NCAAs quarterfinal Cornell vs. BU

[jtwcornell91]

We have been fortunate to have eLynah, and USCHO, and before them all Wayne Smith and Mike Machnik's hockey-l all the way back in the early 90s before some of you were born.

I came in on the very end of hockey-l, and boy was it glorious. Because it was full of posters who were knowledgeable, passionate, and, generally, cordial. And it was national in scope.

Hockey-L does actually still exist, but there's very little traffic (although Bill Fenwick is still doing his pick the tourneys contest).  They've also got a Facebook group (because that's how old we are) nominally to coordinate the meetup at the Frozen Four.

[jtwcornell91]

this was the single biggest opportunity, and single most devastating loss, in my 17 years as a die-hard Cornell hockey fan.

This may explain some of the difference in perspective.  If you've "only" been doing this for 17 years, you didn't experience the OT losses in 2005 and 2006 in real time.

[Tom Lento]

I've mostly stayed out of this never-ending nonsense but I'm tired of it.

This isn't a sports forum in the sense of a bunch of anonymous semi-literate know it alls yelling at each other online to feel better about themselves. There are plenty of places online for that. I stopped spending any time there years ago.

Many of the long time posters here go back to the beginning of elf and the chdf before that and also know each other offline. For many, the common thread is Cornell hockey.  In 2002, I went from dag14's class on the ag quad to Columbus to watch the season opener (with turkeybone and Josh 99). On the drive I passed Jim Hyla. Scersk97 was at the game. I remember jtw at placid in 2002 working out the pairwise in the days we'll before smart phones. I met ugarte at a lax playoff game with richh. Dbilmes is a fixture at games in CT. I watched plenty of games with ER when we were in school at the same time. The list goes on.

Everyone here loves Cornell and Cornell hockey. Everyone here understands the pain of being teased into believing and then getting punched in the gut. Nobody is looking for the tone of a typical sports message board.  Nobody is looking for innuendo or suggestions about all the low hanging fruit one perceives being missed. Or constant needling and ad hominem assault. I don't care if people are positive or negative. Talk about the games. Be critical of decisions on the ice. Lament ivy rules and covid changes.  But check the needless combativeness and childish name calling at the door. And remember that we're talking about students playing a game.  

For me at least, Cornell hockey is a refuge from the world burning all around us. If I want to be surrounded by gratuitous combativeness, I've got plenty of options.

Thank you for this, I've been feeling exactly the same way but couldn't articulate it. I thought about abandoning my readership here because of the escalating negative tone this season, but for reasons I won't get into decided to get back to posting instead.

Whether or not I disengage and go back to mainly lurking again next season, I hope eLF will be back to the substitute for getting a beverage after the game, enjoying each other's company, and, yes, bickering good-naturedly on occasion. I always felt that was the main vibe of this forum, even in the down years (which were never long-lived under Schafer - his worst run was 4 mediocre seasons in a row!).

[fastforward]

And so I don't really care to celebrate our run and Schafer's career immediately following one of the most brutal losses I have ever seen.
.

Dude, are you nuts??
BU killed Ohio State 8-3
We lost in OT
Brutal loss?
No way was this a brutal loss
I think you should get a hobby - knitting or crochet might be good therapy

Wow, some of this stuff on this forum seriously reads like it came from people who have never watched sports before. Yes, losing in the regional final in OT when your team hasn't been to the frozen four since 2003 is 1000x more brutal than losing 8-3 in the opening round. Are you nuts?

Also, why do you even care what I think? I'm just expressing my own opinion, I'm not attacking anybody. Get a grip, dude, not everyone is a happy-go-lucky optimist who smiles serenely after Cornell loses in OT in the regional final to its arch rival to end the career of its coach. I post the most benign shit ever and without fail it triggers a massive freakout. This is the softest and most cringe sports forum in the history of the internet, you all need to grow up.

After watching CU hockey for 62 years I have my own perspective.

And this is not brutal. Getting real close and not winning is sports. Yes doing it year after year is tough, but not brutal to me. I drove 7 hours to Toledo and then 7 hours back right after the game. Fortunately Marty was with me. If he hadn't texted me, I doubt I would have made the drive.

