Given Cornell's tradition of stressing defense, this was a rare game in
which it was the offense that shone.  While the defensemen let up at times
and Skazyk was not looking sharp, the forwards had plenty of quality shots
on goal, a wonderful change from their play early in the season.  I was
most impressed with Jamie Papp.  On a team that still hasn't added the word
forecheck into their vocabulary, Papp was being quite aggressive and made
some wonderful offensive opportunities by knocking Huskies off the puck.
I hope we see a lot more of this kind of effort from him this season.
 
Morale, which has been questioned as of late, seemed quite high on Sunday.
I can't remember the last time I saw this team hanging over the boards
for the better part of the game.  Cornell knew they had a very good chance
of winning this game right to the end.  Northeastern, on the other hand,
while not exactly lackluster, didn't put Cornell away early as one might
have expected a top ten team to do.  If I remember correctly, the program
mentioned it was their third game in five days.  That combined with the
nonconference nature of the contest may have attributed to a good but not
outstanding performance.
 
It is a shame that a team as good as Northeastern has such poor fan support.
There were 100-200 Cornell fans there and we were much louder than the rest
of the crowd.  A few of the hometown fans did pick up on our goalie-taunting
cheers, however, so maybe there's hope.  The cheerleaders (yes, bona-fide
cheerleaders, pom-poms and all)  that were there weren't able to stir up
the crowd at all.
 
Paulette Dwen
Cornell '89
Let's Go Red!