Hey Clownlover, the sky isn't falling: this year's team is last year's team.

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

1. Trotsky started an ad hom thread in the miscellaneous forum. If you're going to name-call me, why not do it there?

"Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you keep it a secret."

Gentlemen, this is the War Room.  There's no fighting here!

[BearLover]

It's going to get buried in everyone complaining in the ASU game thread so I'll post it in this stupid thread instead:
This team would be well in NCAA position if its special teams were average and Shane played up to his past years' standard. Instead, the special teams are awful and Shane has been awful and now the at-large dream is almost dead.

[Trotsky]

Did our ST suck last year too?  I am Old, I could be wrong.

[Big Dingus]

BearLover is right though. Do you not watch the games? They look awful

[BearLover]

I wish there was a modicum of media attention towards Cornell hockey. The Ithaca Journal apparently no longer exists or doesn't cover hockey anymore, and CHN/the Sun will never ask a negative question of the coach or write a negative story about the team. But it's truly fascinating how badly the team has regressed. So many questions could be asked, so many things could be studied:
What's the division of coaching duties? Was Casey ready and willing to adjust to being an assistant again? Did Cornell change its structure/systems before this season? Why is Shane having by far his worst season in four years, as a senior? What happened with Keoppel, how come he never developed at all? What happened to Castagna and Robertson, why have they regressed despite all the preseason hype? How did so many players get injured before the season began? And most of all: why wasn't Syer offered the position?

Usually when a team wildly undershoots expectations, people demand answers. It's too bad no one will ever ask the questions.

[BearLover]

I wish there was a modicum of media attention towards Cornell hockey. The Ithaca Journal apparently no longer exists or doesn't cover hockey anymore, and CHN/the Sun will never ask a negative question of the coach or write a negative story about the team. But it's truly fascinating how badly the team has regressed. So many questions could be asked, so many things could be studied:
What's the division of coaching duties? Was Casey ready and willing to adjust to being an assistant again? Did Cornell change its structure/systems before this season? Why is Shane having by far his worst season in four years, as a senior? What happened with Keoppel, how come he never developed at all? What happened to Castagna and Robertson, why have they regressed despite all the preseason hype? How did so many players get injured before the season began? And most of all: why wasn't Syer offered the position?

Usually when a team wildly undershoots expectations, people demand answers. It's too bad no one will ever ask the questions.

A few more questions:
What happened to DeSantis (why has he regressed the hardest of anybody)? Why did Donaldson never develop, and what, exactly, did he do in the third period at Colgate?

[arugula]

I wish there was a modicum of media attention towards Cornell hockey. The Ithaca Journal apparently no longer exists or doesn't cover hockey anymore, and CHN/the Sun will never ask a negative question of the coach or write a negative story about the team. But it's truly fascinating how badly the team has regressed. So many questions could be asked, so many things could be studied:
What's the division of coaching duties? Was Casey ready and willing to adjust to being an assistant again? Did Cornell change its structure/systems before this season? Why is Shane having by far his worst season in four years, as a senior? What happened with Keoppel, how come he never developed at all? What happened to Castagna and Robertson, why have they regressed despite all the preseason hype? How did so many players get injured before the season began? And most of all: why wasn't Syer offered the position?

Usually when a team wildly undershoots expectations, people demand answers. It's too bad no one will ever ask the questions.

A few more questions:
What happened to DeSantis (why has he regressed the hardest of anybody)? Why did Donaldson never develop, and what, exactly, did he do in the third period at Colgate?

All interesting and relevant questions. Cornell hockey is in a funny position. A semi major D-1 program but at a school which does not prioritize sports and in a tiny market. So no questions will be asked. If this were Michigan or Minnesota the questions would be asked.

[Trotsky]

A semi major D-1 program but at a school which does not prioritize sports and in a tiny market. So no questions will be asked. If this were Michigan or Minnesota the questions would be asked.

I'm actually okay with this, because I translate "questions will be asked" to "a parasitic hack media thirsty for clicks will cynically whip adolescents into a froth every time something goes wrong."  There is a reason why Boston and New York have the country's most reactionary, twitchy, and immature fans.  The impatient and the chronically outraged are coddled there for their eye balls, and because of it everybody has to suffer their juvenile rants.

Cornell hockey is important enough to the alumni who support the program that failure to succeed over a non-trivial interval will be noticed and punished. Have no fear.  Lou Reycroft and Brian McCutcheon called.  But that isn't what we're looking at.  We're looking at a presumptive top team barely performing within the top 25.  That is, underperformance against the standard set by the very staff the Pampers Crowd would now immolate because baby missed its feeding once. The gobsmacking entitlement of whining this season, a year removed from a conference title and a Frozen Four near miss, isn't the team.

It's you fuckers.

[dbilmes]

Cornell has outscored its opponents this season, 38-33. Cornell has 5 power-play goals and 2 shorthanded scores. Opponents have 11 power-play goals and 1 shorthanded. At even strength, Cornell has outscored its opponents, 31-21.

[Trotsky]

Cornell has 5 power-play goals ... Opponents have 11 power-play goals

Flip those numbers and I'll bet we're top 10, if not top 5.

[Trotsky]

Actually, let's do that.  I'll go through every game and just reverse the ppg -- i.e., if it's ours it's theirs.

