Cornell wound up with just a single point in their final three games of
the regular season, losing to Union and
Dartmouth and tying Vermont. As it turns out, even a CU sweep would not
have been enough to lift the team
into fourth place. I didn't see the Union game, which is old news
anyway, but I was at Dartmouth and UVM.
 
Dartmouth 3 Cornell 2
 
You look at the score and, especially after the Union loss, think "oh,
man, have these guys gone in the toilet or
what?" But that's unwarranted. Cornell did not *lose* to Dartmouth,
Dartmouth flat out *beat* Cornell.
 
After watching 14 consecutive Cornell victories over the Green (I
missed the 4-3 loss in Hanover in '89), I was
just as unhappy as everybody else, looking at the final score. But the
Big Green deserved this win - they
played a good, disciplined style, didn't get rattled even when they
were down late in the game, and they beat the
Big Red at their own tight, defensive game.
 
Let's clean up the misperceptions here: Parris Duffus had a fine game
with the exception of the game winner
(which he allowed on a very soft shot). And in truth Cornell did not
play badly. They had a number of good
opportunities, some near, near misses (Ryan Hughes whistled for being
in the crease micro-seconds before
deflecting the puck into the net, a weird dying quail that fluttered
down behind Green netminder Verne Gaetens
and bounced right off the crossbar), and just generally played well in
an opponent's building. That they failed
to win despite being prohibitive favorites reflects far more positively
on Dartmouth's performance. The Green
simply played a flawless defensive game. They made the upset happen,
and they are I'm sure justifiably proud.
 
 
Cornell 2 Vermont 2
 
You had to be there. (This brings up a semi-sore point that I'll get to
later.) This was one of the most exciting
games of the season: up there with the tie at Bright and the 1-0 first
meeting with Vermont at Lynah.
 
Coach Brian McCutcheon put all the lines in a blender and ousted
workaholic goalie Parris Duffus in
favor of Andy Bandurski. The ostensible reason was that Duffus,
spectacular throughout most of the year,
had been giving up some bad goals lately and might be overworked; I
think this was more a case of
McCutcheon taking his squad by the scruff of the neck and saying:
"you've had this crutch so long that
you think you're entirely dependent upon it - well, I'm taking it away."
 
For a while, it looked like a Bad Day in Burlington. Cornell came out
flat, flat, flat. Bandurski looked very nervous
(it's wild that McCutcheon would choose Gutterson to debut the freshman
- the fans are loud, boisterous, hostile;
in four words: a great hockey crowd! UVM'senior McLaughlin (who had
four goals on the weekend) banged in a
rebound for the early lead, Cornell was giving the puck up in their own
end and just not looking too good.
 
The turning point was a series of gradually more difficult saves that
brought Bandy fully into the game. You
could see the team pick up confidence in front of him, and the Red
ratified the change of fortune when Jason
Vogel picked off a UVM clearing pass, banged a hard shot off of
Christian Soucy, and Dave Burke fired off a
rebound shot from the left circle, beating Soucy high-right.
 
Cornell and Vermont would play evenly from then until around the midway
point of the second period, but
during that period it was the Red who picked up the one break, Phil
Noble banging in a rebound on a power-play at
14:47 of the first period.
 
From the midpoint of the second to the closing minutes of the third,
Cornell's game gradually began to
deteriorate. Vermont  took advantage early, as McLaughlin struck again
at 14:54 of the second. UVM would
outshoot the Red 13-6 in the third, and it looked every bit of it.
Vermont failed to finish a couple great
opportunities and bad luck kept them from taking a lead. The Red, by
comparison, had few notable chances.
With about five minutes remaining in regulation, Vermont seemed to be
pretty much in control, and we in the
Faithful section were honestly just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
 
But it didn't. Cornell played the last five of regulation and the five
of overtime with a renewed intensity, and they
picked up the point that spelled the difference between fifth and a QF
game at Yale and seventh and a First Round
game hosting, as it turned out, RPI. Vermont played all out to win:
Gilligan pulled his goalie with a minute and a half to go in
o.t., not something you see every day.
 
Now, the "semi-sore point": just where the heck were the Faithful this
weekend? At Dartmouth, there were fewer Cornell
supporters than Dartmouth supporters (if you think I'm exaggerating
that this is unexpected, you haven't been
there in the last five years). At Vermont, the Visitors Section
consisted of: myself, my significant other, three
22ish students-or-recent-alums, a dozen parents and boosters.... and
about 100 Vermont fans. There was
NOBODY there rooting for Cornell; and when exactly three voices yell
the rocket's "Red", it kinda takes away from
the effect. (BTW, UVM fans yell "Oh" say does that... pretty soon
everybody will have their favorite word.)
 
 
Coming Up: Yale
 
Cornell lost to Yale 3-2 in New Haven, and defeated them 4-3 at Lynah.
The teams are evenly matched: Cornell
has a good defense and no offense, Yale just the opposite. I'm sure
we'll see Duffus start Saturday night, but I
wouldn't be surprised to see McCutcheon pull him early if the Eli get a few
 goals.
 
If Cornell were to defeat Yale, and the #s 1, 2, and 3 teams advance to
Boston Garden, then Cornell would meet
Harvard in the SF. These teams have played to three consecutive 2-2
ties, and (I don my flame-retardant suit,
but this message has probably gone so long I don't have to worry about
it) I think that about sums up their
relative merit. I still maintain that I've seen only one
better-than-adequate ECAC team all year, and they ducked
the title against Brown last Saturday, almost exactly the way the Red
did against RPI last year.
 
I hope Harvard's r.s. title counts for very little when it comes time
for the NC$$ to pick the second ECAC seed
(after the tourny champ), but I'm afraid that their consecutive loses
in the North Country wrapped up another
trip to the NC$$s. Heck, Cornell got swept up there - can they go too?
 
Greg
Boston
Let's Go Red!  Beat Yale!!  Hey, Score 3 Goals!!!