Frozen Four Results

[Chris '03]

The most remarkable thing about the 2013 bizarro tournament is that the ECAC will be perfect out of conference. It will go 8-2 with loses only in the two ECAC v. ECAC games. When's the last time a conference has pulled that off? [For the Q doubters, this sets up nicely.  They struggled to beat Canisius, beat 4 seed SCSU, and played two EZAC schools. Not exactly murderers row.] Also amazing: If Michigan beat Cornell back in November, Yale's season would have ended in AC.

Also, has a team that lost to AIC ever played for (or won) a title?

I'm happy about the all-ECAC final.  Do I wish Cornell was there? Sure. Am I bitter about what might have been in the many near misses Cornell's had in the past decade? Sure. Do I resent the "easy" success Yale and Q have had at least a little bit? Sure. But 24 years is too long between titles for this conference and it's about time some respect was restored even if Cornell won't do it.  If ECAC schools win 3 or 4 of the next 10-12 titles, I'll be more comfortable being discerning about what ECAC schools I'm ok with winning. In the meantime, go ECAC.  


The elephant in the room in all of this is the institutional recruiting advantages Q and Y now have, and have had for a while now, national titles or no national titles.  Q is an 18 scholarship team with no academic standards to speak of and facilities that attract recruits (even if they drive many of us nuts). They pour money into athletics, buy TV time, and run their program like a pro franchise. Their recruiting pool is always going to be larger.  Yale (and H and P for that matter) now have de facto athletic scholarships for recruits from middle class backgrounds.  I think I read somewhere in the CT media love-fest this week that families making $80k or less pay $0 for Yale and it's a sliding scale after that.  Cornell doesn't have those resources and may never given the size of the student body.  While it will match packages from HYP, it can't do anything for a kid who needs the financial help and can't get into HYP. It's not a great position to be in for Cornell's recruiting approach to have to be "we want you to come here. Now go apply to HYP and when you get in, we'll get you a free ride here."

HYP have an enormous financial aid advantage right now over  Cornell, Brown, and Dartmouth.  Cornell has history, tradition, etc., which is great.  But eventually money talks.

[ScrewBU]

WEll, an ECAC team is going to win this year and we'll have the effects of that (good or bad) whether we weanted them or not.

Yup: there's nothing I could do about it even if I agreed with ButtLover. At this point, IMO it would be fine if both Q and Yale lost; fortunately for the ECAC, that is not a possible outcome.

Well, that just seems uncalled for. Also, somewhat homophobic.

These guys (and gals) are utterly defeated with tonight's results.  They have no rational defense, what do you expect?

[BearLover]

WEll, an ECAC team is going to win this year and we'll have the effects of that (good or bad) whether we weanted them or not.

Yup: there's nothing I could do about it even if I agreed with ButtLover. At this point, IMO it would be fine if both Q and Yale lost; fortunately for the ECAC, that is not a possible outcome.

Are you 5?  And yeah, fortunately for the ECAC, unfortunately for Cornell.

ScrewBU might be a "troll," but he is raises some good points:
-the top posters on this forum are not representative of the average Cornell fan, and definitely not of the students
-there is a tremendous amount of circle jerking between the established posters here
-if you disagree with the established posters, you are labeled a troll

[ScrewBU]

The most remarkable thing about the 2013 bizarro tournament is that the ECAC will be perfect out of conference. It will go 8-2 with loses only in the two ECAC v. ECAC games. When's the last time a conference has pulled that off? [For the Q doubters, this sets up nicely.  They struggled to beat Canisius, beat 4 seed SCSU, and played two EZAC schools. Not exactly murderers row.] Also amazing: If Michigan beat Cornell back in November, Yale's season would have ended in AC.

Also, has a team that lost to AIC ever played for (or won) a title?

