The Sad Thread: Worst Losses in Cornell History

[scoop85]

I certainly don't consider the Wisconsin game as one of the "worst losses" in team history.  We had to come from behind the previous game against a very talented team to even make the Regional Final, it was a home game for Wisconsin, we and McKee played incredible, and we finally lost on a shot that few, if any, goalies could stop.  Was it a heartbreaking loss? Sure. But it was also one of the few losses for a team I root for where I came away thinking "We lost, but that was pretty awesome!"

I agree now.  But immediately after that goal went in was the worst I've ever felt about pretty much any sport/team.

I felt the same way until the lacrosse final against Syracuse.

Now that is a "worst" loss.

Ugh, tell me about it.  Plus the NCAA uses clips from the end of that game in a lot of their multi-sport TV promos.  HAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE.

Easily the most painful defeat I've experienced on any level.  Adding to the misery was the ridiculous traffic jam getting out of the stadium; I think it took at least 90 minutes to go a mile.

[jtwcornell91]

1/9/67 loss to Yale. The only loss that year.
2/2/72 loss to Clarkson. Ending a 63 game home winning streak.

Don't RPI fans also like to celebrate some significant win over us ending some sort of streak in that same ballpark?  Our overall (not just home) winning streak in '71, perhaps?

The late Bob Stagat used to talk about a signed hockey stick he got from the RPI players (many of whom he had tutored shortly before), the stick that scored the winning goal.

[Give My Regards]

If it's "historic," one could consider that Union's first ECAC league win came at Lynah (2/22/1992), and Sacred Heart got the first win for a MAAC team (pre-CHA) over a "Big 4" conference, also at Lynah. (11/4/2000)

The Union loss was dreadful, but thank goodness it was not their first ECAC win.  They had won at Dartmouth a month earlier.

[Roy 82]

I already had a business trip to DC during the Frozen Four a couple of years ago and so our loss to Bemidji is the saddest for me.

I went to the FF anyway and sort of had a good time but it just wasn't the same.:-/

[jkahn]

Hitherto the list of Landmark Games on TBRW has included only wins.  I'm interested in adding a few historically significant losses.  My initial list of candidates:

3/16/73 (NCAA SF collapse vs Wisconsin)

3/01/77 (9-10 ot ECAC SF loss to UNH)

3/07/78 (shocking QF Lynah loss to Providence)

4/10/03 (NCAA SF loss to UNH)

3/27/05 (ot NCAA QF loss to Minnesota)

3/26/06 (3ot NCAA QF loss to Wisconsin)


Have I (blissfully) forgotten any of particular psychological damage?

I am also going to add "the tie," 12/30/66 against BU in what may have been a battle of unbeatens (have to research it further).

No you haven't forgotten the psychological damage, just continuing to inflict it on someone who was at 5 of the 6 games above.  And for the one I missed, 3/7/78, the only year in a long span that we didn't make it to the Gahden, I was living in southern NH at the time and already had tickets to the weekend games and friends planning to drive up from NYC to see us play.  
Actually, for '05 and '06, expectations weren't that high, and I left those weekends very proud of the team rather than being very depressed.  I'm always proud of our team and always depressed when we lose, but the depression, for me, was greatest in '73.  I'm still upset about the "no goal" in '03 however.

[ursusminor]

1/9/67 loss to Yale. The only loss that year.
2/2/72 loss to Clarkson. Ending a 63 game home winning streak.

Don't RPI fans also like to celebrate some significant win over us ending some sort of streak in that same ballpark?  Our overall (not just home) winning streak in '71, perhaps?

The late Bob Stagat used to talk about a signed hockey stick he got from the RPI players (many of whom he had tutored shortly before), the stick that scored the winning goal.

That was the game in the 68-69 season.

[Give My Regards]

OK, this one's not as historically significant as some of the others that have been listed, but I can still remember how hideously significant it felt at the time.

February 23, 1991, Vermont over Cornell at Lynah, 7-4.  Final game of the 1990-91 ECAC regular season.

