CC 4, Cornell 2 (Florida Classic) postgame

[billhoward]

Was this an off night by Cornell or an outstanding performance by Colorado College in the 2009 Florida Hockey Classic? I saw both. Other than

• Being outskated by a quicker team
• Taking dumb penalties (CC came close to matching us late in the game)
• Having to watch camera work that made you long for the Lynah broadcasts circa 2006
• Hearing the CC announcers
• Once again not having a replay camera avaialable when it would have benefited us and couldn't have hurt (4th CC goal)
• ... and more

... Cornell did look decent in the third period. If not for that fourth goal, I thought we had a chance to pull it out.

Q's for those who were there: Was anyone behind the net besides the goal judge (it looked kind of empty) and was it goal or no goal on the shot that dented the crossbar? What was the attendance in a building that holds 7,500? How big of a Cornell crowd?

Let's hold our heads up and look forward to crushing a Princeton team rated much lower than us ... so there's no chance the Princeton fan(s?) will point to the Cornell bench and chant, "Zero Point Midweek," right?

If Cornell isn't going all the way in the NCAAs and it has to be a WHCA team that wins, I'd like to see Colorado College hoist the trophy.

[lynah80]

I agree with Bill.  No doubt that CC is a very fast, skilled team. They looked like the best opponent Cornell has faced this year.  Their puck control for the first two periods was excellent on both ends of the ice and they won some big faceoffs, especially during Cornell powerplays.  Some of Cornell's 1st period penalties seemed to be a reaction to CC's speed; some could have also been a lack of confidence on the part of younger Big Red players.  It's hard to say for sure because the video resolution was not very good.  Also, the camera work was really bad.  Fortunately, Cornell looked great during much of the third period.  The soft ice probably wore down both teams and maybe Cornell is better conditioned.  

Cornell is going to have to beat Princeton and UNH to maintain their ranking.  Also, the UND games will now be much more important from a pairwise point of view.  I hope those games are called the way tonight's game was, with no tolerance for contact to the head.  UND leads the nation in PIM and Cornell doesn't need to get all bruised up.  

Kalemba gave up 6 goals tonight to a normally high-scoring Maine team (3.78 g/gm).  Let's hope Cornell can do the same tomorrow.

[lynah80]

One last thought: I think J. Devin should be put back on the Greening/Gallagher line.  Gallagher was completely shut down tonight and I didn't see him take any good shots from his best spots.  It's unfortunate that Riley Nash doesn't have linemates who can set him up more often, but the Greening/Gallagher/J. Devin line has been very successful.  

One option:

Greening/Gallagher/Kennedy
Kennedy/Nash/Jillson
Scali/Collins/Nichols
Esposito/Miller/Roezzler/Kary?

[ebilmes]

Cornell is 2-3-2 against teams with winning records this season.

[lynah80]

and Yale is only 3-2-2 against teams with a winning record.

If you beat all the teams at or below 0.500 and split with all the teams above 0.500, you will end up with a winning percentage of over 0.750.  That's not too bad.

[imafrshmn]

"We couldn't have played any worse in the first two periods," Cornell coach Mike Schafer said. "Tonight really showed that a lot of our guys went home from break and didn't get a lot of work in."

[Jim Hyla]

From ECAC box score Attendance 6,315. I'm guessing that as in the past, this game is part of the Everblades season ticket package, but that number?

[lynah80]

Congratulations to Collin Greening.  The goal tonight gives him 100 career points:   46, 54, 100

[dbilmes]

Q's for those who were there: Was anyone behind the net besides the goal judge (it looked kind of empty) and was it goal or no goal on the shot that dented the crossbar? What was the attendance in a building that holds 7,500? How big of a Cornell crowd?

From our vantage point on the opposite end of the rink, the fourth CC goal looked like a shot that hit the back of goal, just inside the right post, and bounced back out right away. None of us had any problem with the goal being allowed.

