Though I'm sure Bill Fenwick will have a detailed post later, I thought
I'd make some observations.  This team is far different than the one
playing in Lynah last year in two big ways:  goaltending and goal scoring.
 
First the netminding.  Junior Andy Bandurski started for Cornell.  Last
year he was most noted for his continual flopping,and it was a great surprise
to see him stand up in net last Saturday.  Maybe it's just that those new
pads aren't broken in yet so they're holding him up, but this is a major
style change for him.  He looked rather stiff, but he probably just needs
some playing time to get comfortable with the new style.  My biggest
criticism of him was that he didn't do a good job of clearing rebounds.
With a young defense in front of him, this will get Cornell in trouble
sooner or later.  Fortunately Western Ontario didn't capitalize on this.
Despite this, he is clearly our number one goalie.  Eddie Skazyk came into
the game at 9:55 of the second half and showed us that, unlike Andy, he
hasn't changed one bit since last season.  If he wants serious playing time
he's got to learn to concentrate and anticipate.  I attributed the few good
saves he made more to luck than skill.  He let in a very soft goal (a slap
shot with not much of a screen on his glove side) early on (granted he
didn't have much of a warm-up), and that didn't even wake him up.  McCutcheon
will probably rotate Andy and Eddie early on in the season.  My prediction is
the rotation won't last long.
 
The other big news is our offense.  Cornell fans may have a hard time working
that word back into their vocabulary, but it looks like we will have some
this year.  I expected captain Shaun Hannah to be skating with center Brad
Chartrand and Mark Scollan, as this line worked well late last year.  Instead,
McCutcheon has Hannah and Chartrand with Jiri Koublechek (is that even close
to the correct spelling?), and Scollan skated with Jake Karam and Mike
Sancimino.  I'm certainly not complaining.  Jake's line had four goals and
Hannah got the fifth.  What impressed me most was that these players knew
where their linemates were going to be and passing and playmaking was much
improved because of it.  Last year so many players were out with injuries and
illnesses that lineups were constantly being juggled.  If the Red can stay
healthy, they are going to score their share of goals.
 
Overall, I was very pleased with the teams performance.  This is still a very
young team, and they are going to make a lot of mistakes due to lack of
experience.  There were several times in the Ontario game when things got
disorganized.  I expected that.  What I was glad to see was that they didn't
stay disorganized.  The team was able to regroup and get back on track.
They didn't have any long term lapses or a second period slump.  If they keep
up the work ethic, they will not end up an 11th place team.  They could very
well give teams like Dartmouth and Brown a run for their money.
 
Paulette Dwen
Cornell '89
Let's Go Red!