The Casey Jones Era: Aims

[scoop85]

Casey's always been able to recruit. After last season we were all wondering about our goaltending, and Casey goes out and brings in Cournoyer to help shore up that critical position. Last night I happened to catch a segment of Hockey Prospect radio where the hosts were discussing the 2025 drafts of the Atlantic Division teams.  When discussing Montreal's draft, Brad Allen, who is one of NHL Radio's draft gurus, said he thought Cournoyer was an excellent pick in the 5th round. Allen said Cournoyer has a terrific glove hand and was one of Allen's top 10 goalie prospects in the draft.

[BearLover]

Casey's always been able to recruit. After last season we were all wondering about our goaltending, and Casey goes out and brings in Cournoyer to help shore up that critical position. Last night I happened to catch a segment of Hockey Prospect radio where the hosts were discussing the 2025 drafts of the Atlantic Division teams.  When discussing Montreal's draft, Brad Allen, who is one of NHL Radio's draft gurus, said he thought Cournoyer was an excellent pick in the 5th round. Allen said Cournoyer has a terrific glove hand and was one of Allen's top 10 goalie prospects in the draft.

Yes, I think the Cournoyer commitment may turn out to be the highest leverage commitment in many years. By which I mean: the 2025-26 team has lots of good players at F and D, but goaltending was a clear issue, perhaps enough to curtail the season, and it seemed too late in the recruitment cycle to get anyone for next season. The fact we were able to pull a drafted goalie out of thin air may prove very important for next season.

Counterarguments:
1. Cournoyer was drafted based on a very small sample size of game action in junior hockey
2. Many other teams did the exact same thing, or more, following the CHL/transfer portal opening up a new universe of recruits. So while Cournoyer was a huge net add for us, it is still less than what our opponents did. (See late additions by PSU, UMich, Providence Quinnipiac, etc.)
3. With three other goalies on the roster, there's a solid chance one of them would have been more than serviceable anyway

[scoop85]

Counterarguments:

2. Many other teams did the exact same thing, or more, following the CHL/transfer portal opening up a new universe of recruits. So while Cournoyer was a huge net add for us, it is still less than what our opponents did. (See late additions by PSU, UMich, Providence Quinnipiac, etc.)

I note that none of the other opponents you list are subject to the stringent admissions standards that Casey has to contend with. It's just a fact that needs to be acknowledged, and one that you seem to ignore. Bringing in Cournoyer, along with transfers Ashton and Fischer, was a great piece of work.

[RichH]

... my aims for the Casey Jones Era, whether that is 5 years or 25:

1. Fill Lynah.  Our discriminator is our crowd.  It all begins there.  This also means the AD encouraging the students and not getting in their way.  Don't overwhelm them with loud piped in garbage and ads and gimmickry.  This is Cornell.  The fans lead the rink, the band supports.  The administration's job is to clear obstacles and allow the fans to intimidate the visitor while amusing themselves.

2. Beat Quinnipiac. Harvard, for all their bullshit, is still an academic institution.  Q is everything wrong with the last 50 years: commerce without standards and aggressive enshittification.  In a just world we drive Q into the sea and they finish behind Brown every year.  Well, if you aint up on things, it is not a just world. So we need to do ourselves and the free world a favor and destroy these punks whenever possible.  Sic semper numbskullus.

3. Win a National Championship.  It's just a jump to the left.  We have climbed the mountain so often, and we have seen RPI, Harvard, Yale, Union, and Q get there.  There is no reason that Cornell can't win it all.  So, win it all.

Re Fill Lynah: We are the best draw among the ECAC and I suspect among most or all Hockey East teams. Cornell has ~2X as many students as in 1970. But they seem to have more things to do including, ah, study. Maybe there's less excitement and desire to be there than when your team just won an NCAA title. (If so, lax will draw more in 2026.) We can have contests, give away tickets, have more entertainment in the dead 30 seconds before the next puck drop, but we have to steel ourselves for games where it's not full and games where it's noticeably not full although always > 50% full.

Re Beat Quinnipiac: We want to beat them because they have been the best / highest-ranked ECAC team the last decade. A lot of us still get more of a thrill beating Harvard because they are the #1 university in most eyes. Plus I was there the year in Cambridge when they first attached a chicken to the Cornell goalpost; I love that we are perpetuating the feud the way the South believes the Civil War remains unsettled. We also want / need to beat BU in the odd-year MSG games. I would not rag on the academic strengths of a Quinnipiac or some of the other not-top-50 schools. Not everyone will go to an Ivy and run a venture capital fund or become a federal judge or cure cancer. Q has a good nursing school and RNs can make $75K a year not long after graduation.

