Thursday's practice

[atb9]

Practice started around 3:40pm and ended at 4:40pm.  The Big Red--especially Lenny--looked sharp.  The team started with an easy skatearound and stretching session and then moved on to odd man situations.  What surprised me during the odd man situations was how aggressive we were going to the goal.  During our game with RPI it seemed like we always took the puck into the corner during odd man rushes instead of going to the net.  Maybe we brought the puck to the edges because we were in a series with RPI and we were trying to wear them down.  During the series, whenever we had an odd man rush, I never understood why the crowd got excited because we never did attack the net.

Next, they went through the powerplay and finished up with 5 on 5 and a breakaway competition.  The top 3 finishers of the breakaway competition were Knoepfli, Baby, and coach Russell.  During the entire practice, it was amazing to see how intense Lenny was compared to the rest of the team.  Whenever a goal was scored on him, and it was very infrequent compared to Chabot and Marr, he was visually upset, usually slapping his stick against the ice.  During the breakaway competition, Lenny and Chabot alternated every three shots (I'm not sure why Marr watched from the boards).  Lenny stopped his first five of six shots while Chabot let in probably half of his--this trend continued for the entire competition.  

It seemed like the team was pretty loose.  When Pegoraro (I'm pretty sure it was Pegoraro) scored the first goal against Lenny during the breakaway competition, the entire team erupted and someone on the ice sarcastically shouted out, "You just scored on the greatest goalie ever."  Throughout the entire practice, someone would always shout out or make some comment when a goal was scored on Lenny but the first goal during the competition got a particularly heavy ovation from the players.  

Besides Lenny, three other things stood out in my mind:

1. Sammy looked pretty cold; it didn't seem like he was making very good decisions and his shots weren't on goal very often.  

2. Iggulden knocked down Murray during the powerplay scrimmage and when Murray was coming off the ice he gave Iggulden a long stare.  It seemed like the rest of the guys were easing up when they got near Doug, probably because he's a little banged up.  

3. It's hard to describe but Murray kept using the spin around backhand pass on the powerplay, after the pp unit had setup inside the blueline, that I've been seeing more frequently during the games.  It really is a beautiful pass and it allows him to turn a 5 on 4 into a 4 on 3.

I wish I had seen Harvard practice so I could comment on the injury question marks for them.  But most importantly, our team looks more than ready for tomorrow!

Does anyone know what the "4B" on the back of every practice jersey means?

That's the update from Albany!  I can't wait for tomorrow!  I'll be sitting in Section 112!



Post Edited (03-20-03 21:25)

[Jim Hyla]

Thank you for a very thoughtful post.:-)

[atb9]

don't get used to it!  ;-)

[Chris 02]

http://www.timesunion.com/sports/teams/hockey/recent.asp

http://www.capitalnews9.com/content/sports/?ArID=19029

have some recent stories concerning the upcoming tournament.  And some video on the Capital News Nine website.  It's Dartmouth practicing briefly.

[rhovorka]

That "Crimson seeks to shed shadow" article in the Times Union gets my blood going, and ready for a big hockey weekend.  What's Harvard's record vs. top 20 teams?  By my count, 2-6-1 thanks to Dartmouth.  I hope our shadow kicks the living snot out of Mazzoleni's little boys.  

Welcome to Championship weekend.
Let's Go Red!!

[Jim Hyla]

Better story abput us this AM. Same link.

[Andy Wallenstein \'86]

[Q]Schafer has been coaching at Cornell since 1995. The Big Red struggled early in his career, with a couple of losing seasons and two more mediocre years before showing signs of a resurgence the past two seasons.[/Q]

Huh?

We won the ECAC championship Schafer's first two years at the helm. What the **** is this guy talking about?
                            Andy W.

[rhovorka]

No team in college hockey has matched the Big Red's perfection, and few can boast the kind of success Cornell had between 1966 and 1972, when the little school from the Southern Tier won three national championships and finished second in three of the other four national tournaments.

Wow.  Even I didn't know that.  :-}  I guess you could make an argument for Ithaca being in the Southern Tier.  And compared to some Western schools, we're a little school.  But dang if I can't find that 3rd national banner, and I know we've finished 2nd only twice.

[CUlater]

There's another article in that paper by a different reporter that refers to Kevin Sneddon as the captain of Harvard's 1989 national championship team.  ::rolleyes::

[Neil Shapiro \'83]

New York's Southern Tier is just north of Pennsylvania's Northern Tier. I always found it amusing driving north from the Northern Tier to the Southern Tier.

[dodger916]

According to a very reliable source, the "4B" on the back of the team practice jerseys stands for 4 banners.

[Jim Hyla]

 

Dodger916 wrote:

According to a very reliable source, the "4B" on the back of the team practice jerseys stands for 4 banners.

Does anyone have a picture of the 4B?

[Andy Wallenstein \'86]

[Q]

According to a very reliable source, the "4B" on the back of the team practice jerseys stands for 4 banners.[/Q]

Presumably the four banners would be Ivy Champs, ECAC Champs, NCAA Tourney, and NCAA champs. However...

...according to a quote from Jack McDonald in the NHL.com article someone here posted the link to, he is expecting the four teams that wind up in the Frozen Four...the "Regional Champs", to add a new banner for that title. (See quote below.)

So perhaps that 4B should be 5B, at least in spirit!
                      Andy W.

"When that first puck gets dropped, personally that will be a great moment to know we finally got there and that college hockey is significantly better off than it was," McDonald said. "We will have four regional champs and a whole new set of banners being created by four colleges on April 1. All of this makes sense."

[Al DeFlorio]

Ain't it great when someone makes a declaration and then finishes by saying:  "All of this makes sense."::rolleyes::

[atb9]

I can describe it...bottom center of the back of the practice jersey, right near the edge of the bottom.  Small letters...probably an inch or an inch and a half.