More Best Moments...

[Jim Hyla]

[Q]CUlater said:

What, that Murray was really in control of them? After all, Chris also said "[t]he team seemed kind of annoyed by it..."[/Q]No, that they would do it if they waited till all the autographs were signed. Meaning the fans come first.::rolleyes::  And that they would do it if a captain said so.

[CUlater]

[Q]...that they would do it if they waited till all the autographs were signed....[/Q]

That's not what Chris said.  He said that Murray said they would do it if the band waited until the autographs were signed, but he also said that the team seemed "annoyed".

Sure, it's a technical point and I would guess it was just a knee-jerk reaction by some of the guys before they thought about it (possibly in a rush to get to some other team-only party).  But let's not over-romanticize here.

[ugarte]

CUlater '89 wrote:

Sure, it's a technical point and I would guess it was just a knee-jerk reaction by some of the guys before they thought about it (possibly in a rush to get to some other team-only party).  But let's not over-romanticize here.

I both appreciate and agree with your hesitancy to offer our players up for sainthood, but do you have to pee on the parade every time someone praises the guys?

[CUlater]

No, not every time, but someone's got to play devil's advocate here (and who better to do that than a lawyer? ;-)  )  

In any case, in the 17 years that I've followed the hockey program, most of the guys have been "good guys".  In the 9 or 10 years when I got to know the team up close, even the guys who some might describe with a slur, for the most part they were quality people (somewhat of a common thread among hockey players).  I've seen good work in the community, a lot of support for the women's program, a lot of time spent with local kids and a lot of time spent talking with fellow students.

This team had better on-ice results than any team since I began following Cornell hockey.  But it's all too easy, and it's a mistake, for fans to extrapolate from "the best on the playing field" to "the best off of the playing field".  In writing the history of this team, particularly relative to its place in the Cornell hockey annals, let's try take off the rose-colored glasses.  Yes, all evidence I've seen and read points to the fact that there are many "good guys" on this team as well, and that as a group they are special, but they ain't saints and Chris noted both aspects.  My comment to Jim was meant to point out how he missed part of the story (which I believe is human nature and admittedly I have suffered from it as well).

[Jim Hyla]

Look, to CUlater and others, my point was not whether the team went along with Murray or if they might have also been annoyed, but that Murray said that the band would have to wait till after all autographs were signed. Sure some might have been annoyed to wait around longer, but:

1. they did stay when a captain said to (after all he no longer had anything to really control them, since the season was over), and

 2. the captain said the band had to wait till the fans were through.

Sure you can argue whether there was some bad with the good, but I'd rather think of how thoughtful Murray was toward the fans, not whether some of them were pissed off at first. I try to keep seeing my cup more than half full.:-)

[Tub(a)]

I hope you aren't separating the band from the fans  ::nut::

[CrazyLarry]

I'd kill to have seen that moment where the team scrambled for instruments and played around with them.  That's fanatastic.

My favorite memory along those lines was the year we went to PRACTICE at the start of the season.  Chartrand was writing a column for the Sun that year and discussing how psyched up everyone was, noted that the band had come to their practice.

[pfibiger]

Larry,

I went looking for that article, and I think I found it, reprinted in another article in the sun:

http://www.cornelldailysun.com/articles/6990/

[CU at Stanford]

I now remember those columns written by Chartrand.  They were pretty funny, often filled with somewhat inside jokes (but they were endearing).  I wonder if we could convince the team to do that again in 2003-04, maybe the Abbot twins (with a column entitled, All Abbot Hockey, or something like that...)  :-D

[rhovorka]

Tom Tseng '87 wrote:

I now remember those columns written by Chartrand.  They were pretty funny, often filled with somewhat inside jokes (but they were endearing).  I wonder if we could convince the team to do that again in 2003-04, maybe the Abbot twins (with a column entitled, All Abbot Hockey, or something like that...)  :-D

The Sun did have a sidebox every Monday titled "Greg Hornby's thoughts on the weekend" that was quite entertaining.

[CUlater]

The Sun revived that type of player column in the early '90s, with columns from some of the brighter players on the team (Ryan Hughes, David Burke).  After a good start, and when the editors became less diligent, the players deviated from the intent and took greater liberties with the columns, which became a little too "insider".

[marty]

[Q]I try to keep seeing my cup more than half full.[/Q]

This year the cup was much more than half full on and off the ice.  The contrast between college hockey at CU and so many sports at so many colleges makes me very proud!

[Jim Hyla]

[Q]Marty said:
This year the cup was much more than half full on and off the ice. The contrast between college hockey at CU and so many sports at so many colleges makes me very proud![/Q]Totally.

[Greenberg \'97]

Tom Tseng '87 wrote:

I now remember those columns written by Chartrand.  They were pretty funny, often filled with somewhat inside jokes (but they were endearing).  I wonder if we could convince the team to do that again in 2003-04, maybe the Abbot twins (with a column entitled, All Abbot Hockey, or something like that...)  :-D

And to think, I was part of the editorial board that green-lighted that column.  It was actually his idea, not ours.  I think he got the idea from the football season, when we featured "Born to Ron" by Ron Mateo.

In any event, both columns were better than that other guy... what was it called again?  Riding Pine?