Cornell 1 RPI 2 (ot)

[css228]

I see that editing in the Ithaca Journal is as high quality as the Troy Record

Schafer argued afterward that icing should have been called on Union

The Ithaca Journal is perhaps best known for sucking. I don't think that there's any question that the Sun is the best paper in Ithaca (although as a Sun writer I am a bit biased).

The Sun recently insinuated that it is in a completely different league than the Ithaca Journal. While a superior paper, it is not that obviously superior to the Journal. The Sun regrets this error.

[Brian Sullivan]

The Ithaca Journal is perhaps best known for sucking. I don't think that there's any question that the Sun is the best paper in Ithaca (although as a Sun writer I am a bit biased).

What percentage of columnists these days are exhibitionists posing as sex experts? I think back when I was a student it was close to 100%.

*raises hand* ::moon::

[Aaron M. Griffin]

Don't know what to say, when you have to have it.....
Expect nothing from this team.  I'm looking ahead already.  To next year I mean....

How dare they only finish in 2nd in the conference in a year that they weren't expected to dominate.

How dare they.

::rolleyes::

That was just massive disappointment talking.  Yes, this team has finished higher than we had any reason to expect but I still see the end result as a massive underachievement.  To have the Jell-O Mold in our hand, playing a team well down the standings at home, and blowing the game in the third and in OT....
Not much to feel confident about.

FYP

Why is everyone fixating upon losing a trophy that most of us do not care about typically? The last time we won the ECAC, we began with a number two seed. The only real disappointment that came with the number two seed for me, notwithstanding the poor loss to RPI that caused it, was that we did not prevent Union from winning back-to-back number one seeds. I sat near Union fans during the Friday game and they have begun to view themselves as the "dominant power" in ECAC history. I directed their attention to the rafters. They needed a little perspective. (Also, are hockey fans of a "dominant power" so shocked by how loud Lynah is that they must plug their ears when Cornell scores?).

The team does play proportionately to the quality of our opponents this season. The team has been anything but predictable. Losses to Mercyhurst, UMass, and Brown. Wins and close games with BU, CC, and Union. I am not that worried about the ECAC Tournament. We have the advantage of Lynah in the Quarterfinals. We will have crucial player(s) back. We will face better opponents as a number two seed than we would have as a number one seed. Considering the trend of proportional play, I like our chances playing against a WCHA team in the heart of their territory than playing "mediocre" opponents out East.

It's not the loss of the trophy that is upsetting. It's more the fact that we dropped to 16th in the pairwise rankings. Now we have no margin for error going forward if we want to make the NCAAs; we have to win the ECAC. Had we won, we could have afforded to lose once we got to Atlantic City.

We knew that we would have to perform in the ECACs. That is not news to anyone. ECAC play and our PWR does not exist in a vacuum. UMass reappearing on the PWR affected our rank more than a bad overtime loss to RPI. Cornell had no control over UMass' reappearance on the PWR. If a series of things go right, that would be fruitless to enumerate now because of how many games will be played before the NCAAs, then we have still almost exactly the same probability of getting an at-large as we did going into Saturday's game. 2009, the last time that Cornell got an at-large bid, Cornell needed to make it to the ECAC Final game to assure it. The tone and outlook of the season did not change even though a more than eight year  streak was broken last night.

It's a disappointing loss because
a) It hurts our PWR.  Yes, there are some things we can't control, but there are some things we can.  No one is going to regret what UMass does, but we are going to regret missed opportunities by Cornell.
b) We're a better team than RPI.
c) The previous game was awesome. To follow that up with this clunker really killed our momentum going into the postseason (whether momentum actually matters is debatable).  
d) It was senior night, and it just sucks for the seniors (biggest disappointment for me).  Watching the ceremony was more bitter than sweet this year, thanks to the loss.  
e) WE BLEW ANOTHER THIRD PERIOD LEAD

You may not have expected this team to make the NCAAs at the outset of the season, but I did.  Maybe I'm just too optimistic, but if you take a team that was one game away last year and add our best recruiting class in a long time, I think we are perfectly capable of competing nationally.  And even if we weren't expected to make the tourney, it doesn't mean once we have the opportunity it's acceptable to squander it.  This team is really good, and these players aren't going to be around forever, and judging from their reactions this was much more than a typical loss.

It does not hurt our PWR ranking much, if at all. One would choose to lose to RPI over many of the teams we played late in the season because they are far from a TUC. I know the notion of choosing losses (that some on here often invoke) is nonsensical, but if Cornell had to choose to lose one game in the closing weeks of ECAC play, it would have been the dud of a game Cornell played against RPI. It seems very unlikely that even if RPI made a strong run in the ECAC Tournament that it would appear as a TUC.

