I guess it's all a matter of perspective. Cornell tied Colgate at (warm!)
Lynah Rink last night, 3-3, and thus picked up a point against the third-
place team in the conference, but the Big Red were up 3-0 with eight minutes
left in the first period. Colgate had to be disappointed with the result as
well; it was impressive that the Red Raiders were able to mount a comeback,
as they seem to do every game, but as the rather vocal Colgate fan in front
of me put it, "We can BEAT these [not very good players]!" Box score and
more notes below:
Colgate 3, Cornell 3 (OT)
Colgate 0 2 1 0 -- 3
Cornell 3 0 0 0 -- 3
First period -- Scoring:
Cor Tony Bergin (Matt Cooney, Shaun Hannah), 2:35 0-1
Cor Jamie Papp (Jake Karam), 7:32 0-2
Cor Vincent Auger (P.C. Drouin, Mike Sancimino), 11:24 (PP) 0-3
Penalties:
Col Chris DeProfio (slashing), 9:53; Cor Steve Wilson (cross-checking),
14:07; Col Jason Craig (delay of game, misconduct), 20:00; Cor Brad
Chartrand (roughing, misconduct), 20:00
Second period -- Scoring:
Col Earl Cronan (Bruce Gardiner), 3:07 1-3
Col Gardiner (Rod Pamenter, Dan Gardner), 11:57 (PP) 2-3
Penalties:
Col Brent Wilde (interference), 1:06; Cor Joel McArter (hooking), 4:26;
Col Ron Fogarty (interference), 5:21; Cor Dan Dufresne (hooking), 6:25;
Cor Geoff Lopatka (elbowing), 11:17; Cor Cooney (tripping), 11:57;
Col Sam Raffoul (high-sticking), 13:31; Col Mike Harder (tripping),
17:39; Col Raffoul (hooking), 18:22
Third period -- Scoring:
Col Gardiner (Cronan, DeProfio), 7:46 (PP) 3-3
Penalties:
Col Harder (cross-checking), 1:01; Cor Sancimino (hooking), 2:04;
Cor Cooney (interference), 7:09; Cor Drouin (hooking), 14:02
Overtime -- No scoring or penalties
Shots on goal: Colgate 16-15-9-1 -- 41, Cornell 8-8-7-0 -- 23
Power plays: Colgate 2 of 9, Cornell 1 of 6
Goaltending:
Col Jason Gates (23 shots, 20 saves)
Cor Andy Bandurski (41 shots, 38 saves)
Notes:
You couldn't tell from the scoreboard, but play was actually fairly
even during the first period -- in fact, if anything, Colgate had the
better of it. That is, except between the pipes, where Red Raider
goalie (and Ithaca Youth Hockey product) Jason Gates had one of the
more horrendous periods of net-minding I've ever seen. Perhaps the
Colgate coaching staff will invest in an ankle bracelet and a short
chain to keep Gates somewhere near the crease, because he kept roaming
far and wide to chase down the puck, without regard to whether or not
there were Cornell players closer to it than he was. Cornell did play
well, taking advantage of some breakdowns in the Red Raider defense,
but disorganized or no, Colgate did manage to outshoot the Big Red by a
16-8 margin in the first period.
Tony Bergin put the Big Red on the board at 2:35 of the first. Line-
mate Matt Cooney slapped a low one from the left faceoff dot that went
through Gates' pads as he was going down. The puck trickled behind him
and rolled to a stop on the goal line, where Bergin tapped it into the
empty net. The goal was the first of the season for the freshman
forward, and Cooney's assist was his first point in a Cornell uniform.
Seconds after the ensuing faceoff, Mike Harder had a golden opportunity
to tie things up, as he came in on a breakaway and caught goaltender
Andy Bandurski out of position, but his wrister floated wide left of
the net.
Cornell went up by two at the 7:32 mark, and while it's common for the
Lynah Faithful to chant, "It's all your fault!" at an opposing goalie
after the Big Red score, that assessment was right on in this case.
With the puck loose near the left corner, two Cornell players in the
area, and a Colgate defender also heading toward the corner, Gates
elected to come out of the net and play the puck anyway. He took a
chop at it, apparently intending to send it out of the zone along the
boards, but Jake Karam was in the way. Karam got control of the puck
and passed to Jamie Papp in the left circle, and with Gates scrambling
to get back in the crease, Papp fired a shot that caught the empty net
behind the right post. The Big Red's third goal came at the 11:24
mark, when P.C. Drouin blasted one from near the top of the right
circle that Vincent Auger got his stick on, deflecting it into the top
of the net.
Bandurski preserved the three-goal lead with some solid goaltending,
including a pair of spectacular saves near the end of Colgate's power
play. The end-to-end action had gotten a bit chaotic by this point,
and it didn't stop when the buzzer sounded. Colgate's Jason Craig, in
an apparent attempt to start something, skated toward the Cornell
bench, bumped a couple of Big Red players, and then turned and started
gesturing and hollering at the Cornell team -- probably something along
the lines of, "Come and get me!" Foolishly, the Big Red did, and there
was a lot of pushing and shoving mixed in with a few fisticuffs. Even
the trainers engaged in a mock shoving match near the bench, though
that was all in good fun. Craig got a misconduct and a delay-of-game
penalty (presumably because he headed toward the Cornell bench instead
of the locker room, which is in the opposite direction), and Cornell's
Brad Chartrand got a roughing minor to go along with a misconduct.