Re Win National Championship: Gonna be tough. Since that 1970 title, the number of D1 teams doubled from 32 to 65, and 7 of the championships have gone to the new teams: Quinnipiac (ECAC team), Union (ECAC team), UMass-Amherst, Maine twice, Northern Michigan this year, Bowling Green. More realistic goals are to win the ECAC championship (and make the NCAAs), get to the Frozen Four, and ultimately win the title again. Cornell lacrosse did it after a 48-year gap. Remember the Covid year ended hockey in 2020 with Cornell ranked #1; that could have been a title year.

I disagree on this: Loud music from the scoreboard (not band) plus video animation, we can live with if not love. We're just getting old. #suckitup  Cornell fans coming late, it's a little rude, but they do show up. Compare this to Saturday night games at Quinnipiac where maybe a third of the students have left after the second period for parties. We did have a soft turnout hosting Q last fall, but it was also a week before we played them at MSG. Sheesh, how do we manage these oddly timed matchups. Also: The video board is newish, but it's not very high-res.

For the sake of all fans including those at home: Cornell needs to improve its video with higher placement of cameras (it can be done with remote-operator cameras), cameras over the goals, a center ice reverse-angle camera, in-goal cameras. Wouldn't hurt to clean the Plexiglas for side/end cameras (RIT has the glass buffered after every game). I think the better video also helps recruiting and certainly benefits parents and siblings who live far away.

Casey Jones did a lot at Clarkson with a lower-profile program and smaller student body. He is regarded as a good recruiter. If he can entice players to go to Clarkson, he can get them to apply to Cornell as well. I was about to say, "...and Cornell alone among the Ivies has the Ag School," but a goodly number of current players are in the Dyson School in the ag college and that is tougher to get into than Arts or Engineering.

And also: Women's hockey is a legitimate title threat. They're Cornell hockey, too. They starting playing just after the men's 1970 title, in 1972, using beat-up, cast-off equipment.  Title IX became law in 1972, but it didn't really get rolling for a while.

Western.

[BearLover]

Counterarguments:

2. Many other teams did the exact same thing, or more, following the CHL/transfer portal opening up a new universe of recruits. So while Cournoyer was a huge net add for us, it is still less than what our opponents did. (See late additions by PSU, UMich, Providence Quinnipiac, etc.)

I note that none of the other opponents you list are subject to the stringent admissions standards that Casey has to contend with. It's just a fact that needs to be acknowledged, and one that you seem to ignore. Bringing in Cournoyer, along with transfers Ashton and Fischer, was a great piece of work.

I acknowledged this relative limitation on Cornell earlier in this very thread.

[stereax]

I'm not even convinced yet he's a great coach—I mean, he probably is a good coach, but what basis do we have? A slightly over .500 record in 12 years at Clarkson?

I admit I don't understand how to evaluate college hockey records with all the OT/SOL point BS from the past several seasons, but FWIW Casey's record on CHN is listed as 234-185-56 for a .552 win percentage.

Keith Allain was 282-254-54 (.524) at Yale.
Schafer was 561-300-117 (.633) at Cornell.

I think there's really no doubt that Casey Jones is at least a good coach, and probably an excellent one. I'm also inclined to think that if Allain was capable of leading a team to a national title Jones is too, although for a good coach in the Ivies I suspect that's mostly a function of luck.

That's the wonderful and yet horrible thing about the NCAA tournament - anything can happen over the course of four single-elimination games. Allain was capable of leading that Yale team to a third-place finish in the ECAC with a reasonably decent 18-12-3 record, yet a loss in the conference tourney semifinals. They were literally the last at-large team into the NCAA tourney. But once you're in, you just have to win four in a row (two of which they did win handily, the other two in overtime). They deserved the championship because they won the four games they had to win, but it was definitely closer to the fluke end of the scale - stepping up in a big moment - than Quinnipiac's title was in 2023. Of course you have to be a good coach to get those four wins out of your team especially when they're not favored - but that win was all the more frustrating to many of us because of the sheer number of regional finals we've been to with Schafer as coach, with only one Frozen Four and no titles to show for it.

All of which is beside the point - Trotsky started this thread to suggest what Casey's aims should be compared to what Schafer's were thirty years ago, not to make predictions for Casey. I think they're perfectly reasonable, and I hope he achieves all three, and soon.

100% this. It is at this point baseline for Coach Jones to make the NCAAs, and go to the Frozen Four. We all want a Championship, and not the Whitelaw. Expectation is excellence in the ECAC. Goals are to win the big one, fill Lynah and beat Quinny and Harvard. And Clarkson. And RPI...

