Cornell wins the Syracuse Invitational for the first time in the "modern" era (it
looks like the SIT went on hiatus for a while and then was re-started in 1983),
and the Big Red wins their first in-season tournament title since the 1987 Yale
Hockey Classic.  Cornell last won the SIT (the "old" one) in 1973.
 
Mike Machnik writes:
>>    [Cornell] did manage to get
>>    some insurance and go up 3-1.
>
>Great job by Chad Wilson, stealing the puck and beating Dennis for the goal.
 
Just to name names :-) Dennis stopped the puck and left it near the boards for
Ben Stadey, but Wilson was able to get the puck away from Stadey and wristed it
past the goalie.  A nice goal off an outstanding individual effort.
 
>>    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.
>
>A goal that was WAY offside on a 2x1...making it sort of fitting that
>Cornell pulled out the win in OT.
 
The Cornell radio announcers were up in arms about this one, as apparently the
eventual goal-scorer, Jerry Keefe, beat the puck across the blue line by at
least two feet.  Ouch.  The game-tying score marked the first time all season
that the Big Red had blown a multiple-goal lead.
 
Providence's second goal of the night, at 1:57 of the third period, was set up
by a couple of defensive miscues.  Blue-liner Jason Dailey had the puck for the
Big Red and was trying to skate it out of their end when he ran into a teammate.
Mike Omicioli grabbed the loose puck and passed to Russ Guzior to set up a
2-on-1, and when defender Jason Kendall dropped to the ice to cut off a return
pass attempt, Guzior skated around him and... totally whiffed on the shot.  He
was able to roll the puck over to a waiting Omicioli, though, and Omicioli put a
move on goaltender Jean-Marc Pelletier, getting him to go down and then flipping
the shot over him.
 
BTW, about five minutes into the third, the announcers speculated that Dennis
had hurt his arm or something, because he was "slumped over" near the goal
crease.  Given what happened later, I'd be willing to bet that Dennis was
actually using that arm to clutch his stomach, all the while muttering,
"I'mnotgonnabesick, I'mnotgonnabesick..."
 
And speaking of stomachs...
>>    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.
>
>I couldn't find anything in the rule book that covers this, so Gallagher
>must have taken it upon himself to charge the timeout.
 
Timeouts were a bit of an issue for Cornell in that first OT as well.  About a
minute before the Dennis "incident," again according to the radio announcers,
the Big Red for some reason delayed in getting their players onto the ice for a
faceoff, and Gallagher charged Cornell with a timeout.  I'm gonna have to look
this one up, but I believe in that situation, the officials are supposed to call
a delay-of-game penalty, not take away a timeout.  Hmm, maybe the Big Red got
off easy after all :-)
 
>>    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.
>
>This was unusual because the rules provide for 20-min overtimes in games
>like this.
 
I was ready to blister the SIT and other tournaments for this one, because as
Mike says, the rule book does cover this situation.  In addition to specifying
one five-minute overtime for regular-season games and 20-minute overtimes "to
conclusion" for the post-season, the rules state that games in which a winner
"must be determined" -- for example, first-round holiday tournament games -- are
also candidates for the 20-minute overtime.  However, as I recall, the rule book
says that in that situation, "20-minute overtimes MAY be used," rather than
"20-minute overtimes WILL be used."  Which I guess leaves it up to the dis-
cretion of the tournament organizers.
 
Initially, I thought that using the five-minute overtime was a waste, since the
teams were so tired at the end of regulation that essentially nothing happened
during that first OT anyway.  (Except for... well, you know.  Poor Dan might
have benefitted from a full intermission's worth of rest, or at least he might
rather have gotten sick in the relative privacy of the locker room, without
1,000 or so fans watching.)  There was a grand total of one shot on goal.  But
then again, regular-season games use the five-minute OT as a matter of course,
and perhaps it's a better idea not to ask the players to switch gears to a
20-minute one in a holiday tournament.  Besides, the SIT folks might have looked
even more foolish if they had elected to start with the 20-minute OT, had
everybody wait the full intermission, resurfaced the ice... and then have the
teams come out and settle the issue in the first half-minute or something.
 
I just wish some hockey czar would standardize the way overtimes are used in
regular-season tournaments, so everybody would know what to expect.  The
conversation between the Cornell announcers during the first OT was very much
like the press box comments that Jayson Moy relayed from the RPI Invitational.
 Perhaps the five-minute OT followed by as many 20-minute ones as necessary
isn't such a bad format to use.
 
On to the championship game...
>The disappointing thing from the Merrimack standpoint was that all three
>Cornell goals resulted from atrocious mistakes committed by defensemen.
 