Craig was definitely acting like a jerk, but the Big Red should simply
have ignored him -- or better yet, laughed at him. I don't know
whether this was an attempt by Craig to fire the Red Raiders up or
what, but Colgate coach Don Vaughan was absolutely livid when the teams
finally left for the intermission.
At any rate, the Big Red had a 3-0 lead after one, and things were
looking pretty good. However, this was Cornell's first three-goal lead
of the season, and they seemed not to know what to do with it. They
wound up pursuing an unfortunate course of action, retreating into a
bit of a defensive shell, which is not a good thing to do against a
team that has shown it can score four times in three minutes, as the
Red Raiders did against Brown a couple months ago.
Given Gates' first-period performance, I was a little surprised that
Vaughan didn't give him the gate at the start of the second, but
sticking with him turned out to be the right decision, as Gates shut
the Big Red out the rest of the way. Meanwhile, Cornell had a sloppy
power play early in the second period, icing the puck near the end of
it. Colgate captain Bruce Gardiner won the ensuing faceoff and drew
the puck back to Earl Cronan near the left circle. Cronan unleashed a
hard shot that went through Bandurski's pads and trickled over the line
at the 3:07 mark. A few minutes later, following an exchange of
penalties, a Colgate forward (Brent Wilde, maybe? I can't remember)
came into the Cornell zone on a breakaway, with two Big Red defensemen
in hot pursuit. As the Red Raider was getting the shot off, Dan Du-
fresne reached out and hooked him to the ice. It looked like we'd be
seeing the penalty shot option, and the Red Raiders, down by two and
facing a one-second power play otherwise, would assuredly have taken
the shot. But no, Dufresne was called for hooking and that was it.
Colgate almost registered their second goal with 9:30 left, and the
situation was nearly identical to when they scored their first. Once
again, the shot came from the left circle, went through Bandurski's
pads, and rolled behind him toward the net, but this time the puck came
to a stop on the goal line, and Bandurski was able to sweep it away.
The Red Raiders did score at the 11:57 mark, however, as Gardiner
whacked home a feed from Dan Gardner. A pair of penalties on Colgate
late in the period gave Cornell a 5-on-3 power play lasting a minute
and seventeen seconds, but the Big Red proceeded to fritter it away.
The Red Raiders appeared to have tied the score a minute into the third
period, but the goal was waved off thanks to a delayed cross-checking
call on Harder. At the 7:09 mark, Cooney tripped up Gates near the
right circle and was called for interference. The Cornell contingent
disagreed vociferously with the call, but A) it happened in the
goalie's protected area, and B) Papp had levelled Gates earlier in the
period in almost exactly the same spot and had gotten away with it.
Anyway, Colgate tied the score on the ensuing power play, as Gardiner
circled behind the Cornell net, came out to the left side, and stuffed
a wrap-around past Bandurski at 7:46 of the third.
Cornell had skated with the Red Raiders for most of the game and was
pretty tired by this point. The Big Red was playing sluggishly, but
they managed to pick things up with about four minutes left in regu-
lation, after killing off a hooking penalty. Knowing Colgate and their
explosive offense, I was praying that the teams would get to OT, which
they did. Colgate had control of the extra session for the most part,
but with a minute left, Auger got the puck and blew into the Red Raider
zone on a 2-on-1 break. However, with a clear path to the goal in
front of him, he stopped in the right circle and looked for the pass.
Gag. It was Cornell's only real opportunity of the overtime period.
After allowing three goals on eight shots in the first period, Gates
settled down and played pretty well, finishing with 20 saves. Bandur-
ski was nothing short of outstanding, however, as he stopped 38 of 41
shots, including a number in which the Cornell defense left him all
alone. Bandurski continued his rather strange season: he is the
nation's leader in save percentage (now at 0.916), but he is winless on
the year (0-2-3 in seven appearances).
The tie ended Cornell's three-game losing streak against Colgate and
moved them into a four-way tie for sixth in the ECAC (with Clarkson,
St. Lawrence, and Vermont), but the Big Red is now winless in its last
eight contests. The rematch of this sometimes bitter rivalry is Satur-
day night at Starr Rink.
--
Disclaimer -- Unless otherwise noted, all opinions expressed above are
strictly those of:
Bill Fenwick | Send your HOCKEY-L poll responses to:
Cornell '86 and '94 (.5) | [log in to unmask]
LET'S GO RED!!
"Why is it whenever you break up with somebody, they always say, 'You'll
never meet anyone else like me'? I should hope not! If I don't want to
go out with YOU, why would I want to go out with someone JUST LIKE YOU?"
-- Larry Miller
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