I'm happy about the all-ECAC final.  Do I wish Cornell was there? Sure. Am I bitter about what might have been in the many near misses Cornell's had in the past decade? Sure. Do I resent the "easy" success Yale and Q have had at least a little bit? Sure. But 24 years is too long between titles for this conference and it's about time some respect was restored even if Cornell won't do it.  If ECAC schools win 3 or 4 of the next 10-12 titles, I'll be more comfortable being discerning about what ECAC schools I'm ok with winning. In the meantime, go ECAC.  


The elephant in the room in all of this is the institutional recruiting advantages Q and Y now have, and have had for a while now, national titles or no national titles.  Q is an 18 scholarship team with no academic standards to speak of and facilities that attract recruits (even if they drive many of us nuts). They pour money into athletics, buy TV time, and run their program like a pro franchise. Their recruiting pool is always going to be larger.  Yale (and H and P for that matter) now have de facto athletic scholarships for recruits from middle class backgrounds.  I think I read somewhere in the CT media love-fest this week that families making $80k or less pay $0 for Yale and it's a sliding scale after that.  Cornell doesn't have those resources and may never given the size of the student body.  While it will match packages from HYP, it can't do anything for a kid who needs the financial help and can't get into HYP. It's not a great position to be in for Cornell's recruiting approach to have to be "we want you to come here. Now go apply to HYP and when you get in, we'll get you a free ride here."

HYP have an enormous financial aid advantage right now over  Cornell, Brown, and Dartmouth.  Cornell has history, tradition, etc., which is great.  But eventually money talks.

Of course, since a team is better than us here comes the "no academic standards" argument.  YOU ARE A FUCKING DISGRACE AND SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF, FIND THE NEAREST GORGE AND JUMP, OR THE NEAREST TAILPIPE AND TAKE A SWEET, SWEET DEEP BREATH.  Here is the counter argument that Hockey East has dealt with for the last 10 years. Wouldn't Maine and UNH have taken advantage of this?  What about all those amazing players that just couldn't cut it academically?  JVR?  Joey Diamond?  Has that EVER worked out for a single team?  IT HASN'T.  EVER.   I hope you get rectal cancer and spend all of Daddys trust fund trying to stop the shit coming from your mouth and ass.

[Will]

I don't speak for every Cornell fan apparently, but I definitely speak for that far majority of them when I say that Yale or Q winning it all is the closest thing possible to being punched in the balls short of Harvard winning.

(emphasis mine)

Is that a fact?  I'd love to take a look at your data results and examine your survey methodology.  Of course, I am assuming you adequately surveyed the ~4,000 or so Cornell fans who attend games at Lynah regularly in a given season (not to mention an unspecified number of out-of-town Cornell fans who follow the team) in order to make such a bold assertion as to claim to "definitely speak" for a "far majority" of Cornell fans.

[KeithK]

WEll, an ECAC team is going to win this year and we'll have the effects of that (good or bad) whether we weanted them or not.

Yup: there's nothing I could do about it even if I agreed with ButtLover. At this point, IMO it would be fine if both Q and Yale lost; fortunately for the ECAC, that is not a possible outcome.

Are you 5?  And yeah, fortunately for the ECAC, unfortunately for Cornell.

ScrewBU might be a "troll," but he is raises some good points:
-the top posters on this forum are not representative of the average Cornell fan, and definitely not of the students
-there is a tremendous amount of circle jerking between the established posters here
-if you disagree with the established posters, you are labeled a troll

So you're criticising Kyle's name calling (and rightly so) and then using similar imagery to describe the established posters here? Nice!

Of course the established posters here are not representative of the average Cornell fan. They are a self-selected set of people who are so interested in Cornell hockey that they spend large amounts of time reading and posting to this board. They also tend to ave been around for many years, which means that they are alums and often older alums and thus not surprisingly aren't representative of the current students.

I'm not going to claim that there aren't some unwarranted accusations of "troll" thrown out on occasion (just like there have been some genuine trolls). But mostly this place is a pretty rasonable environment for disussion even of dissenting views. I for one am happy to hear 'em even if I may waste lots of time typing up counter arguments.

