Mark McCutcheon

[Zack \'06]

Wasn't he supposed to be one of the top recruits coming in this year? he didn't seem to do much and was the worst on the team in +/-. What went wrong??

[Josh '99]

It takes some players longer than others to adjust to the differences between college and juniors.  McCutcheon (along with Carefoot) seemed to start hitting his stride down the stretch, and I think we can expect to see more like that next year.

[rstott]

Given that McCutcheon played all 32 games without scoring a goal (has another Cornell forawrd ever played an entire season without scoring?), Schafer must have seen something he liked.   Still, with the new recruits coming in, he's probably really going to have to really up his game to stay in the lineup next season.

[calgARI '07]

No question that he has considerable offensive upside.  He has very good hands, perhaps better than anyone on the team.  His skating and size are his weaknesses, and they are considerable weaknesses.  He has tried to put on weight this year but could not sustain it for whatever reason.  He has decent height, but he is really slim and gets knocked around pretty easily.  He has a bit of an awkward, straight legged stride which slows him down.  I am sure he'll be staying around during the summer like almost all the players do and do everything he can to strengthen these areas.  If he cannot, I am not sure that he'll have a place in the lineup next year with 4 new forwards coming in.

[ben03]

... do you ever go to class? ::whistle:: ;-) ::whistle::

[calgARI '07]

Going to class is actually what gives me the time to post here.  The 30-40 minutes I have between each of my five successive classes on Mondays and Wednesdays is a time where I have nothing to do but go on the computer at the ILR library.  

[CUlater 89]

[Q]has another Cornell forawrd ever played an entire season without scoring?[/Q]

A quick review of TBRW? indicates that it happened twice previously:

1976 John Stornick 29 games
1962 Harvey Edson 18 games

More recently, Shane Palahicky was held without a goal in 2001, playing 27 of 33 games.

[cuFAN]

i think the fact that his dad played for cornell and also was the coach for a year or two will keep him in the lineup

[ugarte]

[Q]cuFAN Wrote:

 i think the fact that his dad played for cornell and also was the coach for a year or two will keep him in the lineup [/Q]Cornell history didn't keep Hughes in the lineup and it won't keep McCutcheon in the lineup.  McCutcheon's talent (good enough to get him drafted in the 5th round by the Avs) will keep him in the lineup.

[O.S.B.]

He also played in the Ithaca Youth Hockey, but his skating greatly improved, and as a freshman down the stretch he proved that he could skate with the rest of them

[Al DeFlorio]

[Q]ugarte Wrote:

Cornell history didn't keep Hughes in the lineup and it won't keep McCutcheon in the lineup.  McCutcheon's talent (good enough to get him drafted in the 5th round by the Avs) will keep him in the lineup.

The artist formerly known as big red apple [/Q]
"Cornell history" didn't keep McCutcheon in the coaching job after 1995, either.

[CUlater 89]

[Q]"Cornell history" didn't keep McCutcheon in the coaching job after 1995, either. [/Q]

Or Dick Bertrand for that matter.

[billhoward]

[Q]CUlater 89 Wrote:

 [Q]"Cornell history" didn't keep McCutcheon in the coaching job after 1995, either. [/Q]
Or Dick Bertrand for that matter. [/Q]

There's a theory that the best coaches spend time as assistant coaches at that level, meaning a college assistant going to a college head coaching job, a pro assistant going to be a pro head coach, but first getting to know what the players are like at that level. A current prime example is the New Jersey Nets, who promoted the assistant, Lawrence Frank, and then took off on a 14-game winning streak. Or Mike Shafer, from Cornell asst to WMich asst to Cornell head coach.

Conversely: Betrand, from 29-year-old team captain to head coach, with no stop as an assistant. A story made for the movies if he had been successful. (Like by say winning that NCAA champsionship in one of his first four years). Instead, Cornell slipped in his later years, he went to Ferris State, it didn't work out there, and he's now overseeing youth hockey in East Grand Rapids.

Conversely: Ned Harkness, straight from Cornell to the Detroit Red Wings. Twenty years of motivating 18- to 22-year-olds to championship form didn't translate in the pros.

(In the annals of what-coulda-been, suppose he'd turned down Detroit and closed out his career at Cornell, handing off the reigns in 1990 to then four-year-assistant Mike Schafer on the occasion of Harkness winning his tenth NCAA hockey championship for the Big Red.)

[ninian '72]

[Q]billhoward Wrote:

 Conversely: Ned Harkness, straight from Cornell to the Detroit Red Wings. Twenty years of motivating 18- to 22-year-olds to championship form didn't translate in the pros.

(In the annals of what-coulda-been, suppose he'd turned down Detroit and closed out his career at Cornell, handing off the reins in 1990 to then four-year-assistant Mike Schafer on the occasion of Harkness winning his tenth NCAA hockey championship for the Big Red.)  [/Q]

Absolutely on target.  Harkness's over-the-top bench presence didn't work at all with the Wings.  Word was that his team rules, such as forbidding smoking, were poorly received as well.  He was not popular with fans in Detroit, who thought he was clueless.  

By sheer coincidence, I was seated in the same row with Harkness on a flight from Boston to Detroit in June of 74, and he took a long, wistful look out the window when the captain announced we were passing over the Finger Lakes.  What a moment!  I wonder whether he wasn't thinking the same thing Bill is suggesting.  However,  Harkness probably would have recruited a different set of players, Mike might have played elsewhere, and be coaching another team now.   I like the way things turned out.

[Al DeFlorio]

[Q]billhoward Wrote:
(In the annals of what-coulda-been, suppose he'd turned down Detroit and closed out his career at Cornell, handing off the reigns in 1990 to then four-year-assistant Mike Schafer on the occasion of Harkness winning his tenth NCAA hockey championship for the Big Red.)  [/Q]
Only ten? ::nut::