Jeff B. writes:
 
>  I'd also like to hear if anyone knows more about that rumor that
>the Red played "half speed" last year to get rid of McCutcheon.
>Needless to say, that is a VERY disturbing thing to hear...
 
I haven't heard this rumor anywhere but here on HOCKEY-L, and even if I had,
I wouldn't buy it.  Why?  Because if a team is trying to get their coach
fired, deliberately playing at half speed is a risky way to do it.  There's
really nothing to stop the coach from saying, "You don't want to play full
speed for me?  Fine.  I'll find somebody who WILL."  In this case, Cornell
has a JV team, and some of them also practice with the varsity, so McCut-
cheon presumably would have a few fill-ins available if some of the varsity
players decided to give significantly less than 100%.  And I doubt he would
have been reluctant to do so, especially last year -- putting JV players in
the lineup couldn't have made things turn out much worse than they did.
 
We've seen situations before where a college team has found its coach
unbearable and has wanted him or her canned, and what these teams have often
done is complain in writing to the athletic director.  It's happened in
hockey as well as other sports -- as I recall, one of the factors in long-
time Princeton head coach Jim Higgins' dismissal a few years ago was a
letter that the players sent to the athletic department.  Before anyone
asks, I have heard no rumors of anything like that happening with the
Cornell team -- although you can bet that if it did, the athletic depart-
ment would try very hard to keep it quiet...
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Bill Fenwick                        |  Send your HOCKEY-L poll responses to:
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LET'S GO RED!!
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