But you know what, I was happy that I did it. I was happy that I had the opportunity to do it.

You see for me winning is great, but you know what's better? HAVING THE OPPORTUNITY TO WIN! You don't get the opportunity to win a game like this unless you have already been winning.

Unfortunately for too many of those 62 years I never had this opportunity to watch a regional final. You see, there were many, too many years when that chance never existed. We were never there. And let me tell you after 2 National Championships and 4 ECAC Championships in a row, those years were bad.

For me winning is great, but you know what's better than winning, being with people that really care like you do. People that say thank you every time that I give them a newspaper, or people that proudly show me the newspaper that they brought with them. Turn around and look at the group of Cornell fans that are with you. They cheer on their own, cheer with the band, stand whenever they hear "Townies Up." That's what makes this not brutal.

I drove home happy about being there, not happy that they lost. Give me a break! No I was happy that I was able to be there with everyone else. I was happy that Marty texted me and that we drove 14 hours in one day to be able to be part of it.

Those types of memories will stay with me. I'll always be unhappy that we lost, but I'll be happier that they gave me the chance to be there and hope they could win.

If you want to understand this further, go watch or read what Coach said about Cornell in his post game, it's opportunity for him and it's students, the administration that gave him this chance, the band, the fans, but most of all the players that he's had a chance to coach, the true student athletes that he's been proud to associate with. And why when you put all this into perspective, why he's happy where his life's taken him, even though he's pissed about losing.

I'm sure he must have had chances to go to bigger programs, but he stayed at Cornell, because as he implied, there was something special that he felt.

Losing or not, he goes out a winner and I feel privileged to have been able to see some small part of that with him.

This wasn't brutal, this was a privilege that other schools haven't had.

Thank you for this!
Perhaps my prior articulation didn't get my point across, but this is exactly how I feel.
I feel honored to be a fan and ticket holder!

[BearLover]

this was the single biggest opportunity, and single most devastating loss, in my 17 years as a die-hard Cornell hockey fan.

This may explain some of the difference in perspective.  If you've "only" been doing this for 17 years, you didn't experience the OT losses in 2005 and 2006 in real time.

That's right yeah. But I still got to see a lot of depressingly close calls. I matriculated in the fall of 2008 and when I got to Cornell the team was very good. In my four years as a student we made the NCAAs three times and the regional final twice. That means I was there for Bemidji, as well as for Ferris State. The one thing that truly tormented me as a student was watching us getting blown out by Yale over and over, and in fact many ELF posters' distaste for me stems from this original point of disagreement back in 2013. I was exhausted seeing us always lose to Yale and argued loudly that we should not be cheering for them to win the national title. That led to all the bickering over whether a stronger or weaker ECAC benefits Cornell. From that point forward few here have liked me and most have taken a very combative tone towards me. Which is fine, I have fun arguing over the internet. But that's kind of the Everybody Hates BearLover origin story.

BTW, in the past decade I think my stance on weak vs. strong ECAC has held up very well, though people still resent me for my stance. At the end of the day though, my argument was more an emotional one (not wanting to see the team that thumped us ten times in a row, with me watching in person, win a national title before we did) rather than a logical one. But that's kind of it the gist, it seems like most on here are way more okay with losing and other schools surpassing Cornell than I am.

[Snowball]

This:

Everyone here loves Cornell and Cornell hockey. Everyone here understands the pain of being teased into believing and then getting punched in the gut. Nobody is looking for the tone of a typical sports message board.  Nobody is looking for innuendo or suggestions about all the low hanging fruit one perceives being missed. Or constant needling and ad hominem assault. I don't care if people are positive or negative. Talk about the games. Be critical of decisions on the ice. Lament ivy rules and covid changes.  But check the needless combativeness and childish name calling at the door. And remember that we're talking about students playing a game.  

For me at least, Cornell hockey is a refuge from the world burning all around us.

[adamw]

I've never attended a Cornell hockey game as "a fan" per se -- however, it should be painfully obvious that I care for the program, and want it to win, as much as anyone, despite graduating from the ghetto school on the other hill. One of the reasons I came to embrace Cornell hockey so deeply is all of the people I met and became friends with along the way. Probably at least 50% of the regular posters here over the years I've met and conversed with, and/or had a beer or two with, personally. And then some, in many cases.

