Cornell Daily Sun column

[CAS]

Nice column in today's Sun re Cornell hockey.  Maybe someone can post...

[upprdeck]

Are they still printing editions?  I was in town yesterday and couple places where I usually would see them to pick up there were none?

[TimV]

Is this the one?

[BearLover]

Is this the one?

This column is correct: there is something unifying about the students, townies, faculty, and alumni getting together to cheer on the hockey team in such an intimate setting. Between 1996 and 2006 it felt like the energy at Lynah would never die. Between 2007 and 2016 or so, there was a gradual decline in interest in the program. Since 2017 I've sensed an uptick in interest again, at least from the students. I really hope the pandemic and the administration's pandemic policies didn't quash that uptick.

[Dafatone]

Is this the one?

This column is correct: there is something unifying about the students, townies, faculty, and alumni getting together to cheer on the hockey team in such an intimate setting. Between 1996 and 2006 it felt like the energy at Lynah would never die. Between 2007 and 2016 or so, there was a gradual decline in interest in the program. Since 2017 I've sensed an uptick in interest again, at least from the students. I really hope the pandemic and the administration's pandemic policies didn't quash that uptick.

I think the cause was smartphones and varying entertainment options among the youths as much as anything else, but I will point out that I sounded some alarms back in 2007 that rink ushers were cracking down on friends of mine for being too loud/mean, even when we were keeping things entirely PG.

[CAS]

Tim, that is the column

[billhoward]

Are they still printing editions?  I was in town yesterday and couple places where I usually would see them to pick up there were none?

The Daily Sun has evolved from print-centric to online. It now publishes twice a week in print, Tuesdays and Thursdays through the first or second week of December and May: Print schedule 2022-23. There's also an issue published at reunion, and a freshman edition.

[scoop85]

Nice column that captures the spirit of Lynah. I already was a big hockey fan when I arrived to campus in the fall of 1981, but as much as I love the Rangers, nothing has ever surpassed the Lynah experience. And we weren't even particularly successful most of my college years.

[abmarks]

Decent article.

Finally, there is the unrivaled sense of school spirit you will find at a Cornell hockey game. There are many other, perhaps better known, college sports programs you may watch on TV. Some that come to mind are large football and basketball programs, such as Ohio State or Alabama Football, or Duke Basketball. While Lynah Rink can only hold a fraction of the spectators that watch any of those programs, I believe the passion and the school spirit shown at each and every game is unmatched.

Ugh. Definitely overselling this.   Much as I love Lynah, it's absurd to put it above Duke @cameron or football @michigan, to name a few.  I'd guess that he has never attended a bigtime college football game in person - TV doesn't do the atmosphere justice.

[billhoward]

Unless a current student is a legacy, their sense of Cornell is in the present. If the atmosphere at Lynah Rink in hockey ticked up compared to two years ago, that's a surge. Given what hockey was like in the Covid year, now has to be a better fan experience.

Me, I'm still surprised that Lynah is not full every game. I also like -- love -- that there's a concourse (Bartels) to walk out to between periods.

[Trotsky]

Lynah is a very different experience now than before Eternal September.  And for that matter, even at its most immersive for me in the early 80s I am assured by people from the late 60s that it was only a shadow of its former self.

Creeping Meatballism affects everything, and Lynah was never going to escape.  I am glad it had its moment and that I was part of the tail end of it.

Students being students, they will find new ways of expressing that joy, unless they've had the life beaten out of them permanently by the  eBabysitter.

[upprdeck]

Duke is duke.. but if duke had 10 yrs of down play like cornell did i suspect they too would have lost much of the casual fan base..  Lets see what they do now that  Coach K is gone.

[BearLover]

Decent article.

Finally, there is the unrivaled sense of school spirit you will find at a Cornell hockey game. There are many other, perhaps better known, college sports programs you may watch on TV. Some that come to mind are large football and basketball programs, such as Ohio State or Alabama Football, or Duke Basketball. While Lynah Rink can only hold a fraction of the spectators that watch any of those programs, I believe the passion and the school spirit shown at each and every game is unmatched.

Ugh. Definitely overselling this.   Much as I love Lynah, it's absurd to put it above Duke @cameron or football @michigan, to name a few.  I'd guess that he has never attended a bigtime college football game in person - TV doesn't do the atmosphere justice.

Nah. If I wanted overpriced souvenirs, TV crews, and facetimers, I could attend a game at Cameron or Michigan or I could get the same experience by attending an NFL or NBA game. None of those venues pair intimacy and passion the way Lynah does.

[billhoward]

Nah. If I wanted overpriced souvenirs, TV crews, and facetimers, I could attend a game at Cameron or Michigan or I could get the same experience by attending an NFL or NBA game. None of those venues pair intimacy and passion the way Lynah does.

Every fan wants their team, their venue, their fellow fans to be unique in ways that make you smile today and when you tell stories about the experience, bore your offspring to tears. If the rink or field house is small, we can make fun of a 7,500 seat arena. (We diss the Quinnipiac TD Banknorth / TD Bank / People's United Center for, what, being too comfortable? having enough light for good video? good sight lines for cameras and fans? VIP/booster seating? a big concourse that expands by 300-500 for big games?)

This is the ~50th year of Harvard fans tying a chicken to the nets of Dave Elenbaas '73 – in Boston; not Lynah (no Cantab is that suicidal), as in "Cornell ... farmer ... slow learner" and we've been returning the favor for half a century with fish. Maybe it's time to move on. Probably won't happen. It's tradition. By the way, Elenbaas was chief professional officer at a 300-person Toronto law firm and when he asked the Sun if he could write sports to fill a comm arts requirement, his writing was dazzling. But then, so was Dryden's.

[Dafatone]

Decent article.

Finally, there is the unrivaled sense of school spirit you will find at a Cornell hockey game. There are many other, perhaps better known, college sports programs you may watch on TV. Some that come to mind are large football and basketball programs, such as Ohio State or Alabama Football, or Duke Basketball. While Lynah Rink can only hold a fraction of the spectators that watch any of those programs, I believe the passion and the school spirit shown at each and every game is unmatched.

Ugh. Definitely overselling this.   Much as I love Lynah, it's absurd to put it above Duke @cameron or football @michigan, to name a few.  I'd guess that he has never attended a bigtime college football game in person - TV doesn't do the atmosphere justice.

Nah. If I wanted overpriced souvenirs, TV crews, and facetimers, I could attend a game at Cameron or Michigan or I could get the same experience by attending an NFL or NBA game. None of those venues pair intimacy and passion the way Lynah does.

I'm not sure I'm equipped to say Lynah is the single best fan experience out there, but it's just about the only great fan experience I know of that is also a tiny enough arena for every fan to be heard on the ice/court/field.