[Chuck Henderson]

I think BearLover's arguments are being given too little credence.  It's interesting that most serious posters, by which I guess I mean long-time posters whom I would usually agree with, are on the other side of the debate.  (In the context of this discussion only, I might almost say Very Serious Posters, but I suppose that's not really fair.)

Have we really been losing that many recruits because the league has been perceived to be weak?  Someone who knows can set me straight.  It seems we lose more to academic standards and financial concerns.  Would we really be in a stronger recruiting position when other ECAC (let alone Ivy) schools are as strong or stronger than us, when we are not uniquely (with a partial allowance for Harvard) the school with academic standards, a historically strong program, and a great atmosphere (admittedly not quite what it used to be)?  I would rather be the big school in a small pond--meaning big enough to compete at the highest level--as opposed to one of a number of ECAC schools, competitive and good, but from which we do not stand out.

Whatever the actual benefits, and I think they're overstated if not possibly negligible or negative, and while at some academic level I want to see the league do well, emotionally I, too, don't really have a good feeling about tonight's developments.

I want Cornell to be the one to win a championship.  If we now do it in the near future, it will be less special.  I want Cornell to be unique.  I wonder what Schafer and the players think--not lip service to it being great for the league, but truly?  I wouldn't be surprised if it's a little like the feelings I'm expressing here.

I used to be strongly for my league when my team was eliminated (for example, the NL in MLB).  In recent decades, I've kind of lost that attitude.  In baseball, I now say at the time of the World Series, I wish it would rain until spring training (ignoring the existence of stadiums with domes).  Here, I could say I wish ice would not stay frozen.  I used to be for the team that eliminated my team; I still have that preference to some extent.  I used to hate the Yankees.  In more recent times, as that waned, I'm just as happy if they win rather than some team I feel more competitive with--one more win just gets lost in the mix.  In the same way, it would not bother me if Michigan, say, won another, whereas Yale winning is too close to home.  Quinnipiac bothers me less because one can at least say they have lower academic standards and scholarships.

While it seems long ago now, I actually rooted hard for Harvard's championship team.  But I thought that was an admirable team in many ways and always liked Lane MacDonald and Bourbeau as well.

[BearLover]

I think BearLover's arguments are being given too little credence.  It's interesting that most serious posters, by which I guess I mean long-time posters whom I would usually agree with, are on the other side of the debate.  (In the context of this discussion only, I might almost say Very Serious Posters, but I suppose that's not really fair.)

Have we really been losing that many recruits because the league has been perceived to be weak?  Someone who knows can set me straight.  It seems we lose more to academic standards and financial concerns.  Would we really be in a stronger recruiting position when other ECAC (let alone Ivy) schools are as strong or stronger than us, when we are not uniquely (with a partial allowance for Harvard) the school with academic standards, a historically strong program, and a great atmosphere (admittedly not quite what it used to be)?  I would rather be the big school in a small pond--meaning big enough to compete at the highest level--as opposed to one of a number of ECAC schools, competitive and good, but from which we do not stand out.

Whatever the actual benefits, and I think they're overstated if not possibly negligible or negative, and while at some academic level I want to see the league do well, emotionally I, too, don't really have a good feeling about tonight's developments.

I want Cornell to be the one to win a championship.  If we now do it in the near future, it will be less special.  I want Cornell to be unique.  I wonder what Schafer and the players think--not lip service to it being great for the league, but truly?  I wouldn't be surprised if it's a little like the feelings I'm expressing here.

