Tonight's game v. Penn State

[scoop85]

Watching from near ice level, Penn State showed a lot of speed through the neutral zone, and especially in the first half of the game they put a lot of pressure on our defense. As the game progressed we played more of our game, but it was a slog most of the way. Gillam played a strong game and IMO should have been named 1st star.

I'm just happy to finally see us win at MSG - the only one I haven't attended was against Michigan.

[billhoward]

Bill Howard's point, as always, is well taken: Penn State was playing at club level three years ago -- shows you what happens when universities make the big investment. Quinnpiac was a small sleepy Connecticut school near Yale when some of us went to college -- and look what happened there. Hopefully, the defense will continue to grow and Ryan will return.

The largest single gift to Penn State was not for academics but athletics, the $100 million to fund men's and women's varsity ice hockey and build a 6,000 seat arena and second practice rink. When a Cornellian gives that kind of money, he buys into Roosevelt Island and funds in some small way the future of Cornell and New York City.

[Greenberg '97]

Great game (because we won). Msg was completely ours- just unbelievable. Against BU and Michigan it's still mostly us, but much more balanced. This year it was like hosting Brown.

The PSU fans were fun other than the guy who said he was going to "smash my f-ing face." His dad was pretty embarrassed for him and he almost tripped down the stairs as he left with two minutes left in the game. Douche. I enjoyed "hide your kids" as a chant.

So either you sat near me in Section 209, or I wasn't the only one to come up with that gem.  I'm guessing the latter.

Random pep band question - after the game, as the crowd was filing out toward the Seventh Avenue exit, the horns were playing a simple march with a three-beat ending (coinciding with a "Let's Go Red" from the masses).  Is this is a "thing?"  I'd think in 20 years I'd have heard their entire repertoire.

[ursusminor]

I plead guilty to being a late arrival. We've gone to all the MSG games but one-- including the tournament in 1969 which Cornell won 9-0 and 7-2 v. RPI and Clarkson. Anyway, we've used the games as an excuse to meet friends for a great holiday dinner and they sometimes just run late. To quote another Cornellian, "So it goes."

That would be St. Lawrence rather than Clarkson in the '69 tournament.  And it sounds to me like you're quoting a former #6, eh?

FWIW, the other team which demolished RPI besides for Cornell was BC.

[BMac]

Section 209 indeed! Very good chant. I liked the engaging PSU fan to our right. Too bad he was one-upped by douchy violent fan.

[Greenberg '97]

Section 209 indeed! Very good chant. I liked the engaging PSU fan to our right. Too bad he was one-upped by douchy violent fan.

Well, I'm glad it worked.  Based on what I'm reading in another thread, though, it would have resulted in me being ushered out of Lynah.

Even though she didn't get the reference, my four-year-old daughter played along and hid her face against mommy.  I assured her she had nothing to worry about.  I couldn't say the same for my son.

Tasteless?  Yes.  But are my kids worse off for hearing it?  Not at all.  In fact, later on they asked me to explain myself and without getting into too much detail, I was able to transition it into an important conversation about trust.

And that, my friends, is how you turn crappy parenting into good parenting.

[imafrshmn]

Random pep band question - after the game, as the crowd was filing out toward the Seventh Avenue exit, the horns were playing a simple march with a three-beat ending (coinciding with a "Let's Go Red" from the masses).  Is this is a "thing?"  I'd think in 20 years I'd have heard their entire repertoire.

For Lynah rink games, after the Schafer Beer Victory Song has been played, after most of the fans have gone, the band walks down to their Barton Hall basement shack shiny new home, Fischell Band Center, and they put a bit of pep in their step playing that tooty ditty. As far as I know.

[RichH]

Random pep band question - after the game, as the crowd was filing out toward the Seventh Avenue exit, the horns were playing a simple march with a three-beat ending (coinciding with a "Let's Go Red" from the masses).  Is this is a "thing?"  I'd think in 20 years I'd have heard their entire repertoire.

That was started in the late '90s by a tuba-playing friend of mine who used to play something similar in high school. It's a simple tune that the rest of the brass over the years have filled in improvised parts around the bass line. It typically starts with the tuba line when the band is walking en masse from/to the band room before/after games. So as they were walking from the arena through the MSG lobby to the buses, it made sense for the tubas & brass to start the "walking music."  There's no written music or even any official arrangement to it; it's just the walking music & something to do when they have 5 minutes and instruments.  

I'm agnostic about it now, but I didn't like it at first. Per my own tradition, I still shout "THIS CHEER SUCKS!" for the three-beat stinger.

[Scersk '97]

I'm agnostic about it now, but I didn't like it at first. Per my own tradition, I still shout "THIS CHEER SUCKS!" for the three-beat stinger.

This. Would that they transformed their burning need to play informally into constant and timely music in the rink. Not that I'm ever critical about anything... but today's band is a bit... slow and disorganized.

After all, they're our first line of defense against DJ creep. Being ready to play right after the whistle and before the "DJ" has had time to ramp up the jock jams will, over time, save humanity.

I'm looking at you, QU: "Rowwwrrr!"

[Greenberg '97]

I'm agnostic about it now, but I didn't like it at first. Per my own tradition, I still shout "THIS CHEER SUCKS!" for the three-beat stinger.

This. Would that they transformed their burning need to play informally into constant and timely music in the rink. Not that I'm ever critical about anything... but today's band is a bit... slow and disorganized.

After all, they're our first line of defense against DJ creep. Being ready to play right after the whistle and before the "DJ" has had time to ramp up the jock jams will, over time, save humanity.

I'm looking at you, QU: "Rowwwrrr!"

Aren't CU band/opposing band/DJ/PA cues agreed upon mutually?  I just assumed that's what the headsets are for.

