Jerry York comments on Cornell-UNH for ESPN

[pfibiger]

http://espn.go.com/ncaa/s/2003/0407/1535309.html

pretty weak analysis, if you ask me

[Al DeFlorio]

quote]Philip Fibiger '01 wrote:
pretty weak analysis, if you ask me [/quote]
Agree.  Yawn.[

[kingpin248]

I agree as well. I guess most of the material in York's notebook consists of doodles, with the occasional invective about an opposing player interspersed...

[pfibiger]

here's another one, this time bob gaudet compares the two teams, he actually puts a little effort into it..

http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_show.html?article=19898

[Tub(a)]

Grr, can you post the article text, I feel no need to register ::barf::

[pfibiger]

Grant,

I will, but you don't really have to register.. just put in a zipcode and maybe an age, and you go to the page..no email address, logins, etc.

[pfibiger]

BOB GAUDET knows a thing or two or three about the Cornell University hockey team. Back in December, the Dartmouth College coach called the Big Red a dark horse choice to win the national championship.

Cornell is not sneaking up on anyone in this year's NCAA tournament. Ken Dryden's old team is the pick of many to win its first national championship since 1970. The Big Red is 30-4-1, is super stingy on defense, is the No. 1 seed in the tournament and is ranked No. 1 in the country, too.

New Hampshire, 27-7-6, and Cornell open this year's Frozen Four at noon on Thursday at the HSBC Arena in Buffalo. Defending champion Minnesota (26-8-9) and Michigan (30-9-3) play in the other semifinal at 6. The winners meet for the championship Saturday at 7 p.m.

Cornell, while building up the last few years to this Frozen Four, has had all kinds of trouble along the way with Dartmouth. The Big Green split with Cornell this year, winning 5-2 at Dartmouth in November and losing 6-1 at Cornell in February.

The secret?

"It's just one of those things where we've matched up real well against that team," Gaudet said. "We have big defensemen and we've tried to control their cycling in our end. Eliminate it before they got started by being physical with them. At the offensive end, UNH is great at cycling the puck itself. The biggest challenge is controlling Cornell's size and quickness and their forwards down low in the UNH defensive zone."

Another task is to get shots on net and goals against a team that gives up few of either.

Cornell sophomore goalie Dave LeNeveu allowed only 1.14 goals a game this year.

"UNH has got to cash in on its chances," Gaudet said. "It sounds simple. Cornell blocks a lot of shots. And their goalie is so good, it doesn't give you much of a chance. Most teams get 15 to 25 shots on goal and their are not a whole lot of rebounds."

And don't put much stock in the fact Dartmouth scored five goals against Cornell: Two of them came in the final minutes after LeNeveu had been pulled for an extra attacker.

Power plays could help, but even then, Cornell has killed off 90.4 percent of them.

Cornell is potent on the power play, too, with the help of a couple big seniors. Doug Murray is a 6-3, 240-pound defenseman and Stephen Baby a 6-5, 230-pound forward who is second on the team in scoring with eight goals and a team-high 32 assists.

"Murray has a bomb from the point," Gaudet said. "And Baby's not a pure goal scorer, but he distributes the puck very well."

Gaudet couldn't come up with a Cornell weakness and the strengths keep piling up:

    * "They're the most consistent team I've seen in a long time. They don't beat themselves."

    * "They play against the boards quite well and the defensemen get involved in the offense. They drive to the net pretty hard and kind of wear you down."

    * "In the past, you'd look at offensive production and that was a problem. This is a better Cornell team. Much better. It's quicker. There's more team speed. They're big and strong and a punishing team physically."

Starting to sound hopeless for the Wildcats?

Gaudet doesn't think so. His team tied UNH 1-1 at the Verizon Wireless Center in January and he had plenty of praise for the Wildcats. Praise for goalie Mike Ayers and coach Dick Umile and his coaching staff.

"UNH just consistently gets it done," Gaudet said. "They're very good defensively. They move the puck very well as far as transitioning from defense to offense. They do that so quick, it's incedible. They don't over-handle it. If Cornell does cough it up, or UNH forces them to cough it up in the neutral zone, UNH can turn it around in a hurry and that's going to get them more chances on goal. And UNH is real diligent down low."

The bottom line?

Too close to call, Gaudet said.

"I think it's a tossup," Gaudet said. "I really think it's that close. I think it's going to be a classic game. It's a great matchup. Different styles, but they're similar in a lot of ways. . . . I think it's an absolute tossup."

[Alan]

The rest of the article:
Imagine this: UNH beats Cornell Thursday afternoon and Michigan upsets Minnesota Thursday night. Wildcats vs. Wolverines for the title Saturday night.

It would not be the only Michigan-New Hampshire NCAA matchup that night.

The UNH gymnastics team is competing in the NCAA Regionals that night in Ann Arbor. UNH is ranked No. 28 in the country and is the No. 4 seed in Ann Arbor. Arizona State is the top seed in the regional and ranked No. 3 in the country. Michigan is No. 2 in the event and ranked tenth and Iowa is No. 3 and ranked 15th. Penn State and Pittsburgh are also in the regional.

The top two teams in each of six regionals advance to the NCAA championships at the University of Nebraska April 24-26.

"That would be fun, wouldn't it," said gymnastics coach Gail Goodspeed of a New Hampshire-Michigan night. "It would be fun to have both of our teams go against Michigan and beat them. That would be real fun."

UNH is coming off a huge win last weekend in the East Atlantic Gymnastics League championships held in Durham.

Freshman Amanda Hall, third in the all-around at the EAGL meet, seniors Michelle Harley and Jen Dickson, and junior Tara Phillips are among the leaders of the 11-member unit that will compete Saturday night.

The Wildcats turned in a school-record score of 196.750 that night and need another big performance to advance next weekend.

"There are no second chances," Goodspeed said. "It's what you do that night. There are no gimmees, no mulligans. Every tenth of a point counts. I think our chances are as good as any team's. We're a strong team and we're starting on the balance beam and that's a good event for us."


The UNH women's lacrosse team will be glad to break into the America East portion of its schedule next weekend. The Wildcats have gone 0-9 outside the conference against some of the best teams in the country leading up to next Saturday's home opener against Vermont. The game is at 1 p.m. on Memorial Field in front of the Whittemore Center.


The men's and women's track teams lost their season openers at Maine last weekend and now take aim at their first home meet Saturday. Maine, Vermont, Boston College and Dartmouth are due in for a meet at noon. The America East championships are at Maine on May 2-3. The New England championships are at UNH May 9-10.

[Alan]

I am sure that everyone wants to know about UNH gymnastics. ROFL!

JK, I did want to add the part about "Image this:" I know that it will fire most of you up!

[jbeaber1998]

Havning spent some time watching the UNH gymnastics team (I went there for a year), I wanted to know a WHOLE lot more about a few of them......