The 1990-91 team was the most talented Big Red squad that most of us, at the time, thought we would ever see (13 NHL picks), and although they never put a big run together -- the team would win three or four games and then suffer some inexplicable loss -- they went into the final weekend tied for the top spot in the standings with Clarkson, with an extremely good chance at delivering Cornell's first regular-season crown since 1972.  All they needed, as it developed, was one measly point.  The Big Red lost a rough-and-tumble game against RPI the night before, but that was OK, because Clarkson lost to Harvard, leaving the teams still tied for first.  (Lynah Rink cheering a Harvard win -- it's happened exactly once that I remember, and that was it)

So onto Vermont.  Cornell shook off the previous night's loss and played pretty well for the first period, going into intermission with a 3-2 lead.  But the team badly missed defenseman Dan Ratushny, out for the weekend with a wrist injury, and totally collapsed the rest of the way, allowing the Catamounts to score four straight.  And when Clarkson emerged from their dust-up with Dartmouth with a tie, there went the pursuit of the regular-season title.  It would take Cornell 11 more years to get one of those.

[Trotsky]

OK, this one's not as historically significant as some of the others that have been listed, but I can still remember how hideously significant it felt at the time.

February 23, 1991, Vermont over Cornell at Lynah, 7-4.  Final game of the 1990-91 ECAC regular season.

The 1990-91 team was the most talented Big Red squad that most of us, at the time, thought we would ever see (13 NHL picks), and although they never put a big run together -- the team would win three or four games and then suffer some inexplicable loss -- they went into the final weekend tied for the top spot in the standings with Clarkson, with an extremely good chance at delivering Cornell's first regular-season crown since 1972.  All they needed, as it developed, was one measly point.  The Big Red lost a rough-and-tumble game against RPI the night before, but that was OK, because Clarkson lost to Harvard, leaving the teams still tied for first.  (Lynah Rink cheering a Harvard win -- it's happened exactly once that I remember, and that was it)

So onto Vermont.  Cornell shook off the previous night's loss and played pretty well for the first period, going into intermission with a 3-2 lead.  But the team badly missed defenseman Dan Ratushny, out for the weekend with a wrist injury, and totally collapsed the rest of the way, allowing the Catamounts to score four straight.  And when Clarkson emerged from their dust-up with Dartmouth with a tie, there went the pursuit of the regular-season title.  It would take Cornell 11 more years to get one of those.

Very well-recalled, good job.  I remember this quite well -- it was a real blow.  That team had great potential.  This loss and then the tremendously painful SF loss at the Gahden put a damper on that season and that whole vintage of Cornell players (Manderville, Crozier-D'Alessio, Derraugh, Andison, Hughes).  Talk about what might have been...

[RichH]

I certainly don't consider the Wisconsin game as one of the "worst losses" in team history.  We had to come from behind the previous game against a very talented team to even make the Regional Final, it was a home game for Wisconsin, we and McKee played incredible, and we finally lost on a shot that few, if any, goalies could stop.  Was it a heartbreaking loss? Sure. But it was also one of the few losses for a team I root for where I came away thinking "We lost, but that was pretty awesome!"

I agree now.  But immediately after that goal went in was the worst I've ever felt about pretty much any sport/team.

I felt the same way until the lacrosse final against Syracuse.

Now that is a "worst" loss.

Ugh, tell me about it.  Plus the NCAA uses clips from the end of that game in a lot of their multi-sport TV promos.  HAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE.

Easily the most painful defeat I've experienced on any level.  Adding to the misery was the ridiculous traffic jam getting out of the stadium; I think it took at least 90 minutes to go a mile.

No, I don't think I'll ever get over Macho Grande.

[KenP]

Greg, you might want to add the LSSU game from March 22, 1996.  It ended the first resurgent year, but I also think it made the team realize they could compete at the NCAA level.  They were hungry from that point on.

That damn crossbar is still ringing in my ear.  :-/

[RichH]

Nobody mentioned the 2002 "UHN" game in Worcester. I guess it goes in the "we had 'em where we wanted 'em" category of potential upsets, similar to the 2005 game vs. Minnesota. Not many gave us a great shot against #1 UNH. We were suckered into playing UNH's style in the 1st period (seeing 4 total goals in the first 6 minutes was shocking for that team), and then forced UNH to play Cornell's style for the 2nd & 3rd.  Shane Palahicky poked the tying goal in midway through the 3rd, and it felt UNH were the ones chasing...until they got one in off a turnover behind our own net and a misplay by Underhill with a couple minutes left in regulation.

It was more of a gut-punch loss than I ever expected, but it led to a lot of optimism for what was possible the following year.

[nyc94]

OK, this one's not as historically significant as some of the others that have been listed, but I can still remember how hideously significant it felt at the time.

February 23, 1991, Vermont over Cornell at Lynah, 7-4.  Final game of the 1990-91 ECAC regular season.

