>Something I've been wondering:  As I recall (correct me if I'm wrong) Brian
>McCutcheon was fired in the late spring or early summer of 1995.  So, did
>Mike Schafer have any part in recruiting any of the members of the class of
>1999?  Schafer's always been known as a great recruiter and coach, and if
>last year's Cornell team was a "McCutcheon team", then I think that makes
>the job he did last year that much more impressive.  Just wait until Schafer
>gets a few more classes under his belt.  If you look at Cornell's success
>under McCutcheon, many of the key players on those teams were recruited when
>Schafer was an assistant here.  It was after Schafer left that they began to
>stumble a bit.
 
Schafer has done an amazing job, but it seems to me that there is a little
bit of a double standard in the reasoning above.  First it implies that
Schafer as an assistant gets credit for the strong recruiting classes under
McCutcheon.  OK, all well and good (though I'm hard pressed to figure out
what Mike Schafer had to do with recruiting Joe Nieuwendyk, Doug Dadswell,
or... Mike Schafer :-), but if the assistant coach is so important to
recruiting, it seems to imply that the credit for future strong recruiting
classes under Schafer should go to *his* assistants.  Currently the Man on
the Road is Scott Garrow (the only assistant coach in memory to have his own
admiration society among the women of Section C).
 
I know that Schafer's start makes him look omniscient and omnipotent.   It's
been incredible, granted; no sane Cornell fan could have asked for
*anything* more from the man, and non-casual fans like the Lynah Faithful,
as we shall all sooner or (hopefully) later find out, can be *very*
demanding.  But a lot of people deserve credit for what's building in Ithaca
right now (the players come to mind, for example:-).  In fact, I think that
one of Schafer's greatest strengths is that he appears to be able to get
precisely what is needed to accomplish his many tasks from a broad range of
people, all with their own responsibilities and problems.
 
The Big Red travel to Yale and Princeton tonight and tomorrow.  You think
this is going to be easy?  Think again:
 
 
Cornell at Yale, ECAC RS, 1992-96:
 
L 2-3, L 3-4 (ot), W 2-1, W 4-2, W 3-0
 
 
Cornell at Princeton, ECAC RS, 1990-96:
 
L 2-5, L 6-7, W 3-2, L 3-4 (ot), T 1-1 (ot), L 3-4 (ot), W 7-2
 
 
Baker Rink has been an especially horrendous place in recent years.  Before
last year's win, the Big Red were quite honestly *LUCKY* to have picked up
any points at all in six consecutive meetings.
 
And I hope people are keeping the following early season scores in mind:
 
11/09  Princeton 4 at St. Lawrence 3
       Yale 5 at Clarkson 2
11/15  Yale 1 Harvard 1 (ot)
11/16  Princeton 6 Harvard 2
 
 
Final note: Cornell has given up the first goal in each of its four games.
I think we all kinda wish they'd reconsider that part of their strategy :-)
 
 
Greg R. Berge
Let's Go Red!
 
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