Cornell played their first real game of the season (albeit exhibition)
Saturday night at Lynah rink in Ithaca.  I don't have the box score
to send out.  Could someone else send it?  Both teams came out fired up in
the first period.  Honestly, Cornell's sophomore goalie Andy Bandurski looked
a little shaky, and let in two quick goals that could have been saved.  Luckily
Waterloo's goalie James Organ (the crowd had fun with that one), was as much
of sieve and returned the favor by letting in two straight by the Big Red.
By this time only 4 minutes had gone by in the first period.  Waterloo regained
the lead in the first period only to have the Big Red come up with a tying
goal in the last minute(?) to end a very exciting first period.  At this point
everyone knew that this wasn't going to be a defensive struggle.
 
The second period was owned by the Big Red as they out hustled, out fore-
checked and totally outplayed Waterloo.  Bandurski settled down and made some
decent saves (gaining some much needed confidence).  The Big Red scored
four unanswered goals in the second and the crowd got going in a big way.
 
In the third period, the Big Red reverted to dump and chase to sit on their 5
goal lead and it worked very well.  Bandurski came up with a couple more
good saves but did let in the last goal of the game on a 3 on 2 Waterloo break.
 
In summary,  Cornell looked good for an exhibition opener.  The problem areas
seem to be a young and slow defensive corps with a unseasoned goalie.
Perhaps this will force the forwards to backcheck more aggresively than in
the past when they knew the had a solid goalie behind them.  Final comments
on Bandurski, he will be tested this year and his flopping style will get
him in trouble as more teams shoot the puck up high.  My concern is that he
keeps gaining confidence. This will be hard with the first road trip of
the season in a couple of weeks to the North Country (SLU(t), Clarkson).
 
Recapping:  Cornell 9, Waterloo 5 (exhibition)
 
Eric Hoffman
Cornell '88, SUNY-Albany ??
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
LET''S GO RED!!!!!