Cornell Weekend
 
First of all, congratulations to the Union Dutchmen.  Not only did they
swept Yale and Princeton this past weekend, they advanced in the ECAC
standing to move past Cornell into the seventh place.  Gosh, we never
thought we'd see the day but the Union team clearly has arrived in the
league.  My hats off to them.
 
On Friday night, fans in the fabled Lynah Rink witnessed one of the
most thrilling hockey games in recent memories.  Any newcomer who
wondered about the legends of Lynah Rink and the Big Red hockey only
needed to experience the festive atmosphere that night to understand
why it was so much fun watching college hockey here.  Even the Ithaca
Journal printed a headline the next day hailing the 4-3 overtime
victory over Clarkson reminiscent of the glories of the past.  Indeed.
 
Unfortunately, the Big Red surrendered the Saturday game to a battered
St. Lawrence team.  The hard-hitting, forechecking, well-passing and
tough goaltending Cornell team of Friday night was nowhere to be found.
 While the game winning goal against Clarkson was somewhat of a fluke,
I must say that the team played the best game this season at Lynah,
better than the Harvard or BU games which the Red lost.  Without hard
work, the Big Red could not have battled back from a 3-1 deficit to tie
the Knights with just over 3 minutes left in the game.  According to
the Journal, Coach Brian McCutcheon invoked Cornell great Ken Dryden
'69, who paid the team a visit when they were in Boston to play Harvard
two weekends ago.  Apparently Dryden's words worked wonder for this
team, according to the sports writer for the Journal.  The same could
not be said about Saturday's game, which ranked among the worst this
AND last seasons.
 
With one weekend left in league play, what will it take to produce
consistent hockey?  I don't mind losing so long as the team has played
its best, but I suspect the players knew that they played poorly
against St. Lawrence.  Did they stay up late celebrating the hard-won
victory against Clarkson?  Or did they all have homework to do before
Saturday (hey, after all, this is Cornell)?  I wish I knew the answer.
At least, if Cornell hangs on to the eighth spot, we get one more home
game after next weekend.  I can only hope that they don't lose the two
last games in the season, as they have done many times in the past.
 
Tom Tseng
Cornell '87  Grad '94