University of Minnesota Duluth @ Cornell , 10/27/23

[Dunc]

Walsh looked great tonight, good pressure both ways - In fact that entire line looked really solid whenever they were out together

[Trotsky]

Playing well against a good team is a nice way to start the year with 10 freshmen.

[Trotsky]

Guys who I thought especially distinguished themselves tonight: O'Leary, Bancroft, Walsh, Shane, Castagna, Seger.

[Dafatone]

Crowd sounded good, too.

[French Rage]

4-1 win against the #11 team when they've already got 5 games under their belt and its our first is about as good a start as we can ask for, especially since the context of these games historically seems to give us trouble.

[BearLover]

Cornell played a great opening game. But the crowd was so sparse, especially on the student side. Section A was totally empty; D and E were half empty. Only B was standing. Student attendance was trending in an upward direction last year, so this is concerning. Is something (fall break?) going on this weekend or should I expect poor attendance this season?

EDIT: attendance is listed at 4,316 in the box score, which is higher than Lynah's capacity. Looked more like 3,316. Maybe many with tickets just didn't show, which would be more promising than the tickets just not being sold.

[upprdeck]

I saw some empty seats when it started but now many after the 1st period.  I doubt 1000 didnt show up considering how many tickets were bought by non season ticket holders this year just for this game.

[sah67]

Is something (fall break?) going on this weekend or should I expect poor attendance this season?

Family visit weekend + Halloween parties.

[BearLover]

I saw some empty seats when it started but now many after the 1st period.  I doubt 1000 didnt show up considering how many tickets were bought by non season ticket holders this year just for this game.

Well that's good. It was tough to judge from the telecast. I think some of the shots of the crowd must have been early in the game before everyone arrived or towards the end after people had left early. Though, even halfway through the game there were shots of the bench where most of the rows behind the bench looked half-empty. And Section A appeared empty the entire game.

As to the game itself, it was obviously an extremely good opening game. UMD had one 4x3 rush towards the end but other than that I don't recall a single odd-man chance given up by Cornell the entire game. Almost no defensive breakdowns despite half of the defensemen being freshmen. Schafer clearly thinks very highly of the freshmen in general; Robertson and Walsh played on the first PP unit and Kraft, Castagna, and Fegaras played on the second unit. Stanley played on the PK. Walsh also centered the PK and looks like a great player in general. Hopefully Mack isn't hurt; he played (I think) every game he was healthy last year. Same for Donaldson, who played almost every game when healthy last year. If these guys were healthy scratches then that says even more about the freshmen beating them out.

[Swampy]

Will someone update that fucking score against BU from 217 days ago?

[Beeeej]

Cornell "ready to go."

Prescriptive grammar is classist... prescriptive grammar is classist... prescriptive grammar is...

[Big Dingus]

Crowd was good last night... I swear BearLover just loves to reminisce on "the good old days" where people would camp outside Lynah.

Only section that wasn't basically full was the end of the student section

[BearLover]

Crowd was good last night... I swear BearLover just loves to reminisce on "the good old days" where people would camp outside Lynah.

Only section that wasn't basically full was the end of the student section

I was happy with the crowds last year. Section A did not look good last night. Hopefully it is better tonight. The Lynah crowd is the most unique part of Cornell hockey and the best recruiting tool we have. Unfortunately, the crowds were already beginning to trend in a negative direction by the time I was a student. I'm glad you thought the crowd was fuller and livelier than it appeared on the broadcast.

[Dunc]

Crowd was good last night... I swear BearLover just loves to reminisce on "the good old days" where people would camp outside Lynah.

Only section that wasn't basically full was the end of the student section

I sit in on the A side of section B near the cowbell and I do have to say not only was A basically empty, but they were also sitting down and very low energy - A used to fill up even a couple years ago during Covid restrictions so it's not a promising sign. Although, it was parents weekend and Halloween party time so that definitely contributed to it... (UMD student section was sold out despite A being empty)

I'm gonna work on distributing cheer sheets again before Harvard weekend to hopefully bolster the energy

[Dunc]

Also a decent portion of section B left a bit early (probably for Halloween stuff tho)

Or... maybe they got annoyed at the student yelling DROP THE PUCK for 20 minutes straight