[Scersk '97]

Aren't CU band/opposing band/DJ/PA cues agreed upon mutually?  I just assumed that's what the headsets are for.

Accepting headsets is the first mistake. ([Clandestine unplug. Tap, tap, tap.] "Oh, too bad, it's not working." ) ACM and the band have always been able to handle that delicate dance without much communication at all.

And, no, these arrangements are not arrived at in any sort of mutual fashion these days. More and more, college pep bands are dictated to. Every DJ overreaches, and it's beyond me why they're given license to do so.

It's part of the national sporting conversation that we're not having nearly often enough: are college athletics for the students or not? If they are, and there's a band in attendance, the DJ should take the night off. Let the band play.

(And my advice to the current band: Play over everyone and everything except opposing bands and rink announcers. We always did—"Nobody puts Baby in the corner." Anyway, running interference on those who would muzzle you is what head managers are for.)

[BearLover]

From today's USCHO article, an interesting quote.

"I'm shocked," said Cornell head coach Mike Schafer when asked about the play of his team's young goalies. "Not having Joakim Ryan on the blue line and having all of those new defensemen to go along with two new goaltenders, then looking at our defensive performance leaves me shocked."

Read more: http://www.uscho.com/2014/11/30/cornell-goalies-gillam-stewart-no-longer-unknown-commodities/#ixzz3KXz3Dl6G

And more from Adam's article in CHN:

Schafer coaches patience, cycling, waiting for the high percetage shot; Gadowsky trains his teams to throw the puck on net from everywhere, and create havoc in front. They represent the two extremes of options that all coaches emply, in varying degrees, from time to time.

The result Saturday, in shot differential, was typical: Penn State outshot Cornell, 38-25.

"I told my guys, don't look at the shot clock," Schafer said. "They fire shots from everywhere. After the first period, as badly as we played (Penn State outshot Cornell, 12-5), when we tracked the statistics, they had three really good scoring chances, and we had two. Shots and plus-minus are some of the biggest misleading statistics in the game."

I'm pretty sure SOG is the most representative commonly used statistic regarding how good a team is...not sure why Schafer thinks it's misleading.

[Jim Hyla]

From today's USCHO article, an interesting quote.

"I'm shocked," said Cornell head coach Mike Schafer when asked about the play of his team's young goalies. "Not having Joakim Ryan on the blue line and having all of those new defensemen to go along with two new goaltenders, then looking at our defensive performance leaves me shocked."

Read more: http://www.uscho.com/2014/11/30/cornell-goalies-gillam-stewart-no-longer-unknown-commodities/#ixzz3KXz3Dl6G

And more from Adam's article in CHN:

Schafer coaches patience, cycling, waiting for the high percetage shot; Gadowsky trains his teams to throw the puck on net from everywhere, and create havoc in front. They represent the two extremes of options that all coaches emply, in varying degrees, from time to time.

The result Saturday, in shot differential, was typical: Penn State outshot Cornell, 38-25.

"I told my guys, don't look at the shot clock," Schafer said. "They fire shots from everywhere. After the first period, as badly as we played (Penn State outshot Cornell, 12-5), when we tracked the statistics, they had three really good scoring chances, and we had two. Shots and plus-minus are some of the biggest misleading statistics in the game."

I'm pretty sure SOG is the most representative commonly used statistic regarding how good a team is...not sure why Schafer thinks it's misleading.

Because he is more concerned with scoring chances, which I admit is somewhat subjective, than just any shot on goal. In fact I can take it one step further. Sometimes when the puck is just flipped down the ice, no SOG nor save is registered.  However if he doesn't stop it, it would be a goal, so shouldn't it be a save, but not a scoring chance?

[BearLover]

From today's USCHO article, an interesting quote.

"I'm shocked," said Cornell head coach Mike Schafer when asked about the play of his team's young goalies. "Not having Joakim Ryan on the blue line and having all of those new defensemen to go along with two new goaltenders, then looking at our defensive performance leaves me shocked."

Read more: http://www.uscho.com/2014/11/30/cornell-goalies-gillam-stewart-no-longer-unknown-commodities/#ixzz3KXz3Dl6G

And more from Adam's article in CHN:

Schafer coaches patience, cycling, waiting for the high percetage shot; Gadowsky trains his teams to throw the puck on net from everywhere, and create havoc in front. They represent the two extremes of options that all coaches emply, in varying degrees, from time to time.

The result Saturday, in shot differential, was typical: Penn State outshot Cornell, 38-25.

"I told my guys, don't look at the shot clock," Schafer said. "They fire shots from everywhere. After the first period, as badly as we played (Penn State outshot Cornell, 12-5), when we tracked the statistics, they had three really good scoring chances, and we had two. Shots and plus-minus are some of the biggest misleading statistics in the game."

I'm pretty sure SOG is the most representative commonly used statistic regarding how good a team is...not sure why Schafer thinks it's misleading.

Because he is more concerned with scoring chances, which I admit is somewhat subjective, than just any shot on goal. In fact I can take it one step further. Sometimes when the puck is just flipped down the ice, no SOG nor save is registered.  However if he doesn't stop it, it would be a goal, so shouldn't it be a save, but not a scoring chance?

But almost every shot on goal IS a scoring chance.  Most goals aren't pretty--they come on tips or rebounds or go off a player's skate.  The two most popular advanced stats look at total shots as a proxy for puck possession, which is the best measure of a team's success: http://bluejackets.nhl.com/club/page.htm?id=99406

[ftyuv]

Most girls aren't pretty--they come on tips or...

"Oh, ha, what an unfortunate typo."

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/01/2014 06:39PM by BearLover.

... wait, that wasn't the typo?