NCAA regionals 2011

[Scersk '97]

The announcers completely missed how amazing that Knight goal was.  He intentionally back-foot kicked it back to his stick.

[Rosey]

5-0 NoDak. RPI's system is unable to compensate for NoDak's quickness, or their talent is no match for NoDak's: your call. :-)

Let's see if RPI can manage to make this a respectable loss, or will notch another point in favor of the ECAC being moved to Division I-A after a few more football conferences move into hockey.

[Scersk '97]

You know, Kyle, I generally enjoy your steady devil's advocacy on this board, but you can be so unremittingly negative.  The latter is not necessarily part and parcel of the former.

Rather than harping on the inadequacies of RPI and, as you so often argue by specious extension, the ECAC as a whole, why don't you marvel a bit at the skill of NoDak?  They're the best team I've seen so far—skilled, rather disciplined, and unafraid to play a physically bruising game.

[ebilmes]

CC putting on quite a show.

BC forgot to play defense.

BC is a good team, but their defense last night was horrible. CC had a lot of great looks from right in front of the net. Several of those were stoppable (I was surprised they left Muse in after the fifth goal), especially one that hit the top of Muse's glove and went into the net. BC was a much larger team and should have had their way in against the undersized CC defensemen. But, too many errors around their own net and all of a sudden it was a blowout. CC is a fast team and they had fan support. BC had their band there, but few fans.

[Rosey]

You know, Kyle, I generally enjoy your steady devil's advocacy on this board, but you can be so unremittingly negative.  The latter is not necessarily part and parcel of the former.

Rather than harping on the inadequacies of RPI and, as you so often argue by specious extension, the ECAC as a whole, why don't you marvel a bit at the skill of NoDak?  They're the best team I've seen so far—skilled, rather disciplined, and unafraid to play a physically bruising game.

Well, since you asked... :-)

There are two separate issues here. The first is that I'm not actually being negative: Meli sees me on a regular basis and can attest to the fact that I am just a highly-analytical, sarcastic sonofabitch. What you perceive as negativism is simply my analysis of the situation based on the facts: 1 seed, PWR 1, Krach .7790 Yale was very nearly beaten by the 16 seed, PWR 22, Krach .4673, auto-bid Air Force team, and both Union and RPI were soundly beaten in the first round, with RPI having been thoroughly embarrassed by North Dakota. The last ECAC Frozen Four appearance (hopefully prior to this year) was Cornell in 2003, and the last team from the ECAC to win the whole thing was Harvard 22 years ago. At some point, the ugliness of the facts need to be acknowledged: the ECAC for whatever reason is weak on the national scene. Don't like it, don't accept its inevitability, want to change it; all good. But acknowledge it: it's a fact. The first step to resolving the problem is to acknowledge that there is, in fact, a problem.

The second issue relates to Cornell's situation specifically. I hate the prevailing attitude around here for the same reason I hate Team Red/Team Blue politics: otherwise smart people turn their brains off when they are emotionally involved with something, and resort to supporting their team, right or wrong, good or bad, basically without question. I hate that attitude, and so when people make snarky comments about my injection of the facts into the situation, I absolutely take pleasure, however bittersweet, in throwing it back in their faces when the evidence is on my side. Case in point: the closeness of the Yale/Air Force game versus the embarrassment of the ECAC final. I've tried to find roster comparisons for D1 teams and have come up blank, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Air Force probably isn't substantially more talented than Cornell; at the very least, Cornell topped Air Force in Krach even in this down year. So when people pooh-pooh me for saying that there's a inability of the Cornell system to cope with Yale's transition game and suggest that it comes down to how "incredibly talented" Yale is compared to Cornell this year, this statement is shown to be utter horseshit when you consider that an even less accomplished, and likely less talented, Air Force squad was able to keep Yale's offense in check for three periods and nearly win that game late in the third.

