?s from a first time Lynah visitor

[billhoward]

[quote Rich S]Any old timer can tell you about the dreaded "North Country" trip.
[/quote]

Picking on someone else's grammar or spelling is a double-edged sword because you have to be careful your own is near-flawless for the next couple weeks.

But Jesus H, Rich S: What's with the quotes around North Country? Is "North Country" different from the North Country up around the St. Lawrence River and stretching east through the Adirondacks to Plattsburgh?

Newspapers tend to put words in quotes because they think their readers are idiots. Such as, Cops Bust Trio for Selling 'Pot' at 'Gas' Station. As if without the quotes someone might think it was FarberWare and a natural gas pumping facility. Why not put quotes around "old timer" or "dreaded," too?

Strunk & White (okay, we're biased in their favor) and the AP Stylebook are short so people might read them.


This is an amazing thread. Guy asks the best way to drive into Ithaca and it generates nearly 100 posts and more than 1,000 reads. We ought to put a link in Wikipedia under Thread Drift.

As Belushi said after slamming the guitar against the staircase wall in Animal House, "Sorry." I guess we're all just getting anxious to light up CSTV's Webcast or trek over to Lynah.

We need to save some hostility for CSTV's likely screwed-up webcast.

[daredevilcu]

Strunk, White, and Elements of Style can shove it.

[JasonN95]

Class of '95 here, so my time perfectly coincides with the Modern Day Nadir of Cornell Hockey (I've used that phrasing a few times on this board, I figure if I keep it up, it'll eventually stick :-)).  My freshman year was the last season of the unregulated student line for tickets --the fiasco that year prompted all of the various schemes by the Athletics Dept to apply some control over the lineup process.  That year I was literally the last student to get season tickets, despite there still being a handful of freshman line numbers left behind me.  The ticket office had to scrape together two tickets; they were not together (but in the same row at least) and located on the townie side. (I've wondered what my fanaticism for the team would be like today if I hadn't landed those tickets.)  By my senior year (94-95, Coach McC's last season), student tickets were not selling out.  Holes in the student sections were clearly visible.  In fact, the townies were much more resilient during that time; I don't know numbers, but from what I observed the townies stuck with the team much better than the students –they may have saved the Lynah atmosphere by keeping it on life support until Schafer arrived.  That said, the students were still numerous and the ones there were pretty vocal (no facetimer deadweight).  When the 94-95 season concluded, I had pretty much resigned myself to the belief that Cornell would never get anywhere near its former glory; how sweet it is to have been wrong.

As for the Lord Voldemort treatment of Coach McC's name (which I've been guilty of), given that he has apparently remained Faithful(tm) after being dismissed as the coach (you have to assume that his son never would have come here if dad had harbored ill will), I'm inclined to bury the hatchet and use his full name. Coach McCutcheon: there, I wrote it.  (Future uses of "McC" by me will be purely out of laziness and not due to any lingering hard feelings.)

(I know I've told the story about getting last student tickets for the 91-92 season on this forum before, so I apologize for those of you who have had to read it multiple times.)

[schoaff]

[quote RatushnyFan][quote krose]I know a lot of folks who got into Cornell hockey during that era, so there must have been something to the Lynah experience even then.
[/quote]It was very strong for the initial post-Nieuwendyk era from '88-'92.  Always a full, raucous rink.  But we were still pretty good then so someone who experienced the '93-'95 debacle is probably who you're looking for.  And let me point out that Parris Duffus was an incredible collegiate goaltender so if he had stayed another two years things might have been different.

Eric
'92[/quote]

My first year of Cornell Hockey was '86-'87 which I believe was the first year that section C was used for boosters instead of students. While I thought the crowd was loud and rabid in their support there seemed to be a general concensus among the upper classmen that it wasn't nearly what it was before section C was taken away.

[Liz '05]

[quote billhoward][quote Rich S]Any old timer can tell you about the dreaded "North Country" trip.
[/quote]

Picking on someone else's grammar or spelling is a double-edged sword because you have to be careful your own is near-flawless for the next couple weeks.

But Jesus H, Rich S: What's with the quotes around North Country? Is "North Country" different from the North Country up around the St. Lawrence River and stretching east through the Adirondacks to Plattsburgh?