Code Select Expand


[b]Gm. Act   PPG  New[/b]
 1. 4-1 W 0-0  4-1 W NDak
 2. 5-3 W 0-0  5-3 W NDak
 3. 2-2 T 0-2  4-0 [b][color=#FF0000]W[/color][/b] Yal
 4. 3-1 W 0-0  3-1 W Brn
 5. 3-4 L 0-2  5-2 [b][color=#FF0000]W[/b] @ Drt
 6. 2-2 T 1-0  1-3 [b][color=#FF0000]L[/b] @ Hvd
 7. 1-3 L 0-1  2-2 [b][color=#FF0000]T[/b] Qpc
 8. 5-0 W 2-0  3-2 W Prn
 9. 3-3 T 0-1  4-2 [b][color=#FF0000]W[/b] v Qpc
10. 3-2 W 1-1  3-2 W Cgt
11. 3-6 L 1-2  4-5 L @ Cgt
12. 4-2 W 0-1  5-1 W v UMass
13. 0-4 L 0-1  1-3 L @ ASU


9-3-1 Overall, 5-2-1 ECAC.

I don't know how to ask PWR counterfactuals to get our new PWR after changing those results.

[Dafatone]

I'm less worried about the special teams (the PP looked functional this weekend, if not quite good, and the PK has seemed better than the results so far) than I am about Shane.

He's had rough stretches before, but a third of the season with a save percentage below .900 is not good and uncomfortably close to bad.

Put his save percentage at .920 or so, he stops another 7 or 8 shots, and maybe this season looks different.

A lot of this was ASU turtling in the third, but I thought we played them pretty evenly as far as flow of play went (other than that one firing range stretch that became a goal, I think it was the third goal).

[stereax]

A semi major D-1 program but at a school which does not prioritize sports and in a tiny market. So no questions will be asked. If this were Michigan or Minnesota the questions would be asked.

I'm actually okay with this, because I translate "questions will be asked" to "a parasitic hack media thirsty for clicks will cynically whip adolescents into a froth every time something goes wrong."

Honestly, this is partially why I'm never too pressed about the losses. It sucks! Yeah! But I really don't think putting a twenty-
What the fuck Castagna is an entire year younger than me???
Putting a nineteen- or twenty-one-year-old on blast in all of Ithaca is going to help anything. We're not a Michigan or Minnesota; we don't have those kinds of resources and we don't need to have that kind of pressure.
The way a lot of people here talk about this team, they expect it to be on par with top teams like Denver or BC. Just looking at the EliteProspects pages, Denver has 13 NHL-drafted players on its squad. BC has 12 plus Hagens. These include first round picks (Buium, Leonard, Perreault) who are almost guaranteed to be very good NHL players. We have 6 NHL-drafted players. Our highest-ranked drafted players are third rounders (Castagna and Fegaras). Top prospect talent is not going to be coming to Cornell. Sure, the machine is greater than the sum of its parts. I agree. But "winning a natty for Schaefer", while it would be awesome, isn't a reasonable goal to have. And treating the team like it should be undefeated and Frozen Four-bound "because Cornell" is frankly kind of ridiculous.
Where am I even going with this? Right. Having a bunch of jabronis writing clickbait about what Tim Rego eats before games isn't going to do anything. Neither is writing about Top 10 Cornell Players Who Need To Do Better. Please, dear God, stop commercializing college hockey and college students. What do you genuinely think you're going to get other than the same vapid soundbites you get at the NHL level?

[arugula]

A semi major D-1 program but at a school which does not prioritize sports and in a tiny market. So no questions will be asked. If this were Michigan or Minnesota the questions would be asked.

I'm actually okay with this, because I translate "questions will be asked" to "a parasitic hack media thirsty for clicks will cynically whip adolescents into a froth every time something goes wrong."  There is a reason why Boston and New York have the country's most reactionary, twitchy, and immature fans.  The impatient and the chronically outraged are coddled there for their eye balls, and because of it everybody has to suffer their juvenile rants.

Cornell hockey is important enough to the alumni who support the program that failure to succeed over a non-trivial interval will be noticed and punished. Have no fear.  Lou Reycroft and Brian McCutcheon called.  But that isn't what we're looking at.  We're looking at a presumptive top team barely performing within the top 25.  That is, underperformance against the standard set by the very staff the Pampers Crowd would now immolate because baby missed its feeding once. The gobsmacking entitlement of whining this season, a year removed from a conference title and a Frozen Four near miss, isn't the team.

It's you fuckers.

I agree. Just pointing out why those questions aren't asked. I well remember Reycroft. Essentially had one very good season in five, recruited Dadswell and Neuwendyk and got shit canned. So yes it's comparing slightly above average to the usual Schafer standard of excellent or close to it.  Just a shame it happens this year.

[adamw]

6. Last year we had 10 freshmen and low expectations. The weak first semester was entirely understandable. Our turnaround also made sense, because of the 10 freshmen coming into their own. Quite the opposite from this year's team: we have one freshman who receives regular playing time and return last year's entire roster minus Seger and a backup goalie.

Last year, you cried bloody murder when I said the team would be better than the year before despite the turnover. You were dancing on the proverbial grave after the slow start. I gave all the reasons why I had confidence in this, mainly having to do with Mike Schafer's ability to improve teams as the year goes on. Then ... this happened. Now, you're back to crabbing about "coaching" and blah blah - despite all evidence to the contrary. SMH.