"Baseline: be a top four team in the country in a landscape stacked against us"

Just win the ECACs and it's a good year. Kick the shit out of Harvard and Q, great year.

If, in a 30-year span, Schafer, who by all accounts is an excellent coach, made the Frozen Four only once... well, I don't see how that can be a reasonable expectation for a new head coach with a large graduating class. Especially in a landscape where we historically have never been able to attract top top talent that has just been made worse with the advent of NIL and the subsequent rise of teams like Penn State.

Our biggest benefit was our "system" - playing as a TEAM and not as individuals. But I worry that teamwork just isn't enough in the face of sheer individual talent like some of these teams are amassing.

In either case, with such a massive shift, we need to ride out a few years and see how things go before passing any real judgment. It's entirely possible we just don't ever make the Frozen Four again, with how things are stacked. It's also entirely possible we win the Frozen Four next year. Who the hell knows?

As I think I've said before - you make the playoff dance, whether by winning Whitelaw or by ranking. Doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is winning four games in a row at that point. The regular season can go as badly as 24-25. Just need to win Whitelaw to get in and then four more games.

...In overtime against BU, it felt like the "magic" had run out. The team was just too exhausted, couldn't keep up. I had that sinking feeling in my gut minutes before the OT goal was scored.

I don't know. Winning the natty would obviously be great. I just don't think it's a realistic goal for Casey as a coach to set his benchmark at. (Obviously, that's the ultimate goal every year. But if he doesn't win it all in the next five years, I don't think that's necessarily a strike against him.)

I just want some good ass hockey, man. And hope. And I think Casey should give us both.

Being a top 4 team every year, I admit is unrealistic- perhaps I should have put that as a 'goal'

What I meant is that making the Frozen Four again is the next ratchet up in success. We've been a goal, an OT, a dang triple OT away from tasting that and I felt so deeply we deserved to be there. Alas- I am an emotional fan. And I love me some good ass hockey, win (mostly) or lose. Being so close so many years has been a blessing, I know. Drop the puck, I'm ready!

Amen to that! I would go nuts, in the best way, if we make a Frozen Four in the next few years. NHL preseason is starting nowadays so the hockey is soon returning...

[stereax]

... my aims for the Casey Jones Era, whether that is 5 years or 25:

1. Fill Lynah.  Our discriminator is our crowd.  It all begins there.  This also means the AD encouraging the students and not getting in their way.  Don't overwhelm them with loud piped in garbage and ads and gimmickry.  This is Cornell.  The fans lead the rink, the band supports.  The administration's job is to clear obstacles and allow the fans to intimidate the visitor while amusing themselves.

2. Beat Quinnipiac. Harvard, for all their bullshit, is still an academic institution.  Q is everything wrong with the last 50 years: commerce without standards and aggressive enshittification.  In a just world we drive Q into the sea and they finish behind Brown every year.  Well, if you aint up on things, it is not a just world. So we need to do ourselves and the free world a favor and destroy these punks whenever possible.  Sic semper numbskullus.

3. Win a National Championship.  It's just a jump to the left.  We have climbed the mountain so often, and we have seen RPI, Harvard, Yale, Union, and Q get there.  There is no reason that Cornell can't win it all.  So, win it all.

Re Fill Lynah: We are the best draw among the ECAC and I suspect among most or all Hockey East teams. Cornell has ~2X as many students as in 1970. But they seem to have more things to do including, ah, study. Maybe there's less excitement and desire to be there than when your team just won an NCAA title. (If so, lax will draw more in 2026.) We can have contests, give away tickets, have more entertainment in the dead 30 seconds before the next puck drop, but we have to steel ourselves for games where it's not full and games where it's noticeably not full although always > 50% full.

Re Beat Quinnipiac: We want to beat them because they have been the best / highest-ranked ECAC team the last decade. A lot of us still get more of a thrill beating Harvard because they are the #1 university in most eyes. Plus I was there the year in Cambridge when they first attached a chicken to the Cornell goalpost; I love that we are perpetuating the feud the way the South believes the Civil War remains unsettled. We also want / need to beat BU in the odd-year MSG games. I would not rag on the academic strengths of a Quinnipiac or some of the other not-top-50 schools. Not everyone will go to an Ivy and run a venture capital fund or become a federal judge or cure cancer. Q has a good nursing school and RNs can make $75K a year not long after graduation.