Probably the biggest reason I feel bad today is not for my self-interest - but because I was looking forward to seeing many people again in St. Louis that I hadn't seen for a while. That includes coaches, administrators, all of the people who frequent here, or used to, etc... You know who you are. My time at Lynah or MSG or Lake Placid has become non-existent since moving to Denver in 2021, and making Regionals has always been difficult.

Through my work, I'm pretty close with many coaches and ADs throughout the country, all the teams. But this is the only forum I ever comment on. Otherwise, I just write articles that get me trashed by every fan base in the country at some point or another.  BearLover, you've got nothing on those people, I promise

Point is - keep this place great. It's the only place I "see" any of you anymore. Cheers.

[adamw]

this was the single biggest opportunity, and single most devastating loss, in my 17 years as a die-hard Cornell hockey fan.

This may explain some of the difference in perspective.  If you've "only" been doing this for 17 years, you didn't experience the OT losses in 2005 and 2006 in real time.

with better teams. The 2005 team was on like an 18-game unbeaten streak going into the game - and had to play it on the road, on a large ice sheet, and still lost just 2-1 in OT. The next year, also hostile crowd, losing 1-0.  In fact, I believe JTW that you were the one who informed me of the loss -- I was on the phone with you while driving back from the Regional in Albany, hoping for good news. There was no other way to know then - so you were watching on TV and giving me play-by-play while I drove home. Bah.

[George64]

We have been fortunate to have eLynah, and USCHO, and before them all Wayne Smith and Mike Machnik's hockey-l all the way back in the early 90s before some of you were born. ::cheer::  Before that was Don Birkmayer's "The Hockey News," begun in 1954, before we all (I think?) were born.

We stand on the shoulders of giants.

Wrong!
.

[Al DeFlorio]

We have been fortunate to have eLynah, and USCHO, and before them all Wayne Smith and Mike Machnik's hockey-l all the way back in the early 90s before some of you were born. ::cheer::  Before that was Don Birkmayer's "The Hockey News," begun in 1954, before we all (I think?) were born.

We stand on the shoulders of giants.

Wrong!
.

Very.

[cu155]

it seems like most on here are way more okay with losing and other schools surpassing Cornell than I am.

Your constant negativity whether directly stated or implied is beyond tedious.  Others here choosing to reflect on the good rather than constantly harping on real or perceived problems does not mean that we are some how more ok with losing than you are. Get over yourself.  Your schtick incredibly stale, lacks nuance, and lacks any kind of emotional maturity.

[BearLover]

it seems like most on here are way more okay with losing and other schools surpassing Cornell than I am.

Your constant negativity whether directly stated or implied is beyond tedious.  Others here choosing to reflect on the good rather than constantly harping on real or perceived problems does not mean that we are some how more ok with losing than you are. Get over yourself.  Your schtick incredibly stale, lacks nuance, and lacks any kind of emotional maturity.

Thank you my friend. I would say the exact same thing about your post and the 200 other posts that expressed the exact same thought within the past 24 hours.

[ugarte]

At the end of the day though, my argument was more an emotional one (not wanting to see the team that thumped us ten times in a row, with me watching in person, win a national title before we did) rather than a logical one.

*whispers* Penn State playing Connecticut for a spot in the Frozen Four stings

[Tcl123]

At the end of the day though, my argument was more an emotional one (not wanting to see the team that thumped us ten times in a row, with me watching in person, win a national title before we did) rather than a logical one.

*whispers* Penn State playing Connecticut for a spot in the Frozen Four stings

What a tough game for me to have a rooting interest.

[cu155]

it seems like most on here are way more okay with losing and other schools surpassing Cornell than I am.

Your constant negativity whether directly stated or implied is beyond tedious.  Others here choosing to reflect on the good rather than constantly harping on real or perceived problems does not mean that we are some how more ok with losing than you are. Get over yourself.  Your schtick incredibly stale, lacks nuance, and lacks any kind of emotional maturity.

Thank you my friend. I would say the exact same thing about your post and the 200 other posts that expressed the exact same thought within the past 24 hours.

I hope you find peace.