I used to be strongly for my league when my team was eliminated (for example, the NL in MLB).  In recent decades, I've kind of lost that attitude.  In baseball, I now say at the time of the World Series, I wish it would rain until spring training (ignoring the existence of stadiums with domes).  Here, I could say I wish ice would not stay frozen.  I used to be for the team that eliminated my team; I still have that preference to some extent.  I used to hate the Yankees.  In more recent times, as that waned, I'm just as happy if they win rather than some team I feel more competitive with--one more win just gets lost in the mix.  In the same way, it would not bother me if Michigan, say, won another, whereas Yale winning is too close to home.  Quinnipiac bothers me less because one can at least say they have lower academic standards and scholarships.

While it seems long ago now, I actually rooted hard for Harvard's championship team.  But I thought that was an admirable team in many ways and always liked Lane MacDonald and Bourbeau as well.

Thank you for the support, and very well said.  It's sad, but I really do not see this as a good thing for Cornell Hockey at all.  And emotionally, this really stinks.  

I'd rather be a big fish in a small pond than just a regular fish in a pond where another fish is champion.

[Give My Regards]

Seriously?  Name-calling, taunting, flames, etc. -- this is what this thread has devolved into?  I get that you're all passionate and emotional, but come on, this is the kind of crap that ruins practically every USCHO thread out there.  The possibility that I share the label "Cornell hockey fan" with some of the posters in this thread (on both sides of whatever argument this is) is more embarrassing than anything the Big Red has done over the last however-many years.

(Cue predictable responses)

[Jordan 04]

Yeah, I'm not sure why Kyle felt the need to take a reasonable conversation on the pros and cons of the situation and devolve it into a string of name-calling and trite, meaningless internet memes.

I'm surprised he didn't find room for a "tl;dr" or an animated .gif.

Definitely not the thread-turn I expected this morning.

[Rosey]

Well, that just seems uncalled for. Also, somewhat homophobic.

You must be new to the internet. I was just baiting him because it felt like a good flamewar was in order after all the pissing and moaning.

Don't listen to these morons. They are the same 10 people circle jerking each other.

Success!

ScrewBU might be a "troll," but he is raises some good points:
-the top posters on this forum are not representative of the average Cornell fan, and definitely not of the students
-there is a tremendous amount of circle jerking between the established posters here
-if you disagree with the established posters, you are labeled a troll

Shockingly, I agree with you: most of the time, I am arguing the unpopular viewpoint, which is part of the reason I don't post much anymore. However, if you have been reading the whole thread, this is not an instance in which groupthink has taken over: if anything, I think Greg and I are in the minority here.

I think BearLover's arguments are being given too little credence.

Upon a night's reflection, I think you are right. I still don't agree with you, but I do think I dismissed his arguments too quickly in the euphoria of the moment. Ultimately, only time will tell whether this is net-positive for Cornell. What I want you all to consider is what "net-positive" means.

To me, that isn't winning a greater percentage of ECAC championships, as fun as those are: it's winning more at the national level, against teams from historically stronger conferences. Ultimately, that is why I want a stronger ECAC, so Cornell plays nationally-competitive teams every weekend, not just in 4-5 non-conference games per year. I wanted the Brown/Yale/Union/Dartmouth/Princeton/Quinnipiac games not to be a joke and to be more than an opportunity to completely fuck up our PWR. Well... success!

Getting a look from recruits who previously would have hit "delete" on that voicemail from ECAC recruiters will help us compete more consistently at the national level at precisely the time when big money is moving into D1 hockey... but it is only necessary, not sufficient. "Necessary" means a strong ECAC is better for Cornell, if Cornell takes care of the other stuff. Fix the other stuff.

To that end, I'll repeat my earlier objection to the beggar-thy-neighbor viewpoint. Cornell has to take care of business at home. The reason Cornell finished 9th in the ECAC this year wasn't a talent deficit relative to the rest of the league: you can't look at our recruits and honestly come to that conclusion. That leaves coaching, culture, and luck. (I guess real fans blame it all on bad luck?) The reason Cornell has been schooled by Yale for the past half-decade isn't an individual talent deficit. It's that Yale plays better hockey, full stop. That has to be addressed by the coaching staff.

