Cornell played to back-to-back ties of Ivy opponents Brown (5-5) and
Harvard (2-2) this past weekend in Ithaca. I attended both games. Some
random observations.
 
1.  If the Cornell defense doesn't stop giving up 3 or 4 clean
breakaways per game, the Red will go nowhere. The Brown game and the
first period against Harvard (much like the previous weekend's BC
debacle) were a nightmare of missed assignments for the young Cornell
defensemen. Parris Duffus saved their butts several times, including a
splendid tie-saver with 18 seconds remaining in regulation against Brown.
 
2.  Even when the Big Red are really ON, they still have enormous
difficulty finding the net. On Friday, Cornell managed 5 goals, but 3
of them were due to a stretch of atypically poor goaltending by Geoff
Finch, including a pair of head-scratchers half a minute apart on Paul
Dukovac's "blistering" slap shots from the left face-off circle (the
second of which was deflected by Karl Williams). On Sunday, half of
Cornell's 2-goal production came from one of those
we-don't-have-to-be-proud-of-it-but-we'll-take-it goals when the puck
squirts out from in back of the net right to your man in front. OK,
I'll be fair: the other was on one of the prettiest power-play
combinations I've seen, and deposited by my favorite current
Cornellian, Shaun Hannah.
 
3.  Even though Cornell more or less controlled the last two periods
against the Crimson, I was happy to tie Harvard at Lynah. This is not a
particularly good sign, because I don't think Harvard is a particularly
good team. Maybe it's premature senility, or eleven (soon to be
sixteen) years of repulsive executive politics, or the decline of
Saturday Night Live, but either something has made me very jaded about
life, the universe, and college hockey this season, or I have yet,
after 7 opportunities (Cornell, Yale, RPI, BU, BC, Brown, Harvard) to
see an above-average college hockey team. OK, I forgot: I've seen UNH -
but other than they, I'd seriously say the next best team I've seen
this year is Brown, and they're no prize.
 
4.  Jason Vogel really busted his ass for the team in both games, and
gets my first star for the weekend.
 
5.  In a recent hockey-l posting, someone otherwise very complimentary
of the Lynah Faithful did qualify his/her (sorry, I remember neither
the poster nor the exact wording of the post, though I think I am
representing its content correctly) positive remarks by saying that the
Cornell crowd had gotten very crude and unimaginative for a while, but
that efforts had been made to improve the situation. My remarks to
follow are not directed as a response to that post - it just got me
thinking. And what I am thinking is that the "crudity" alarm goes off
far too often in regard to the Cornell student sections. Basically,
there is one recurrent cheer concerning the head official's alleged
intimacy with the species Ovis Aries which is definitely not PG-17
material, but that's about all. Recalling my experiences as a student
back in the Triassic Age (81-86), the athletic department's
heavy-handed treatment of the student fans was the only negative aspect
of the hockey experience. Yes - there are intelligent rules for public
safety (no standing on the benches, no banging on the glass, and
geez-ferchrissakes-grow-up NO THROWING OBJECTS ON THE ICE) that should
be enforced "with extreme prejudice" - but cheers and yells and
caustic, sarcastic, even anatomically-improbable remarks are the way
that fans keep themselves, and sometimes their teams, in games. You say
that some cheers offend other fans? I don my flame-retardant suit and
say: the students are the only fans who really matter. For four years
it's their classmates, their friends, their team. The rest of us -
alumni, townies, faculty, staff, hockey-l dignitaries - are decorative
and amusing, but ultimately superfluous. (Not unlike ceramic dalmatians...)
 
Greg
Boston
Let's Go Red!