That'll teach me to post from a new account over a holiday
weekend. Here are reports on both days of the Syracuse Invitational
tournament, sort of in the persona of my college radio alter ego, Joe
Schlobotnik, but not really. Yesterday's was to have gone out last
night, but I tried posting it from a different account, so it wasn't
automatically approved.
John Whelan, Cornell '91
<[log in to unmask]>
<http://www.cc.utah.edu/~jtw16960/jshock.html>
1996 Cornell Hockey: Ivy League Women's Champions
Ivy League Men's Champions/ECAC Men's Champions
STRANGE DOINGS AT THE SYRACUSE INVITATIONAL
an eyewitness account by Joe Schlobotnik
The full moon came three days too early. That's the only way I can
explain the events which I have just seen occur. Others who took
better notes can (and I'm sure will) provide the factual details, so
here are my impressions.
The evening began normally enough. My mother and I arrived at the
Onondaga County War Memorial in Syracuse, NY for the Syracuse
Invitational Tournament. Colgate and Merrimack were to play the first
semifinal at 5:15, followed by Cornell and Providence at 8pm. Shep
Harder started in net for the Red Raiders, spelling Junior standout
Dan Brenzavich. Colgate looked in the first like a team that hadn't
played in a couple of weeks, as the Warriors outshot them 22-10 and
won most of the physical battles as well. Harder did a good job to
keep them in it, but got beat twice, once on the power play, and the
period ended with Merrimack up 2-1 and 1:24 into a powerplay (caused
when Brian Owens rode a Merrimack player into Harder at the end of a
furious series that involved Harder at one point losing his catching
glove.)
Between periods Mom and I went off to look for the Cornell hospitality
room and were a little too late getting back, as we heard, but didn't
see, Colgate score the equalizer shorthanded and 32 seconds into the
period. This seemed to wake the Red Raiders up, and they played with
much more intensity, outshooting the Warriors 15-13 (and being called
for four penalties). They had an apparent goal waved off at the
12-minute mark (which led to coincidental roughing minors and an
unsportsmanlike conduct penalty), but the period ended with the score
tied at 2.
Then the hospitality room opened up; we heard Cornell coach Mike
Schafer say a few words, met up with Mark Anbinder and met Cornell PA
Announcer (and HOCKEY-Ler) Arthur Mintz, and enjoyed pizza and wings
courtesy of the Cornell Hockey Boosters and the Alumni Association of
Central New York. It was quite nice, but as might be expected, the
first 15 minutes of the third period elapsed before we made it back.
We were just in time to see Merrimack score their second goal of the
period and go up 4-2. It seemed that the game had been decided in our
absence and would simply run its course. But that was when the strange
occurrences began. Merrimack coach Ron Anderson used his time out, and
whatever he had to say didn't work, since Colgate scored shortly
thereafter, with 2 or 3 minutes to go. Then Red Raider skipper Don
Vaughn called his timeout, and with a minute and a half remaining
called for a measurement on a Merrimack stick. I guess Mike Schafer
made an impression on him when he used that trick in the
Cornell-Colgate game back in January. The stick was indeed illegal
(Has anyone ever seen this fail and result in the delay of game call?
I can think of four instances where I've heard of it, and they were
all successful.), giving Colgate a power play, but they were unable to
score, and Merrimack advanced with the 4-3 win.
By this point it was nearly 8:00; by the time Cornell and Providence
had warmed up and they'd re-surfaced the ice, it was 8:30 or so when
the late game started. The Cornell crowd was a strange mix of
straggling students and recent alums with older alumni from Syracuse.
The Cornell Pep Band was not on hand, since there were only eight of
them in attendance, which means I'm going to go over a year without
seeing the "Hooligans with Horns" in action. In fact, none of the four
schools brought a band, which was a real shame given the cheesy modern
rock they piped into the arena between plays. There was a cowbell
which appeared much later on, but I'm getting ahead of myself. A small
group, which seemed to consist of Jeff "Beeeej" Anbinder and the eight
bandies, split off from main Cornell section at center ice and parked
themselves on the Providence goal line.