Not to rejoice in another team's misfortune or anything, but it must have felt
kind of nice for Cornell coach Mike Schafer and his charges to see the pendulum
swing the other way for a change.  The Big Red has had problems all season with
handling the puck in their own end, and miscues have led to a number of gift
scoring opportunities for opponents.  Even in the game against Providence the
night before, the Friars' first two goals came about in part because of defen-
sive lapses by Cornell, although they were not as, uh, glaring as the ones Mike
describes in the championship game.  On the first goal, Travis Dillabough was
left pretty much alone near the slot and was thus able to redirect Guzior's shot
into the net.  OK, it was a Friar power play, but still...  And the second goal,
as I mentioned above, was set up when Dailey ran into his own man and Kendall
committed too early on the ensuing 2-on-1.
 
>Steinstra's goal came on an equally horrible play when Cornell lost a draw
>in its own end but pressed the pointman, who pinched in even though he had
>no hope of beating Steinstra and Smart to the puck - presto, 2x1 and goal.
>
>When you have as much trouble scoring as Merrimack has, you cannot give the
>opponent golden opportunities like this.
 
This last one sounds like a case of the pointman (Roland Grelle) knowing that
Merrimack has struggled offensively and taking it upon himself to make some-
thing, ANYTHING, happen.  Not forgivable, perhaps, but understandable.  It's a
real shame from the Merrimack point of view, because A) with the entire third
period yet to be played and your team only down by one, it wasn't necessarily
the time to be taking risks like that; and B) the resultant goal was a real
back-breaker.  Had the Warriors gone into intermission down 2-1, they probably
would have felt comfortable, realizing that all they had to do in the third for
the most part was play a good tight game and wait for a break.  But down by two,
and with a lackluster offense, perhaps a bit of panic might begin creeping in.
 
Anyway... a solid tournament win by the Big Red, and a terrific performance in
the first game by tournament MVP Pelletier, who stopped 21 shots over the three
OT periods -- including 15 in the second OT when Cornell just could not get
anything going.  Isn't it slightly odd, though, that had Pelletier not allowed
those two third-period goals, he might very well not have gotten a shot at the
MVP?  Consider that, all other things being equal, if the Friars score only once
in the third or not at all, the game ends in regulation and Pelletier ends up
stopping 33 or 34 of 35 shots.  Still a solid performance, but the next night,
Jason Elliott stops 31 of 32 against Merrimack and, that being the championship
game, Elliott probably gets the stronger bid for the MVP.  The OTs give Pelle-
tier the chance to *carry* the Big Red to the championship game, which he did in
brilliant fashion.  I'm certainly not arguing with the selection of Pelletier as
tournament MVP; I think he was the obvious choice.  Just pointing out a little
oddity.
 
John Whelan writes:
>   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?
 
I have no idea, but I would bet on it, with Pelletier getting the perceived
easier opponent (SLU -- sorry, Saints fans).  This was Pelletier's fourth start
of the season, and it was easily his best... the kind of performance, especially
in OT, that may propel him into a permanent rotation with Elliott.  It remains
to be seen how he does in future games, of course, but if he's as good as he
showed against Providence, it'll be hard to keep him on the bench.
 
Cornell played the SIT without forwards Matt Cooney (shoulder) and Vinnie Auger
(thumb).  Vinnie was injured in late November at Princeton, and Matt went down
against RPI three weeks ago.  Hopefully, sitting them out was just a precau-
tionary measure.
 
And a note on the SIT itself... Adam Wodon writes (on the question of why they
started with a five-minute OT):
>The only answer I got was a sly comment that the Syracuse tournament isn't
>exactly run by geniuses.
 
Er, yes, that's been mentioned before.  When Cornell played in the SIT in 1990,
the whole thing was so badly run that then-head coach Brian McCutcheon swore
he'd never bring his team back there... and the Big Red never returned to
Syracuse during the rest of his tenure.  I wouldn't be surprised if Coach
Schafer makes a similar decision.  There was one heck of a lot of jerking around
going on behind the scenes, especially with the scheduling.  There were several
flip-flops on whether Cornell was playing in the early first-round game or the
late one, and whether they would be taking on Providence or Merrimack, and when
the heck the game would actually start.  This was *since the beginning of the
season*.  At least it sounds like they didn't have that trouble with the boards
popping out that plagued the tournament the last time Cornell was there.  But
c'mon, the "new" SIT has been around for 14 years or so.  They've had plenty of
time to work things out.
 
--
Disclaimer -- Unless otherwise noted, all opinions expressed above are
              strictly those of:
 
Bill Fenwick
Cornell '86 and '95
LET'S GO RED!!                                                  DJF  5/27/94
"So what's Cornell's strategy now -- go to the net?"
-- Grady Whittenberg, Cornell (WQNY) play-by-play announcer, following the
   clean-up efforts after Providence goalie Dan Dennis got sick on the ice
   during the first round of the Syracuse Invitational
 
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