Were you guys watching the Yale power play yesterday? Unbelievable the way they move that puck around. Cornell's PP is a fucking joke by comparison, or it would be if it weren't the culmination of a decade of facepalm on that front. At times it I felt like I was watching the 2003 semifinal, with UML as Cornell—a bunch of trees playing a defensive game against a much faster team—except in this version, they were getting creamed on the stat sheet despite keeping the game close on the scoreboard. IMO, it's not good to play on your heels for an entire game. I think the problem versus Yale is more in there than in any talent deficit. Consequently, I am increasingly willing to entertain the notion that Cornell's system is just broken in 2013.

I would rather be the big school in a small pond--meaning big enough to compete at the highest level--as opposed to one of a number of ECAC schools, competitive and good, but from which we do not stand out.
...
I want Cornell to be the one to win a championship. If we now do it in the near future, it will be less special. I want Cornell to be unique.

Unfortunately, I would argue that it is precisely this attitude that kept Cornell from going all the way back in the early-mid 00's: we did great in our pond, but then hit the brick wall of more talented teams playing a faster game. Incredibly, we won a lot of those, but not enough in a row. I've been arguing for a decade for better competition all around, and now we've got it. Let's see if the coaching staff can figure out how to play consistently well against consistently better competition.

The pond is getting bigger whether you like it or not. Deal with it, instead of pining for the good old days.

[billhoward]

Chris, too bad there's no Like button so we can sophomorically enthuse over what you said with a single click. You hit it right on the head.

1. What's the medical condition for when a person can't stand the success of other people? I mean, other than "fan."
2. ECAC has been down so long, since 1985 (RPI) and 1989 (Harvard) titles, that we needed this. Sure, it gives advantages to Yale and Quinnipiac in recruiting. The ECAC-only final gives advantages to the other 10 teams who can tell recruits they're playing in a real league. We need to follow up with frozen four entrants the next couple years and at least one more title so it's less of a fluke season.
3. We had our chances in 2002 2003 in the NCAA semis and Leneveau let in a soft goal and we took a late penalty but why obsess on that? (As I just did.) And we came close to sneaking in a couple years ago, too.
4. Quinnipiac has the advantage of an incredible rink. Fair-weather students will show up more. They're going to wish they'd built a 6,000-seat rink. This facility is a huge plus for the ECAC.
5. The ECAC needs to be nationally commpetitive, say the top five teams, not just one or two, to keep Q in the fold. Can you see Hockey East chatting up Q?

It's too bad the title game schools are both in Connecticut because the storyline will be All-Connecticut Final rather than All-ECAC Final. Union vs. Quinnipiac, that I'd have like better except my rooting preferences are Ivy League over anyone else.

[Rosey]

One other thing:

in 2010 we only won the ECAC because Yale got upset earlier

Time is the great clarifier. I recall the shitstorm I created here for saying exactly the same thing back in 2010.

http://elf.elynah.com/read.php?1,159008,159046#msg-159046

[scoop85]

No need to repeat what Greg said. I'll just add that Cornell is hardly "a 9th place team" from the perspective of a recruit: Cornell has been the most consistently good team in the conference over the past decade and a half: one off year doesn't change that. By virtue of attracting recruits that would previously not have returned the calls of ECAC recruiters, a stronger conference will definitely benefit the strongest teams in the conference: Yale, Union, Quinnipiac, Cornell, and (yes) Harvard.

Yeah, this "bad" team stuff is such nonsense.  Recruits surely recognize our long-term success, the Lynah experience, etc.  Having stronger ECAC programs will only be good for us IMO.

[Greenberg '97]

Hey, I'm just popping in to see what the discussion would be like after last night's results and OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED IN HERE???  Clean up this mess, all of you!

Sorry, parenting reflex.

Seriously, stop poking your sister.  Don't make me come back there.