Recruiting Patterns

[Robb]

- Once Harkness took over, it was definitely the Ontario pipeline.  He did have 2 players from Western Canada enter in 1965, but overall 87% ofhis players were Canadian and 89% of his Canadians were eastern.

Wait a minute. Are you considering Saskatchewan to be western Canada? Old farts like me remember three schlubs named Ferguson whom Ned recruited. But if I recall correctly, they were sort of an anomaly since Murray Armstrong -- the legendary Denver coach -- didn't have room for them on his roster, so he tipped off his friend Ned Harkness about them. FYP.

BTW, the brothers Ferguson started playing varsity hockey in 1965, but they came to Cornell and played Frosh hockey in 1964. Here's an article that will teach all the young whipper-snappers out there about this important part of Cornell hockey history.

Exactly.  They entered in the fall of 1963, so per my methodology, they are officially credited to Patten since he coached in 62-63.  The two westerners I credited to Harkness were Ted Coviello (BC) and Harold Hegland (Alberta), both of whom entered in the fall of '65 (first varsity season 66-67).  

Anyone know the exact history on the Fergusons?  Did they only come to Cornell because Harkness became the coach?  Or did they make their commitment while Patten was still in office?

[billhoward]

Anything west of Ontario IS Western Canada.

You're thinking of the New Yorker-Canada Edition cover cartoon, yes?

[Jim Hyla]

- Once Harkness took over, it was definitely the Ontario pipeline.  He did have 2 players from Western Canada enter in 1965, but overall 87% ofhis players were Canadian and 89% of his Canadians were eastern.

Wait a minute. Are you considering Saskatchewan to be western Canada? Old farts like me remember three schlubs named Ferguson whom Ned recruited. But if I recall correctly, they were sort of an anomaly since Murray Armstrong -- the legendary Denver coach -- didn't have room for them on his roster, so he tipped off his friend Ned Harkness about them. FYP.

BTW, the brothers Ferguson started playing varsity hockey in 1965, but they came to Cornell and played Frosh hockey in 1964. Here's an article that will teach all the young whipper-snappers out there about this important part of Cornell hockey history.

Thanks, I haven't reread that article in years. To expand upon the Dryden quote:

Another Cornell goalie is Ken Dryden, a sophomore, whose brother, Dave, substituted for Glenn Hall in the Chicago Black Hawks' goal last season. "Ken," says his father, Murray Dryden, "thought he was going to Princeton, but Ned talked him out of it. He sold the school to all of us, and he kept saying that he was building for a national championship. Ken never did get to Princeton."

The talk was that Princeton told them he was building to win the Ivies and ECAC, but Ned told him he was building for a national championship. Boy, how I wish he never got the bug to go pro. Ned, that is. To further build upon his history, when Dan Lodboa came back to CU a few years ago, he told the story about a recruit from when Ned was at Union, I believe. The story goes that the recruit came to Dan and asked what to do as he heard that Ned might be leaving. Dan's response was, "You go where Ned goes."

To try and answer the Ferguson question, it was said to be just as above, Ned got them, with a little help.

[ursusminor]

BTW, the brothers Ferguson started playing varsity hockey in 1965, but they came to Cornell and played Frosh hockey in 1964. Here's an article that will teach all the young whipper-snappers out there about this important part of Cornell hockey history.

Thanks for the link. As an RPI fan, I also enjoy reading about Harkness. It is interesting that the three related articles linked at the bottom are about RPI (one about the football team breaking its non-winning streak in 1965 -- I was at that game). Hasn't there ever been another article about Cornell in SI?

[Josh '99]

Seems to me that it's the breaks in recruiting patterns that are more in need of explanation than continuity.  1989 was the first year when the recruiting started to make inroads in the west.  That class would have been recruited during the 1988 season.  So what happened in 1988?

Some guy who played at Cornell also started having a noteworthy NHL career in western Canada in 1987-88 and maybe got the program some name recognition out in that region.