Newspapers tend to put words in quotes because they think their readers are idiots. Such as, Cops Bust Trio for Selling 'Pot' at 'Gas' Station. As if without the quotes someone might think it was FarberWare and a natural gas pumping facility. Why not put quotes around "old timer" or "dreaded," too?

Strunk & White (okay, we're biased in their favor) and the AP Stylebook are short so people might read them.


This is an amazing thread. Guy asks the best way to drive into Ithaca and it generates nearly 100 posts and more than 1,000 reads. We ought to put a link in Wikipedia under Thread Drift.

As Belushi said after slamming the guitar against the staircase wall in Animal House, "Sorry." I guess we're all just getting anxious to light up CSTV's Webcast or trek over to Lynah.

We need to save some hostility for CSTV's likely screwed-up webcast.[/quote]

Anyone else thinking "post drift"?

[KeithK]

McCutcheon.  No problems with writing it.  He is a loyal Cornellian and someone who had some good years as the head coach in Lynah.  While I was as happy to see him go as anyone ten years ago, that was ten years ago.

As for attendance, I have some numbers handy for some of the games in the 1994-95 season:

Nov 11  3301  Dartmouth
Nov 12  3194  Vermont
Jan 27  3220  SLU
Jan 28  3782  Clarkson
Feb 10  3824  Harvard  (sellout)
Feb 11  3509  Brown
Mar 03  3484  RPI
Mar 04  3708  Union

I'm missing four other home games: Yale, Princeton, Army and Colgate.

Average attendance (tickets sold) was 3503, or 91.6% of capacity.  Lowest attendance out of these dates was 83.6%.  The Army game on jan 15 was most likely lower still.  Even a 9th place team sold out the Harvard game and came close for a game against RS champ Clarkson.  The Union game was the last of the season and had playoff implications.

Yes, the 3824 figure was a sellout.  I'm not sure where they found the extra 12 seats to make it 3836.  Maybe the number changed when the press-box was remodeled.

[Rich S]

[quote billhoward][quote Rich S]Any old timer can tell you about the dreaded "North Country" trip.
[/quote]

Picking on someone else's grammar or spelling is a double-edged sword because you have to be careful your own is near-flawless for the next couple weeks.

But Jesus H, Rich S: What's with the quotes around North Country? Is "North Country" different from the North Country up around the St. Lawrence River and stretching east through the Adirondacks to Plattsburgh?

[/quote]

Who's picking?  Not me.

Bill, switch to decaf, eh?  lol.

Ok, sorry, I actually meant to type "North Country Trip."  Better now? :-}

[mrs63]

Coming from the Poughkeepsie area, when I go home I'm always split over 84-17-81-79 OR 84-81-79.  I take this trip on average twice a month (oftentimes in extremely snowy conditions).  Time-wise they're nearly identical.  My experience has been that 17 is loaded with cops in Monticello, Liberty, Roscoe, Hancock, and Deposit while 84-81 is smooth sailing.  All the aforementioned towns have state police barracks except Hancock which has an aggressive local force.

And while I don't have the experience from 10 years ago I can say that there's probably 30+ miles of 55mph on 17 between Binghamton and Middletown.  Areas that come to mind are the 10 miles of "intersections" between Binghamton and Deposit, much of Delaware County, Exit 98 (Cooley, aka stoplight exit), the Wurtsboro Hill, and Monticello.  The 84/81 route has literally ZERO enforcement and my timings on this route are within 1-2 minutes of 17.

On 79, I haven't seen Caroline or Slaterville Springs mentioned as speed trap areas.  The limit here dips to 45 or 35, so watch out as I've seen aggressive patrols, especially at night.

[andyw2100]

Well, since this thread is drifting all over the place anyway...

With respect to the Waffle House in Clarks Summit...I was really surprised to find that chain as far north as Clarks Summit. Can anyone confirm that the Clarks Summit location is, in fact, the northernmost Waffle House? (I actually asked one of the people working there the one time I ate there, and was told it was, but I don't put a lot of stock in that.)

And, on another drifting note...

Mapquest can be really, REALLY screwy. I live a few miles east of the city of Ithaca. For years, if I asked Mapquest for the most direct route to Rochester (or Buffalo), it would suggest going through Syracuse, instead of simply going up the West Side of Cayuga Lake. I finally figured out that for some destinations, Mapquest was treating the entire Finger Lakes region as if it were one very large body of water, that had to be driven around. I now take anything Mapquest spits out at me with a grain of salt.
                     Andy W,