The action has already been recapped exhaustively, so I'll just
wax poetic on the game and the end of a delightful season.
 
When a game is decided by a single goal, it is tempting to
go back to one play, reverse the outcome, and thus somehow prove
that you "should have" or "could have" won.
 
I wouldn't accept that argument about Cornell's one goal
ECAC Championship Game victory last week, and so I won't hear
it applied to this game, despite the myriad occasions
pointed out in other posts in which the Big Red barely failed
to score, barely failed to keep Lake State from scoring, or barely
failed to beat the referee's whistle (indeed to be fair in the
last case I would add that it was not at all clear whether the
eventually disallowed goal was scored before or after the net came off,
and I didn't feel ripped off by the call, but merely disappointed).
 
Cornell had the jitters early, and they paid for it.  Bill Holowatiuk
let a Lake State player walk around him for the first goal, and
Jason Elliott took about ten minutes too long to get into the game.
But as Mike Schafer said in the press conference afterwards, the team
then woke up and realized that they fully deserved the honor of their
NCAA bid, and they starting proving it.  They rode the rest of the game on
equal parts guts and talent, and came up a few inches short of an
o.t. showdown when P.C. Drouin capped the best game I've ever seen him play
with a heart-stopping slapshot that beat Grahame utterly, only to ring
off the crossbar.  That's too bad, considering how Lake State proceeded
to give UVM fits the following night.  As inarguable it is that they
failed to win even the first game, it is also truly scary just how
close this pre-season 9th place pick came to the pinnacle of college
hockey.
 
Or rather, it isn't scary, but just another rung on a steep but climbable
ladder.  You need good recruiting, good coaching, teamwork and
a break or two.  The returning players now carry the knowledge that
national honors are no more inaccessible than the ECAC title that seemed
unreachable back in November.
 
It was good to see UVM win the following night and carry the conference
banner to Cincinnati; I'll be rooting for them all the way.  What
looked at mid-season like a weak conference eventually produced three
of the strongest teams in the country.  We've seen how such synergy
has brought the contenders for the CCHA title to a high level, and
now have every reason to expect a similar effect for the ECAC.  With Cornell
now positioned as a major force in the conference, they stand to benefit
from this rising tide to the degree that they can win the battle for
blue chip recruits.  And despite (or perhaps because of) its higher academic
hurdles, a winning Cornell program can offer recruits much that the
competition cannot.
 
"If you build it, they will come".
 
 
 
Greg R. Berge
Let's Go Red!
1995-96 Ivy League Champions
1995-96 ECAC Champions
 
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