Re Win National Championship: Gonna be tough. Since that 1970 title, the number of D1 teams doubled from 32 to 65, and 7 of the championships have gone to the new teams: Quinnipiac (ECAC team), Union (ECAC team), UMass-Amherst, Maine twice, Northern Michigan this year, Bowling Green. More realistic goals are to win the ECAC championship (and make the NCAAs), get to the Frozen Four, and ultimately win the title again. Cornell lacrosse did it after a 48-year gap. Remember the Covid year ended hockey in 2020 with Cornell ranked #1; that could have been a title year.

I disagree on this: Loud music from the scoreboard (not band) plus video animation, we can live with if not love. We're just getting old. #suckitup  Cornell fans coming late, it's a little rude, but they do show up. Compare this to Saturday night games at Quinnipiac where maybe a third of the students have left after the second period for parties. We did have a soft turnout hosting Q last fall, but it was also a week before we played them at MSG. Sheesh, how do we manage these oddly timed matchups. Also: The video board is newish, but it's not very high-res.

For the sake of all fans including those at home: Cornell needs to improve its video with higher placement of cameras (it can be done with remote-operator cameras), cameras over the goals, a center ice reverse-angle camera, in-goal cameras. Wouldn't hurt to clean the Plexiglas for side/end cameras (RIT has the glass buffered after every game). I think the better video also helps recruiting and certainly benefits parents and siblings who live far away.

Casey Jones did a lot at Clarkson with a lower-profile program and smaller student body. He is regarded as a good recruiter. If he can entice players to go to Clarkson, he can get them to apply to Cornell as well. I was about to say, "...and Cornell alone among the Ivies has the Ag School," but a goodly number of current players are in the Dyson School in the ag college and that is tougher to get into than Arts or Engineering.

And also: Women's hockey is a legitimate title threat. They're Cornell hockey, too. They starting playing just after the men's 1970 title, in 1972, using beat-up, cast-off equipment.  Title IX became law in 1972, but it didn't really get rolling for a while.

Women's hockey is in such a weird position because Cornell is Really Good and brick wall Bergmann is still here, but 1) also a big graduating class and 2) woho feels super polarized into only a few teams (Wisconsin and Ohio State, mostly) being capital-C Contenders. It would be awesome to consistently make the Frozen Four there, however. Also, it looks like we were also #1 in 2020 in women's... God didn't want us to win so bad he sent a plague, huh XD

[Trotsky]

30 days until season begins.  "All will be revealed."

[Trotsky]

Re Beat Quinnipiac: ... I would not rag on the academic strengths of a Quinnipiac

I'm not ragging on schools that accept average applicants.  That is by definition the majority of students.  I took community college classes and saw some of the brightest young adults paying their own money to be there and work hard.  Cornellians should be half as serious and diligent.

I'm ragging on pop up for profit degree mills.  Q is not a joke for who they admit, they're a joke for deliberately aiming to be a Brand rather than an institution of higher learning.  

So, yes, we beat Q because they are our primary challenger for conference dominance.   But we also beat Q because if the expected value were a penny more they'd open a whorehouse instead of a "college," and then they'd at least be providing a useful service.

Re Win National Championship: Gonna be tough.

Yes.  That's the idea.

[Scersk '97]

I'm ragging on pop up for profit degree mills.  Q is not a joke for who they admit, they're a joke for deliberately aiming to be a Brand rather than an institution of higher learning.  

I have very close second-hand information on this. They are starting to pick up some better students, and many faculty members are very focused on teaching and being good at it. Overall, the student outcomes are perhaps better than some here might imagine. Whether those outcomes justify the cost of attending is another matter, but that's an open question at a lot of schools.

But the administration is unduly focused on branding, as you say, and to no purpose. Under Leahy, the president who dragged Quinnipiac out of commuter school-dom, the branding was in the service of accumulating more funding so that they could acquire or develop new academic units to round out the school. Now, exactly no one is certain what it's for. Presidents and administrations post-Leahy have no idea what they want the institution to be.

[Trotsky]

I assume the faculty and best students do what they can with a bad lot.  It's always the bean counters who lead enshittification.  Virtually 90% of every environment is trying to do the right thing, but the profiteers soil everybody's nest.

Can't arrive here soon enough:

[BearLover]

There's a strange fixation on this forum about Q's questionable academic standards when in reality almost every school in the country, including almost every D-1 hockey school and some in our own conference, has a similar lack of standards, especially for those on the hockey team.

[Chris '03]

There's a strange fixation on this forum about Q's questionable academic standards when in reality almost every school in the country, including almost every D-1 hockey school and some in our own conference, has a similar lack of standards, especially for those on the hockey team.

