Mike M. said:
 
>I expect Cornell would bring more people to Albany, but I don't like
>the idea of keeping lower-seeded non-host teams in their region solely
>for this reason.  I believe it is better to reward a team for its
>performance than for the number of fans it has.
 
Okay, I'm not trying to be part of a Cornellian-gangup on Mike :-).  I'm
just trying to understand what the big "reward" is.  I can think of three
things:
 
1.  Playing in a easier regional.
 
2.  Being closer to home so that you will have more fans at the game.
 
3.  Being closer to home so that you have a shorter bus ride to the game.
 
As for number one: Lowell got a 4 seed.  Seeds number 1, 2, and 3 in both
regionals as well as the number 4 seed in the other regional were ranked
ahead of Lowell in the pairwise comparison rankings.  The team Lowell plays
is tied with them in the ranking (MSU).  Keep Lowell in the East and send
Clarkson or Cornell out west and Lowell would then play W. Michigan, who is
ranked higher than Lowell and MSU.  That says to me that Lowell has a
(slightly) easier draw (not counting the fact that they play the "home"
team, which probably negates the advantage) by being in the West.
 
As for number two:  if this is the reward, then it should be given to the
team with the best fan support.  Cornell's fan support is legendary.  When
Cornell went to Michigan in the '91 tournament, we had several hundred fans
there.  If Lowell can do the same, I'll be impressed.  Until then I haven't
gotten the impression that *many* Lowell fans will go to great lengths to
see a game, mostly because I don't go to many HE games and I'm not familiar
with the Lowell crowd.  I've seen the support Clarkson and UVM fans give,
and I have personal experience travelling 6 hours to see all the home
games.  That is small potatos when compared to the season ticket holders
from Wash. DC and (formerly) North Carolina.  There were Cornell fans
prepared to make the trip to East Lansing from Boston this weekend.  We're
all happy the Red is in Albany because we're going to save a lot of gas
money, but we would have made it to East Lansing if need be.
 
So that leaves us with number three.  Is all this fuss really over a bus ride?
 
Mind you, I don't mean this post to be antagonistic.  It's just that I
haven't figured out why it's so important for Lowell to be in the East.
I'm sure that if I've missed something, someone will enlighten me :-).
 
Mike also says (no, really Mike, I'm not trying to pick on you :-):
 
>>And how, exactly, do you mean that Cornell "squeaked" into
>>the NCAA?  They won the conference tournament.  That gets them an automatic
>>bid.
 
>But they won the game by one goal, and if they had lost, they would not
>have received a bid.
 
As Arthur Mintz says, the unit of hockey is the *game*. It doesn't matter
how many goals you score or how much you blow a team away.  What matters is
how many games you win.  Cornell won.  They earned the ECAC championship,
and therefore a bid.  Why should Cornell be slammed because they won the
game on defense instead of offense.  Both are equal parts of hockey.
 
Cornell found a way to win last weekend.  Providence did.  Lowell didn't.
I don't think any of these teams squeaked in.  They worked damn hard for
it.  Lowell's work paid off in the regular season, and Cornell's and
Providence's paid off biggest in the conference tournaments.
 
Finally, Mike says:
 
>I suspect a good many of the Tully Faithful would
>have gone to Albany, and for Crowder, they would probably have walked
>the 180 miles there if they had to.
 
No one is more appreciative of their coach than the Lynah Faithful.  Thank
you, Schafer.  I was quite surprised when this broke out from the student
section earlier in the season.  After all, they hadn't been around to see
the effect Schafer had on the last ECAC championship Cornell won, and I
wasn't sure if they would realize how much of an impact he's made on the
program.  Perhaps they don't, as Mike has made tremendous changes, many of
which are behind the scenes.  The students are aware of what he's done on
the ice, though.
 
I don't mean to take away from Lowell's accomplishments.  It is a shame
that they won't be close to home.  However, someone has to go out west.
It's just too bad that it ended up happening to the same team twice in
three years.
 
Paulette Dwen
Cornell '89
Let's Go Red!
 
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