotten lucky against an NCAA first-round opponent. Except we didn't get past a team we could have, should have beaten. The best hope is that this team is the nucleus of good and likely great Cornell teams the next 2-3 years.

We should wish RichS good luck in Albany. Somebody e-mail him a voucher for a lite beer for Clarkson's help in getting us home ice.

I'm ready for lacrosse season. Anyone up for a road trip to Duke in 10 days?

[Jordan 04]

We weren't owned either night.  We play 2 one goal games against a team pretty much even with us.

I actually didn't think the Sawada penalty was as "dumb" as some have made it out to be.  To me, he was going in for a solid shoulder-to-shoulder hit, and the Q guy turned his back just before contact. But it was what it was, and it turned out to be a potentially very dangerous play, so I suppose the 5 minutes was warranted.

Like I said in the other thread, hopefully a year of experience plus some discipline only makes us stronger next year.

[Oat]

We also gave them a generous early gift within 10 seconds of the start of the game.

[ebilmes]

Between the first and second periods, someone inflated a beach ball and the ball was hit around the student sections for a couple minutes. As inevitably happens, the ball jumped the glass and landed on the ice. One of the Lynah rink staff shuffled out to retrieve it. This guy turned to Section B and tossed the ball up, as if to hit an underhand volleyball serve. When his other hand came into contact with the ball, however, the ball deflated, a victim of a sharp object in his right hand.

Now for the bad analogy...

Cornell's season began with a good deal of uncertainty. With inexperienced goaltending and many freshmen, were we going to witness a substantial drop-off from the last two years? Or, were these new players going to elevate their games to enable us to again compete on the national scale? (Was the man going to hit the ball back into the stands, or confiscate it?)

The way the season progressed, it seemed like the later would be probable. Like the beach ball, Cornell hockey 06-07 had its ups and downs: home win against Harvard, home loss to Wayne State, Florida win over UNH, home loss to Sacred Heart. Despite crashing at the end of the regular season, we secured a bye week and a home series against Quinnipiac (accent on the first syllable, Section B), a team we had shut out a few weeks earlier.

Just as the beach ball appeared to be on its way back to the fans, Cornell appeared to be back on its way to Albany and possibly greater things after that. The blade that struck Cornell was its play this weekend.

It's tough to blame one player. (No "OB gave the puck to Minny.") There was an astonishing lack of urgency by Cornell this weekend. Last night, Cornell (with the exception of Davenport) played like it didn't matter whether they won or lost. They didn't attack the net with urgency, and only seemed to realize the significance of the game after it was over.

Tonight, they handed Q the early lead, and then followed the Faithful's growing enthusiasm to a 2-1 advantage. After that, we sat back. Q tied it up, and then our players showed a lack of discipline and gave Q nine minutes of PPs in the third. Thankfully, our PK emerged from the dumpster to kill off minute after minute of PPs, until the go-ahead goal towards the end of the last PP.

Cornell again had great chances in the last minute, but one had the sinking feeling it was over after the Q goal.

I look forward to next year. A healthy Romano. Matured goaltending. New team leadership.

Thank you to the seniors on the team, and also the senior fans. We'll start again next fall with facetimers and whatever other specimens the random distribution produces.

See you at the Red-White scrimmage.

[Beeeej]

[quote billhoward]Not to play what-if (which means, let's play what-if), I think St. Lawrence would have been beatable in the ECAC quarters and Clarkson in the finals[/quote]

St. Lawrence just won their ECAC quarters.

[redheadfanatic]

Very dissappointing game.  We playe dmuch better than last night, only no where near what was needed.  I thought the reffing was bad last night, but tonight was by far the worst IMO.  
Thank you very much to all of our seniors, and any players who may leave before next season.
Can't wait until next season.

[Dafatone]

We played well.  They played well.  They dove every ten seconds and whined about every call that went against them, but Quinnipaic played well.

I don't think it's possible to ref worse than Feola did today.  He missed about 10 blatant calls against Q, called terrible things on us, and just plain sucked.

Still, congrats to Q, and all of that.

[Oat]

I thought most calls Feola made tonight were legit.

[sah67]

I thought Mugford played a superb game tonight.  And yes, even when he led the charge that started the huge fight

[ebilmes]

Mugford, McCutcheon, Greening, Gallagher, Nash were all good tonight IMO.

[redheadfanatic]

So does anyone know what was up with Bitz tonight?  All that I heard was that he was a late scratch.

[Oat]

[quote sah67]I thought Mugford played a superb game tonight.  And yes, even when he led the charge that started the huge fight [/quote]

Mugford sprinted in and pulled a swim move through 3 Q guys... as Davenport stood and watched quietly from the crease.

[sah67]

[quote redheadfanatic]So does anyone know what was up with Bitz tonight?  All that I heard was that he was a late scratch.[/quote]

He was far below 100% last night, and appeared hurt while playing...a surprise to some that he actually played last night.  Don't know the specifics of the injury...so no, no PMing me for details.