I think it is born, at least in part, from the ECAC's traditional positioning as a conference of schools that take academics seriously. Adding Q rather than RIT or Holy Cross undermined that positioning.*

That's at least in part because Q is so insufferable in it's marketing of itself. If the university positioned itself more as a serious school and not as a boarding school for wealthy kids to drink in new haven (or was quieter generally), it'd probably be less of an issue too.  My experience in fairfield county is that it's not taken super seriously and is wildly too expensive.  They run billboards bragging that they were included in USNWR rankings. Not where they rank just that the magazine includes them. It's be great if they improved their academic profile but for a lot of folks they'll always be seen as the diploma mill Trotsky sees.

*- yes I know it wasn't strictly a choice of those three at the time to replace UVM. But the perception at the time was that RIT and HC would be better cultural fits for the conference than Q.

[Swampy]

There's a strange fixation on this forum about Q's questionable academic standards when in reality almost every school in the country, including almost every D-1 hockey school and some in our own conference, has a similar lack of standards, especially for those on the hockey team.

I think it is born, at least in part, from the ECAC's traditional positioning as a conference of schools that take academics seriously. Adding Q rather than RIT or Holy Cross undermined that positioning.*

That's at least in part because Q is so insufferable in it's marketing of itself. If the university positioned itself more as a serious school and not as a boarding school for wealthy kids to drink in new haven (or was quieter generally), it'd probably be less of an issue too.  My experience in fairfield county is that it's not taken super seriously and is wildly too expensive.  They run billboards bragging that they were included in USNWR rankings. Not where they rank just that the magazine includes them. It's be great if they improved their academic profile but for a lot of folks they'll always be seen as the diploma mill Trotsky sees.

*- yes I know it wasn't strictly a choice of those three at the time to replace UVM. But the perception at the time was that RIT and HC would be better cultural fits for the conference than Q.

From Chatgpt:

ECACHL Schools:

Ivies:

| School               | Approximate Recent Acceptance Rate                     |
| -------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Brown University** | \\~5.6% for Class of 2029 ([The Brown Daily Herald][1]) |
| Yale University      | \\~3.7% (Class of 2028) ([Crimson Education][2])        |
| Harvard University   | \\~3.6% (Class of 2028) ([Crimson Education][2])        |
| Columbia University  | \\~3.85% (Class of 2028) ([Crimson Education][2])       |
| Princeton University | \\~4.62% (Class of 2028) ([Crimson Education][2])       |
| Dartmouth College    | \\~5.3% (Class of 2028) ([Crimson Education][2])        |
| Cornell University   | \\~8.41% (Class of 2028) ([Crimson Education][2])       |

[1]: https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025/03/brown-admits-565-of-applicants-to-class-of-2029?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Brown admits 5.65% of applicants to class of 2029 - The Brown Daily Herald"
[2]: https://www.crimsoneducation.org/ge/blog/ivy-league-acceptance-rates/?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Ivy League Acceptance Rates For The Class of 2028 - Crimson Education GE"

Non-Ivies:
| School                                 | Approximate Acceptance Rate           |
| -------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------- |
| Clarkson University                    | \\~77% ([U.S. News & World Report][1]) |
| Colgate University                     | \\~12% ([U.S. News & World Report][2]) |
| Quinnipiac University                  | \\~77% ([U.S. News & World Report][3]) |
| Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) | \\~58% ([Niche][4])                    |
| St. Lawrence University                | \\~58% ([U.S. News & World Report][5]) |
| Union College (NY)                     | \\~44% ([U.S. News & World Report][6]) |

[1]: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/clarkson-university-2699?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Clarkson University - Profile, Rankings and Data | US News Best Colleges"
[2]: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/colgate-university-2701?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Colgate University - Profile, Rankings and Data | US News Best Colleges"
[3]: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/quinnipiac-university-1402/applying?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Quinnipiac University Admissions - US News Best Colleges"
[4]: https://www.niche.com/colleges/rensselaer-polytechnic-institute/admissions/facts/?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Admissions & Acceptance - Niche"
[5]: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/st-lawrence-university-2829?utm_source=chatgpt.com "St. Lawrence University - Profile, Rankings and Data | US News Best Colleges"
[6]: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/union-college-new-york-2889?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Union College (NY) - Profile, Rankings and Data | US News Best Colleges"


Notes:
1. Sorry for the formatting. I'm still working my way into the 21st Century.
2. I realize admission rates are not a very good measure of academic quality. And there may be considerable self-selection. E.g., Clarkson's emphasis on technology may screen applicants without considerable STEM backgroun in high school.

[Scersk '97]

They run billboards bragging that they were included in USNWR rankings. Not where they rank just that the magazine includes them.

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It is des-ti-n[ee]
The Big Red will show up.

...

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