Cornell started sophomore Jean-Marc Pelletier, whom I saw play in last
season's embarrassing losses to BU and Colorado College, but who has
started 1-1-1 this year. The game began well for Cornell, with two
goals a minute apart in the first. But Providence struck back on the
power play to make it 2-1. Cornell also failed to help their power
play numbers, failing to convert, despite a couple of shots off the
post on the same opportunity in the second. They did manage to get
some insurance and go up 3-1. Things seemed to be getting late when
the Nine Standers (who had moved to the opposite corner of the arena)
called out, "It's 10pm; do you know where your goalie is?" Little did
we know.
I hope I'll be forgiven if my memories of the third period are a
little hazy, in light of what happened later. I do remember vividly
the sight of the second Friar goal of the period sailing over
Pelletier's left shoulder into the net to tie the game at 3.
Regulation expired with the score thus knotted and here I was, having
never attended an overtime game in any sport before last week's 3-2
Blackhawks loss, staring at another five minutes of sudden death. This
time I managed to dash to the bathroom in the brief pause (a ritual of
mine from watching OT on television). The entire period was
overshadowed by one of the strangest things I've seen in any sporting
event. With a minute and a half remaining and a faceoff coming in the
Cornell end, the players began yelling at the officials and pointing
at the Providence goal. There was a long brown puddle in front of
Friar goalie Dan Dennis, and I thought someone had thrown a cup of
coffee at him. But then he lifted his mask and vomited again. Again,
it was very strange. I don't know if he was sick or just nervous, but
after the long delay to clean the ice (during which we all tried to
make sense of what we'd seen; Mom asked Mark Anbinder if he would be
including this in his report for 14850 magazine and he showed her the
note recording the event at 3:24 of the first overtime), he was back
in goal. Providence coach Paul Pooley complained that his team
shouldn't have been charged a timeout because of the incident, and
Mark pointed out that as a timeout is not supposed to be assessed in
case of injury, he had a point. At any rate, Dennis managed to avoid
facing any shots before the period ended. I asked Beeeej during the
intermission why his party hadn't come up with any chants for the
occasion, but he said they'd felt sorry for the guy. Not to mention
that they were closer to it than most. A few people sitting near us
had had no such compunctions, and chanted "You just puked!"
When the overtime ended, we learned that the contest would not be
settled on penalty shots (I can only imagine how Dennis would have
handled that), but by 20-minute sudden death periods. Mid-way through
the first of these, Cornell managed a powerplay. All four teams were
playing fairly physical hockey, and the Colgate-Merrimack game showed
some danger of becoming chippy. Then in the late game, 6'6" Providence
captain Hal Gill seemed to dedicate himself to baiting Cornell's Tony
Bergin. During the end of the game and the overtime, a series of
Providence infractions (those were of course the ones I noticed) went
un-called, but referee Gallagher decided that one of them was too
egregious, and re-asserted control at that point. Cornell nearly gave
up a short-handed chance towards the end of the power play, and played
very poorly for the rest of the period, turning the puck over in the
neutral zone numerous times. Pelletier came up big to help the Red
survive the period.
As the clock ticked past midnight, we entered the third overtime and I
began to ask all the questions I'd heard from the Maine-Michigan
semifinal: does the period indicator have two digits? Does the shot
indicator have three? I also reckoned that finishing the period would
make the game 105 minutes long, and the longest in men's college
history. But then came the following play: a Cornell player (I want to
say it was Knopp or Papp) skated across the blue line and wound up for
a slap shot, but broke his stick. Seeing Merrimack gain control, I
watched him skate over to the bench for fresh lumber; suddenly
everyone yelled and when I looked back at the goal the light was on
and the game was over. Beeeej tells me David Adler made a beautiful,
gutsy shot from the point to score his first goal and give Cornell the
4-3 victory. If the scoreboard is to be trusted (and given that the
announcements of times, saves, etc. were often inconsistent, that's by
no means certain), Pelletier finished the game with 52, and Dennis,
despite his adversity, with 40.