We are a better team than RPI. I think that few unassociated with our Engineer friends in Troy would agree. However, upsets occur. It is disturbingly common with this team, as I stated. Cornell went 2-0-0 last season and most would have agreed that last season RPI had the better team. Cornell is the better team this season and went 0-1-1. One cannot find solace in it, but losing to RPI does not mean all is lost.

I agree that this killed our momentum. No disagreement there. My comment was only that we cannot lose perspective. This loss will not count for anything other than our loss of the Jell-O Mold. The 0-1-1 against RPI won't factor in our PWR for an at-large bid and it did not disadvantage us going into the playoffs in any quantitative way. The team's loss on Senior Night might give them more reason to head into the playoffs with a newfound zeal. They have unfinished business because they were denied regrettably a regular-season send-off with a win. Let's hope the seniors and the team can channel that into post-season success. Collins in interviews has implied that many on the team have set their sights on the NCAA as their season goal.

We blew another third period lead, our defense underperformed in OT, our offensive production was low (the only deficiency that I can rationalize with any satisfaction with key absences), and we played down to a less challenging opponent. The proportionality of our play to the level of our opponent is what is most unsettling about this season.

Cornell going into the ECACs and NCAAs needs to be the team it was on Saturday night.

Why the past tense about season goals? That is about what I was commenting. Most seem to be acting as though the season is done. One can invoke any number of sports cliches about how it has just begun. Cornell won an Ivy League title, to me, that is more important than the Jell-O Mold. Cornell has a first-round bye. Cornell has played well three out of its last four games at Lynah. I would argue with dominance in two of them. The season is not over, Cornell can and will (I believe) make the NCAA Tournament. I was one of the few who believed when Cornell was headed to Colorado Springs that it could win at CC. I have not lost faith in this team. I believe that they will not disappoint. My expectation going into the season were Cornell's thirteenth ECAC title and a berth in the NCAA Tournament. This team raised those expectations...

I think Cornell's seniors have six collegiate wins left in them.

[Trotsky]

Most seem to be acting as though the season is done.

I think that was just knee jerk frustration right after the loss; most of the people who posted like that have recanted by the light of the next day's hangover.  

The second season begins March 9, and Cornell has a very good chance to win the trophy in Atlantic City.  Despite the third period problems this has been my favorite team in many years, and I am hopeful they get some hardware to complement the Ivy League championship.

[TheMatrix]

Lots of doom and gloom in this thread. It was certainly disappointing and of course I felt really bad for the seniors. You can speculate and panic but ultimately we're just going to have to see what our lineup is like next week and watch them play some more hockey.

Perhaps watching McCarron's goal will ease the pain? I didn't even realize he bounced it off the ice to knock it home until I watched the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGt19O54bvo

I'll upload the Senior Night ceremony video later.

[marty]

I assume no one has the no goal to share.

[Trotsky]

Lots of doom and gloom in this thread. It was certainly disappointing and of course I felt really bad for the seniors. You can speculate and panic but ultimately we're just going to have to see what our lineup is like next week and watch them play some more hockey.

Perhaps watching McCarron's goal will ease the pain? I didn't even realize he bounced it off the ice to knock it home until I watched the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGt19O54bvo

I'll upload the Senior Night ceremony video later.

That's an incredible video.  Thx!!!

[css228]

I guess my frustration is that this team is so close to not just being good, but great, and the flaws that this team has are traditional strengths (PK and 3rd Periods). Its pretty clear that the team plays up or down to its opponent - six points against the bottom three proves that - so if we get past Ithaca in two weeks I feel pretty confident in a deep run. But when I look back on the regular season I'm frustrated by missed opportunities. We were so close to beating BU. If we could have held up for 34 more seconds we could have swept CC at CC. We blew third period leads to Mercyhurst, Princeton, Brown and RPI - all solidly in the twenty worst teams in the country. There is so much promise to this team and its so frustratingly close to being great (the only games we didn't hold 3rd period leads in were BU, Colgate at home, Clarkson at home, and UMass.I'm sure that some of the top 5 teams in the country can't even claim to have held a 3rd period lead in over 80% of their games. It just is hard to be optimistic about the result being different next time (even though logically these stretches don't last forever) when you repeatedly witness the same outcome. Anyone who grew up in Philly knows this kind of team. This team is just one of those teams that you can't help but have optimism about, but the moment you let your guard  down, they get gut punched. I know they're really young,but I'm just not ready to raise my expectations for them again. In 3 weeks maybe. Though I really hope not. We play better when I'm not optimistic

[Trotsky]

Anyone who grew up in Philly knows this kind of team. This team is just one of those teams that you can't help but have optimism about, but the moment you let your guard  down, they get gut punched.

