Attendance: lacrosse vs. hockey at Cornell

[David Harding]

Clearly the solution is to get the admissions folk to put give extra points to people who admit that they enjoy watching a variety of sports.:-D

[peterg]

[Q]David Harding Wrote:

 Clearly the solution is to get the admissions folk to put give extra points to people who admit that they enjoy watching a variety of sports. [/q]

Or maybe give preference for hockey tickets to students who attend other sporting events.  I don't know the details, but believe at North Carolina they have a system of rewards that gives preferences for basketball tickets.

[Bryan '06]

[Q] Or maybe give preference for hockey tickets to students who attend other sporting events. [/Q]

Like how the pepband gives out tickets to its members? :-)
http://www.rso.cornell.edu/brpep/page/index.htm

[Ken \'70]

[Q]billhoward Wrote:

 
Princeton at Cornell lacrosse, April 2005, official attendance 1,150

They're both the national sports of Canada, Cornell excels in both, yet in hockey Cornell fills a 3,800-seat arena every game, while in lacrosse it's a special game when more than 1,000 fans show up. Can anyone currently on the Hill explain?
[/q]


Lacrosse has turned into basketball with sticks.  One team scores, then retreats into its defensive third without contending the field.  An offensive player walks/sometimes runs around a bit before shooting or making a pass to someone who walks/sometimes runs around a bit before....

Slower than hockey, more predictable, less team more individual, less dynamic, little two-way action.  

[Will]

[Q]Ken '70 Wrote:

 [Q2]billhoward Wrote:

 
Princeton at Cornell lacrosse, April 2005, official attendance 1,150

They're both the national sports of Canada, Cornell excels in both, yet in hockey Cornell fills a 3,800-seat arena every game, while in lacrosse it's a special game when more than 1,000 fans show up. Can anyone currently on the Hill explain?
[/Q]
Lacrosse has turned into basketball with sticks.  One team scores, then retreats into its defensive third without contending the field.  An offensive player walks/sometimes runs around a bit before shooting or making a pass to someone who walks/sometimes runs around a bit before....

Slower than hockey, more predictable, less team more individual, less dynamic, little two-way action.  [/q]

As a new fan to the sport, I have to ask, did lacrosse (Cornell lacrosse in particular) used to be played a different way?

[Liz '05]

[Q]DeltaOne81 Wrote:
Thanks for your input, Liz. One thing you kinda misunderstood what I said... the lax times are *pretty* consistent, although not as much so as hockey, but what I meant is that most of them are 1 pm on Saturday (occassionally noon, but I think those tend to be away games, Cornell tends to schedule them at 1). And 1 on Saturday is a bad time for college kids, no matter how consistent it may be. [/Q]

Okay...so the moral of the story is I get confused. :-)
I guess I'm usually up before 1 pm on Saturdays, so I don't see that it's particularly bad timing.  I'm usually doing something else, though.  (I was about to type that I might be at the library, then realized the only time I make it there on the weekends is when my internet's out and it's my only option.)  I will however, be doing some community service thing or be on a wine tour (like I will be today) or something.  I think my priorities might be mixed up...

[Q]And the lax exceptions are pretty consistent. Syracuse is on Tuesday at 7 (home or away), Binghamton has been on Wednesday at 4 (moment of silence...) . [/Q]

If you don't pay TOO much attention to the sport, it's easy to not realize that those are standardized exceptions, and interpret those two games, out of what, 11? 12? as inconsistent scheduling.  

Success is good, scheduling could help, but maybe we need to publicize better.  I know when I got all my admissions material, every mention of sports was accompanied by a picture of Lynah Faithful/the hockey team.  While, obviously, this looks good, as the rink is full and the fans rabid, it gives the impression that hockey is the only sport here.  If that's what you're telling the freshmen, they won't know to watch lacrosse (or any other sport).  Convince a few freshmen to go (if only to check it off their "150 things to do at Cornell" list) and you might hook them...

[Ken\'70]

[Q]Will Wrote:

 [As a new fan to the sport, I have to ask, did lacrosse (Cornell lacrosse in particular) used to be played a different way?[/q]

It was never hockey, nor soccer for that matter, in terms of flow, speed or dynamics,  but my distant recollection of the first NCAA championship team, and a few that preceeded it, is that it was closer to those sports in those characteristics than it is now.

This may just be my reaction to Cornell games I've seen recently.  When I've watched the NCAA semis and finals the last few years some of those games have actually been much more entertaining; but it's been TV viewing vs. live Big Red games, so maybe the game shows better on TV than live, or maybe (probably) those are just far better teams with a different approach to the game.

[peterg]

It's always a matter of ones own opinion, but I think this year's team has been wonderful to watch, with plenty of offense, taking the fast break whenever available, with lots of motion - both with and without the ball, and agressive on defense and checking.  That's why Cornell is at or near the top in scoring average.  