So, there you have it, two completely different 4-3 scores, 155
minutes of hockey, curved sticks, goalies becoming ill... Tomorrow
Colgate faces Providence in the consolation and Cornell takes on
Merrimack for the title. After what went on tonight, I'm afraid to
guess what the future will bring...
_________________________________________________________________
Last Modified: 1996 December 28
Joe Schlobotnik / [log in to unmask]
ECAC TEAMS TRIUMPH IN DAY TWO OF SYRACUSE INVITATIONAL
By Joe Schlobotnik
Day Two of the Syracuse Invitational Tournament, held tonight at the
Onondaga County War Memorial in Syracuse, NY, once again pitted Hockey
East against the ECAC, with Colgate taking on Providence in the
consolation game and Cornell playing Merrimack for the title.
The Red Raiders came out like a team with a mission in the early
contest, making up for the previous evening's performance with
double-digit shots in each period against a Providence team still
showing the effects of last night's marathon session with Cornell.
Perhaps the strangest sight was Friar goalie Dan Dennis still between
the pipes. We were imagining how that must have made his backup Mark
Kane feel; Dennis plays 95 minutes Friday night and tosses his
proverbial cookies during the game (the reporter for the Syracuse
Post-Standard put it best when he said Dennis "literally left
everything he had on the ice"), and coach Paul Pooley still didn't
start Kane in the consolation game? Perhaps he was trying to build his
starter's confidence, but you'd think Dennis, after playing a one and
a half post-vomit 20-minute overtimes, could have sat the game out
with no loss of face. All of the Cornell fans near me showed their
appreciation for Dennis's determination in playing the second game.
Colgate, for their part, did change goalies, starting Junior Dan
Brenzavich in net.
Providence spent much of the first period on the penalty kill, with
three consecutive penalties, and Colgate took the lead on a 5-on-3
goal from the point by Jack McIntosh at the 6:22 mark. They added
another at 13:33 of the first to take a 2-0 lead into the locker room.
Providence drew to within one in the second, with Stefan Brannare
beating Brenzavich high to the glove side on a power play. Brenzavich
had a rough period, as he lost his stick a minute or so later, then
got called for tripping at 13:02. Brenzavich was also not given the
traditional goalie advantage in the other direction as an apparent
slash directed at him a few minutes later went uncalled. I only saw
him go down out of the corner of my eye, but those next to me said a
Providence player got his stick up under Brenzavich's pads. Not only
did Dupree (who had been a lines--er, assistant referee the night
before; Gallagher, who reffed the late game, was an assistant for this
game, wearing a jersey with no name on it) not call it, he apparently
lectured the Colgate netminder during the next stoppage about taking a
dive.
But Colgate began to take over soon thereafter, going up 3-2 at 15:37
of the second and putting the game out of reach with a couple of nice
goals in the third. At 5:16, Todd Murphy fired a shot through traffic
from the right point, and Andy McDonald knocked home the rebound. Poor
Dave Debusschere, part of the tangle in front of the net, not only
went off with an injury on the play, but lost his assist on a scoring
correction. Murphy also took part in the next goal, feeding Darryl
Campbell from behind the net to put the Red Raiders up 5-1 at 6:19.
Providence called its timeout just as we were reaching for our keys to
tell them to start the bus, and the Friars did manage a goal a minute
later, but could not score again despite two more power plays. Dennis
was pulled at around 18:30 to set up a 6-on-4 on the power play, but
then Mike Harder got the short-handed empty-netter to make it 6-2
Colgate.
Between games we had an hour or so to kill in the Cornell hospitality
room, but this time there was no hot food, only lots of cheese,
veggies with dip, chips and the like. But Mom and I had a nice chat
with a couple of Ithacans who've been going to Cornell games for 12
years or so. For the final, Mom decided we'd have a lot more fun
standing with the instrumentless Cornell bandies, who had taken in the
first game to occupying the opposing goal line on the empty side of
the arena. The group continued to make an impression during this game,
starting with O Canada. (As an aside, it was nice that the tournament
had both national anthem performed, but there was no Canadian flag in
the arena, just two US ones at one end. So I ended up looking at the
maple leaf in the LaBatt's ad at the other end of the rink.) About
halfway through the Canadian anthem, the PA system gave out. We had
all been singing along anyway, and so we all just belted it out as
loud as we could for the rest of the song. The Cornell section across
the ice went wild. The Star Spangled Banner was a bit trickier, since
we had to read the singer's lips to figure out where in the song he
was, not to mention lowering our voices at "...were so gallantly
streaming" so that "And the rockets' RED glare..." would stand out.