That's not a Philly thing; everybody believes their team is like that.  It's a by-product of remembering the soul-destroying losses vividly.  Mike Fucking Scioscia.

I don't know why the PK sucks.  Late collapses, though, are a classic symptom of a young team.  I absolutely feel your pain (it's mine too) about the missed opportunities, but I have very high hopes for this team this year and in the future.  The program faced two major challenges since the "Silver Age" of 2002-08: the league's increasing pressure against physical play and the evolution of competing Ivy aid packages.  They answered both.  That tells me Schafer still knows what he's doing and the university is still committed to a strong program.

[TheMatrix]

I assume no one has the no goal to share.

I forgot about that one. I'm almost positive I have it on video, just need to sort through.

[css228]

Anyone who grew up in Philly knows this kind of team. This team is just one of those teams that you can't help but have optimism about, but the moment you let your guard  down, they get gut punched.

That's not a Philly thing; everybody believes their team is like that.  It's a by-product of remembering the soul-destroying losses vividly.  Mike Fucking Scioscia.

I don't know why the PK sucks.  Late collapses, though, are a classic symptom of a young team.  I absolutely feel your pain (it's mine too) about the missed opportunities, but I have very high hopes for this team this year and in the future.  The program faced two major challenges since the "Silver Age" of 2002-08: the evolution of competing Ivy aid packages and the league's increasing pressure against physical play.  They answered both.  That tells me Schafer still knows what he's doing and the university is still committed to a strong program.

Totally understand its not exclusively a Philly thing, but it happens to be something that tends to define our sporting culture. I'm not saying that  Schafer doesn't know what he's doing, all I'm saying is  that I literally feel like our team is the Tom Hanks of third periods.

[Tom Lento]

Dafatone:  The season as a whole has been excellent if we are looking at it from the perspective of "would we have taken this
result at the beginning of the year." Having lived through the year, and seen how this result came to be... it is incredibly frustrating and I'm not sure why you think being frustrated about it is so eyerolling.

Sums the situation up pretty much perfectly.

If this Cornell team had arrived at the same exact record by falling just short in completing comebacks after spotting the other team a goal or two in the *first* 10 minutes of the game, I believe the following would be true:

1) The frustration level over how the season played out would be much lower
2) People would still be gnashing their teeth and rending their garments over the loss to RPI (hey, we're still fans)

This is purely psychological - blowing a lead is much harder to take than falling just short in a comeback attempt, for fans and players alike.

Disclaimer - I have not seen a single minute of Cornell hockey this year, so maybe these games are intensely frustrating from beginning to end and the third period letdowns are merely icing on the cake. That isn't the sense I'm getting from the comments around these parts, though - sounds more like Cornell is pretty damn good and the team just comes apart in the last 10 minutes. It's weird, to be sure - could be conditioning, could be failing to execute a late-game shift in strategy, could just be wild inconsistency and selective memory. Hopefully it's execution, because that could conceivably be fixed with a solid extra week of practice. Conditioning and random inconsistency, not so much.

[jtn27]

The Ithaca Journal is perhaps best known for sucking. I don't think that there's any question that the Sun is the best paper in Ithaca (although as a Sun writer I am a bit biased).

What percentage of columnists these days are exhibitionists posing as sex experts? I think back when I was a student it was close to 100%.

*raises hand* ::moon::

Brian, unless I've been grossly misreading your columns (not likely), they seem to be exactly what Kyle is describing. Here are just a few excerpts from your latest x-rated column:

"the Engineers... blew the Big Red"
"enjoy a night's 'rest' in its own bed" (internal quotes added)
"coronary-inducing"
"the gate was shut and locked for the frustrated Ivy icers"

And although they weren't in this column a few other frequent ones:
"score"
"put it in the crease"

[Jim Hyla]

I'm not going to quote all the times it's been mentioned, but this team has never had momentum. Unless you consider up and down is momentum. I'd say that at no point in the season could you ever be comfortable in feeling we should win or lose against any of the teams we played.

[Aaron M. Griffin]

I'm not going to quote all the times it's been mentioned, but this team has never had momentum. Unless you consider up and down is momentum. I'd say that at no point in the season could you ever be comfortable in feeling we should win or lose against any of the teams we played.

I agree with that assessment regarding the season after the second half of ECAC play began. However, five consecutive shutouts at Lynah, holding the longest unbeaten streak in the nation at one point, and recording a 7-1-1 ECAC record going into the Winter Break seemed like we had momentum at that point. It was during that span and the CC game that I know that I raised my expectations.