Lacrosse isn't hockey or basketball or soccer or anything else.  It's its own game, with its own set of skills.  I suppose one appeciates it or not, but I've always found when it's played well, that the game is fast, physical and intense.

[Al DeFlorio]

[Q]peterg Wrote:

It's always a matter of ones own opinion, but I think this year's team has been wonderful to watch, with plenty of offense, taking the fast break whenever available, with lots of motion - both with and without the ball, and agressive on defense and checking.  That's why Cornell is at or near the top in scoring average.  
[/q]
I think Tambroni made a conscious decision to open things up after the first few games of the season, and it's really paid off, in my opinion.  Last year's team, for whatever reason, played Princeton's (actually Tierney's, I suppose) deliberate game, and, perhaps for that team, it made sense.  Certainly it allowed us to stay in the game with Navy despite losing nearly every face-off.

What we've seen most of these past few weeks is much more like the lacrosse I remember from the 60s and 70s, when midfields changed on the fly not because the ball changed possession but because they were out of gas and needed the equivalent of a hockey line change.  Someone on LaxPower commented that back then the game was played by the players, whereas recently it seems to be played more by the coaches--sort of as a chess game rather than an action game.

[peterg]

[Q]Al DeFlorio Wrote:

 I think Tambroni made a conscience decision to open things up after the first few games of the season, and it's really paid off, in my opinion.  Last year's team, for whatever reason, played Princeton's (actually Tierney's, I suppose) deliberate game, and, perhaps for that team, it made sense.  Certainly it allowed us to stay in the game with Navy despite losing nearly every face-off.

What we've seen most of these past few weeks is much more like the lacrosse I remember from the 60s and 70s, when midfields changed on the fly not because the ball changed possession but because they were out of gas and needed the equivalent of a hockey line change.  Someone on LaxPower commented that back then the game was played by the players, whereas recently it seems to be played more by the coaches--sort of as a chess game rather than an action game.[/q]

In addition, Cornell is playing a lot of players, which helps them keep up the tempo (and will help them next year when they return a lot of guys with experience).

[Hillel Hoffmann]

The beauty of the game, particularly at the college level, is transcendent. What I mean by that is the most lovely and addictive parts of the sport shine through regardless of shifting styles of play, changing rules and such.

Whenever I take newbies to a game, they dig the speed and the shots and the hits and the goals and all that. But in my experience, what gets people hooked and begging for more -- and they always want more once they see a game -- are lacrosse's most basic acts: throwing and catching. The sight of a lacrosse ball thrown and caught, and then thrown and caught again, is so beautiful it hurts. That's why it's so satisfying to come early and watch warm-ups. I feel the same way about hockey's elemental act: skating.

I don't buy the argument that recent trends in the game's strategy or style have played any role in shrinking attendance. I've taken uninitiated folks to lacrosse games for years, even during Cornell's slowest, suckiest periods, and they all get hooked for life.

I can't explain the rate of decline in attendance at Schoellkopf. I'm tired of moaning about it. It's embarrassing, and I feel bad for the players.

[cth95]

One thing with Cornell sports attendance in general is definitely the unfortunate number of study nerds who think they will not get good enough grades if they ever leave a library except for class, eating, and sleeping.  However, despite being a very big sports fan, I saw many hockey, basketball, and football games but only one lacrosse game when I was in school.  One reason was a lack of publicity and talk about the team and the sport.  Another was that lacrosse is just not that common and is about the only sport that I knew almost nothing about.  Even though it is a great sport, without someone to fill me on the rules I couldn't really tell what was going on.  I am sure if I knew a lacrosse fan and/or the team had the success it does now I might have paid more attention, but I think that not many people attend because not many people know much about the sport itself.  Maybe some of you knowledgable fans on campus or near Ithaca can help publicize the sport on campus next year.  It might even be helpful to have free pamphlets with some of the basic rules available at games or just around campus in general.  

[DeltaOne81]

[Q]cth95 Wrote:
One thing with Cornell sports attendance in general is definitely the unfortunate number of study nerds who think they will not get good enough grades if they ever leave a library except for class, eating, and sleeping.[/q]
Amen. I can't count how many times I asked someone to a lacrosse, or football, or heck, even a hockey game, and got "nah, I gotta work." Bulls--t, you can take a break. The outdoors is nice too.

[jtwcornell91]

Christ, people, can we stop piling on fellow students for having different priorities and/or time-management systems?

[nyc94]

[Q]jtwcornell91 Wrote:
Christ, people, can we stop piling on fellow students for having different priorities and/or time-management systems?[/q]

I agree.  If I wasn't in class or studying or in a lab or at Lynah I was probably at the Palms with friends.