Unfortunately, the PA did recover a few minutes into the game to
resume its presentation of Dave Matthews's greatest hits.
Merrimack goalie Eric Thibeault was shown no mercy, I suspect because
Providence's Dan Dennis had earned some sympathy the night before
after his unfortunate accident. The best early remark from one of the
bandies was "The only good thing about you is your name!" Cornell
returned to Junior Jason Elliot for this game, and once again gave up
the first goal, on a Merrimack powerplay. (I believe last night's
Providence game was only the second time all year that Cornell has
scored first.) But that would not end up mattering, as Cornell tied it
up later in the period, and added two pretty goals in the second.
Darren Tymchyshyn put on a beautiful display, skating the puck in from
the blueline and deking Thibeault completely out of the net before
depositing the puck. Doug Steinstra made in 3-1 on a similar if
slightly less impressive play. Jamie Papp and Mike Rutter also had a
couple of breakaways each in the game, but neither of them found the
back of the net.
We were of course wary of the 3-1 lead after the team had given up a
similar advantage against Providence, but the Red were playing like a
team in command for the second half of the game, and the Hooligans
without Horns had time to get down to some serious insults. A few
Merrimack fans seemed to take offence to the current addition to the
"your mom called" cheer, which was "Hey Eric, your sheep called. It
said 'baaa'." I thought it was a hoot myself, but then I was doubtless
in a better mood. At any rate, this was at the end of the second, and
we soon fled the scene of the crime. In the third, Thibeault began to
suffer for the misfortunes of his predecessor, with taunts like "Hey
Eric, at least you didn't puke...yet!" These are the Lynah Faithful
folks. Consider them offensive if you like, but you can't accuse them
of not being enthusiastic.
Getting back to the game itself, it was even more loosely called than
the consolation, with no penalties from the mid-first until late in
the third, when the Warriors were whistled for their only infraction
of the game, part of coincidental minors. Thibeault was pulled at
17:30 or so (after a Merrimack timeout, which as someone pointed out
had worked pretty poorly last night when they called it up two goals
against Colgate, and promptly let them back into the game), and Jeff
Oates managed an empty-netter. The non-band loved this, after they'd
been chiding his lack of offensive prowess earlier on. The 4-1 lead
made the Merrimack power play which finished the game irrelevant (the
Warriors ended up 1-for-3 in man-up situations, while the Red were
0-for-0), and Cornell won the game 4-1 and the Tournament for the
first time ever. In fact, this was Cornell's first appearance in the
SIT title game, and Merrimack's first in the tourney at all.
Then it was time to hand out the hardware. The announcer, who had
previously introduced the "Colgate Big Red", named Cornell skipper
Mike Schafer as the coach of Merrimack, bringing a "SIEVE!" chant from
the Faithful. (I think this was where I caught Elliot chuckling at
us.) As expected, Cornell had about half of the spots on the
all-tournament team, including both Steve and Chad Wilson. Jason
Elliot's one-goal game earned him all-tournament goalie, while
Jean-Marc Pelletier's 52 saves in the triple-overtime semifinal won
him tournament MVP. The jacket that went with the prize was a bit
small on him. Last night was obviously the game of Pelletier's young
career (without his efforts, the Red would have fallen in the second
OT), and it shows that Cornell once again has two goaltenders who can
get the job done.
So that's the story from Syracuse. Next week Cornell resumes league
play at St. Lawrence and Clarkson. I (and my mother) will again be
there. SLU seems to be back on track with the return of goalie Clint
Owen, and Clarkson is always tough. Any idea if Schafer will be
platooning the goalies again?
_________________________________________________________________
Last Modified: 1996 December 28
Joe Schlobotnik / [log in to unmask]
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