As I said, I am not calling for Coach Schafer's head: he's a great coach and has done an incredible job with this program, even without considering the performance of his predecessor. But that doesn't mean improvements don't need to be made. One of those is to figure out how to deal with teams like Yale because talent alone is demonstrably not going to do the job! That is all I have been saying. But when I take an enormous amount of shit for this reasonable analysis from people who can't take off the Carnelian-colored glasses for a moment and use the brains that got them into the school they're rooting for, you better believe I'm going to throw it back at them when the opportunity presents itself. Argument doesn't seem to work with most of the folks here, so I figure at least I'll have some fun while getting my analysis on the record.

[ajh258]

But when I take an enormous amount of shit for this reasonable analysis from people who can't take off the Carnelian-colored glasses for a moment and use the brains that got them into the school they're rooting for, you better believe I'm going to throw it back at them when the opportunity presents itself. Argument doesn't seem to work with most of the folks here, so I figure at least I'll have some fun while getting my analysis on the record.

Hear, hear.

[Trotsky]

But when I take an enormous amount of shit for this reasonable analysis from people who can't take off the Carnelian-colored glasses for a moment and use the brains that got them into the school they're rooting for, you better believe I'm going to throw it back at them when the opportunity presents itself. Argument doesn't seem to work with most of the folks here, so I figure at least I'll have some fun while getting my analysis on the record.

I suspect this is pointless, but I'll try this once; what the hell.

Think about the intellectual caliber of the people who post here.  Then reread what you just posted.  Now, either you're right and you carry one hell of a burden as a lonely voice of reason and logic and God bless you for your bravery.  Or you're being a horse's ass.

[Rosey]

I suspect this is pointless, but I'll try this once; what the hell.

I might say the same thing. In fact...

Think about the intellectual caliber of the people who post here.  Then reread what you just posted.  Now, either you're right and you carry one hell of a burden as a lonely voice of reason and logic and God bless you for your bravery.  Or you're being a horse's ass.

I will.

There are a lot of very smart people who reflexively vote Democrat/Republican and fine-tune their views to match party ideology instead of applying logic to reach conclusions regarding issues of the day. There is a parallel phenomenon here. As a result of direct experience with my fellow man, I never underestimate the power of tribalism to overcome logic. Edit: for sure, unthinking tribalism in sports is probably the best place for it: the success or failure of a hockey team isn't going to have much of an impact on the fate of the world. But it still annoys me.

Greg, do better than committing an ad hominem fallacy: address the points I was making instead of attacking me.

[Ben]

I know we shouldn't be talking about hockey, but UMD just scored a sweet shorthanded goal against Yale.

[dag14]

The bulldogs v. the bulldogs. What is the statistical likelihood of that occurring?  One of you must know....

[RichH]

The bulldogs v. the bulldogs. What is the statistical likelihood of that occurring?  One of you must know....

One or two seasons ago, Yale played a RS road game at Duluth. The UMD broadcast team obviously reflexively kept talking about the Bulldogs, and one partner eventually blithely pointed out to the other that Yale is also the Bulldogs.  The partner's response was a very homeriffic "Well, only our team is the REAL Bulldogs, har har..."

[ajh258]

I know we shouldn't be talking about hockey, but UMD just scored a sweet shorthanded goal against Yale.

Ya... UMD looks good right now. Also, can't believe Miami just lost to UNH... With BC's embarrassing loss yesterday, my braket is screwed.

Edit: BTW, can't believe Barry is advocating to give the puck away on a delayed penalty... does he not know that you can pull the goalie for an extra attacker?

[Ben]

I know we shouldn't be talking about hockey, but UMD just scored a sweet shorthanded goal against Yale.

Ya... UMD looks good right now. Also, can't believe Miami just lost to UNH... With BC's embarrassing loss yesterday, my braket is screwed.

Denver pulled one back on the power play, it's 2-1 for the chance to get beaten up by NoDak. I need Denver to come through for my bracket.

[Rosey]

2-0 UMD on a slapshot from the point.

[Ben]

Denver pulled it back to 2-2 and then had a shot trickle JUST wide of the post with one second left. Overtime.