Perhaps someone took my earlier posts to heart.  This year, there was no
Harvard band for the semifinals but one was there for the finals, albeit
much smaller and much lower in volume than Cornell's.  Maybe someone also
took to heart my comment about the band director being a woman and former
Harvard president Lawrence Summers.  The band director was a young man
dressed in a skirt (kilt??).  I was on the opposite side of the arena and
observed through binoculars.  Geez, I hope it was a guy in a skirt.  I was
wondering whether this really was the Harvard band or whether it was a local
high school band wearing Harvard jerseys.  They looked awful young to me.
But nowadays,  most people look awful young to me!!!

Once again, Cornell fans turned the Pepsi arena into an oversized version of
Lynah.  With 7000 people on hand for the final, my guess was that 5000-6000
were wearing Cornell red.  I get the feeling that the owners of the Pepsi
arena are almost as happy when Cornell comes to town as they would be if RPI
makes it there.  One of the funnier moments came just after the two teams
were introduced. A thunderous cheer of Let's Go Red was reverberating from
the east, south and north side of the Pepsi.  Just after that, a lone voice
from the west side of the arena shouted Let's Go Harvard.  There were
actually quite a few cheers coming for Harvard but it was difficult to tell
how many were Harvard fans and how many were
Not -Cornell  fans.

The two days produced quite a few shockers.  Datrmouth started out very
strong against Harvard for a few minutes.  Then Harvard scored their first
goal and Dartmouth just fell apart.   Cornell played their usual game
against Colgate smothering the Raiders offense and playing their very
disciplined defensive style.  Yet, the very next day,  Cornell's discipline
went awry. After an early call of hitting from behind (which led the first
Harvard goal), Cornell's coaching staff  failed to recognize that this
referee was partial to hitting from behind and cross checking calls and
failed to adjust their teams play accordingly.  As a result, Cornell was
penalized several times for the same type of infraction and Cornell found
themselves down 3-0.
Cornell's strength and game plan is to buckle down on defense, stifle the
other team and capitalize on mistakes. Once they get the lead, they hunker
down even more and they just smother the opposition.  Once Harvard got a
lead, Cornell was forced to open up and skate, taking more chances and
playing Harvard's run and gun type of game. Harvard was too fast for Cornell
to beat them at their own game.  It should proved interesting to see how
Cornell fares in the NCAA's against Colorado College which has the same
speed and run and gun style as Harvard.  As far as Harvard's chances, they
are on fire right now, just as Michigan State is.  If Michigan State gets
past UNH and Harvard gets past Maine, the East regional final of Harvard vs.
MSU promises to be a wonderful game to watch.

In response to Bill Corrigan's post about an alternate name for the ECACHL,
I bet some people would like to call it  "the Ivy League et al."