As for the crowd, I'm not sure what the announced crowd was, but the Cornell contingent was definitely smaller than in the past. For the first time since we've been going to the tournament, the local Cornell Club did not host anything in the hospitality area. There was no raffle for Cornell hockey gear, no buffet for the fans to nosh at, and no official place for Cornell fans to gather together between games and between periods. Instead, all there was were a few Cornell banners hung on the back of the arena wall in front of the area where the Cornell Club usually had its hospitality suite. It didn't appear that an email was sent out to area Cornell alums publicizing the tournament, etc., and if that was the case, it definitely had an effect on the size of the Cornell crowd.

As for the game itself, I can never remember watching Cornell take a penalty in the first minute of each period. Scrivens kept us in the game, but you can't beat a good team playing only one solid stretch of hockey.

[Al DeFlorio]

As for the game itself, I can never remember watching Cornell take a penalty in the first minute of each period. Scrivens kept us in the game, but you can't beat a good team playing only one solid stretch of hockey.

So...we have a range of opinions from "Scrivens kept us in the game" to "he's just abysmal."

[billhoward]

Cornell consolidated ["closed"] its regional offices except NYC. The fairly recent grad who ran the Florida office was moved back to Ithaca. But with e-mail, phone, usually cheap air tickets, there's nothing to stop a local Cornell Club from putting on an event and getting (seeking) help from Alumni House. Same thing with tailgates and tents at away football games: The local club decides if it wants to do an event and then how much it wants to invest. Sometimes Cornell kicks in money if the event has an overarching purpose that benefits CU, such as showing off the new Cornell president at the at-Yale game.

If the attendance was 6315 and most Princeton / Maine fans left after game 1, I could see the blurry stands being 3000. I think that almost certainly counts tickets bought but not used for the game; don't know if that includes Everblades season ticket holders who have free admission to games such as this, but how many can there be - 500? We've had this discussion before as to whether the more correct number to announce is tickets sold for the game, or bodies actually in the stadium. Ghost attendees won't be using the concession stands.

[TimV]

Kalemba gave up 6 goals tonight to a normally high-scoring Maine team (3.78 g/gm).  Let's hope Cornell can do the same tomorrow.

Impossible.  We don't play Maine and therefore can't give up six goals to them. ::crazy::

[oceanst41]

It sure looked like a holiday hangover.

They really didn't skate with CC at all, and as a result took so awful penalties. Lots of "reaching" for checks from a trailing position. A couple of the trips looked like a case of tangled feet rather than stick-to-skate, but they originated from being out of position in the first place. The wosrt one I can think of was D'Agostino hooking the CC player down on a delayed call rather than allow him to take control of the puck to start the Cornell power play. Just no need for that. They finally found their legs in the 3rd, but another CC blocked shot led to a tough bounce by the Cornell D and the effective GWG.

Definitely one of the more undisciplined Cornell games I've seen in a while, one in which they really didn't offer Scrivens too much help. There weren't a ton of odd man rushes, but there were clear advantages for CC forwards that Scrivens bailed out the Cornell D on. And then there were all the power plays he had to contend with.

[Jim Hyla]

This year we have so much trouble being on top of our game from the beginning. I don't know why. You can even look back to some games late last year, although we had as many last year, like this year's BU game, where we let up in the third. Normally you might wonder if the coaches aren't getting them going, but there is only so much they can do. We have shown we can skate with every team we've played, just not for 60 minutes. That often happens in BB games, but you can more easily make up for lapses in BB. Not so easy in hockey. Hopefully we can get it figured out, as we could still go a long way if we do.

It was difficult for me to even see players numbers, but it seemed like the third period took off when Nash was skating with Greening.

[Al DeFlorio]

It was difficult for me to even see players numbers, but it seemed like the third period took off when Nash was skating with Greening.

Nash hasn't done much this year without Greening.  Maybe the experiment of splitting them up should be declared a failure.