The 1990-91 team was the most talented Big Red squad that most of us, at the time, thought we would ever see (13 NHL picks), and although they never put a big run together -- the team would win three or four games and then suffer some inexplicable loss -- they went into the final weekend tied for the top spot in the standings with Clarkson, with an extremely good chance at delivering Cornell's first regular-season crown since 1972.  All they needed, as it developed, was one measly point.  The Big Red lost a rough-and-tumble game against RPI the night before, but that was OK, because Clarkson lost to Harvard, leaving the teams still tied for first.  (Lynah Rink cheering a Harvard win -- it's happened exactly once that I remember, and that was it)

So onto Vermont.  Cornell shook off the previous night's loss and played pretty well for the first period, going into intermission with a 3-2 lead.  But the team badly missed defenseman Dan Ratushny, out for the weekend with a wrist injury, and totally collapsed the rest of the way, allowing the Catamounts to score four straight.  And when Clarkson emerged from their dust-up with Dartmouth with a tie, there went the pursuit of the regular-season title.  It would take Cornell 11 more years to get one of those.

Very well-recalled, good job.  I remember this quite well -- it was a real blow.  That team had great potential.  This loss and then the tremendously painful SF loss at the Gahden put a damper on that season and that whole vintage of Cornell players (Manderville, Crozier-D'Alessio, Derraugh, Andison, Hughes).  Talk about what might have been...

I remember this stretch well.  My father (RPI '54) came up for the weekend.  Losing that game would have been bad enough without sitting next to the only guy in Section B cheering for RPI.  The quarterfinals were 10-3 and 8-1 romps over Colgate made memorable by the two drunk Colgate students in the back of section F that tried to start a fight over "Go Start The Bus" on the second night.  I bought tickets for Boston but became so debilitated by mono I couldn't go.  Good times.

[Chris '03]

Nobody mentioned the 2002 "UHN" game in Worcester. I guess it goes in the "we had 'em where we wanted 'em" category of potential upsets, similar to the 2005 game vs. Minnesota. Not many gave us a great shot against #1 UNH...we were suckered into playing UNH's style in the 1st period (seeing 4 total goals in the first 6 minutes was shocking for that team), and then forced UNH to play Cornell's style for the 2nd & 3rd.  Shane Palahicky poked the tying goal in midway through, and it felt UNH were the ones chasing...until they got one in off a turnover behind our own net and a misplay by Underhill with a couple minutes left in regulation.

It was more of a gut-punch loss than I ever expected, but it led to a lot of optimism for what was possible the following year.

I can still see that game winner vividly and wonder what might have been that postseason had Schafer continued the goalie platoon into the playoffs. Underhill saw a lot of high pressure minutes playing six games (Yale, Yale, RPI, H(2ot), QU(ok that was a snoozer), UHN) in sixteen days after only playing once a week all year long.


From the "WTF was that?" department, I'd nominate the Princeton game at Lynah a few years back.

[underskill]

Nobody mentioned the 2002 "UHN" game in Worcester. I guess it goes in the "we had 'em where we wanted 'em" category of potential upsets, similar to the 2005 game vs. Minnesota. Not many gave us a great shot against #1 UNH...we were suckered into playing UNH's style in the 1st period (seeing 4 total goals in the first 6 minutes was shocking for that team), and then forced UNH to play Cornell's style for the 2nd & 3rd.  Shane Palahicky poked the tying goal in midway through, and it felt UNH were the ones chasing...until they got one in off a turnover behind our own net and a misplay by Underhill with a couple minutes left in regulation.

It was more of a gut-punch loss than I ever expected, but it led to a lot of optimism for what was possible the following year.

I can still see that game winner vividly and wonder what might have been that postseason had Schafer continued the goalie platoon into the playoffs. Underhill saw a lot of high pressure minutes playing six games (Yale, Yale, RPI, H(2ot), QU(ok that was a snoozer), UHN) in sixteen days after only playing once a week all year long.

speaking of, I wonder what he does with Garman and Iles this year--since it's most likely 2 more years until we are nationally relevant again, by which point Garman will be graduated, it certainly makes sense to get Iles some action in the playoffs.

[jtwcornell91]

It may not have been so significant or even heart-breaking, but the almost-comeback at the Gut in 1997 (the Elves' senior year) was pretty epic.

There was also the fish-goal game at Lynah in February 1995, which was the last game of the Harvard losing streak, and is sort of paired in my mind with the win over them that November (in Schafer's first season).