Argh. Argh argh argh argh
argh. Pardon me, but I feel the need to vent a
little bit. You might want to skip this one.
I'm trying to distract myself by remembering Great Sports Collapses of
the
past in the hopes that I'll feel better by comparison. How about
the Red
Sox in 1986 in Game 6, one strike away (twice, I think) from their
first
World Series victory since Babe Ruth was a pitcher? Or Atlanta up
28-3 in
the Super Bowl five years ago? Or how about my own beloved Big Red
in 1973
against Wisconsin, up 4-0 early in the second and 5-2 in the third
before
bowing 6-5 in OT? That one was an NCAA semifinal, for crying out
loud!
Nope, this ain't working.
I'm not up for much commentary on this one, so let's just consider the
box
score and see how things were going relatively swimmingly for Cornell
at
Cheel on Saturday night:
First period:
Cor Jack Malone (Tim Rego, Brenden Locke),
10:29
1-0
Second period:
Cor Sam Malinski (Locke, Matt Steinburg), 2:30
(PP)
2-0
Third period:
Cor Max Andreev (Ben Berard), 7:44
(PP)
3-0
Cor Andreev (Locke, Malinksi),
11:53
4-0
Cla Chris Klack (George Grannis),
14:43
4-1
Oh well, lost the shutout, that's the way it goes. Still, it was
looking
quite good for the Big Red when, with a little over four minutes
remaining,
Clarkson pulled goalie Ethan Haider for the extra attacker.
Now, we all know what happens when a team who is down by multiple
goals
desperately yanks its netminder with four minutes left. Like maybe,
in your
wildest dreams (or worst nightmares, depending on which side you're
on),
something like this:
Cla Lucas Kaelble (Mathieu Gosselin, Alex
Campbell, 17:07 (EA) 4-2
Cla Anthony Romano (Gosselin, Kaelble), 18:27
(EA)
4-3
Cla Zach Tsekos (Kaelble, Gosselin), 19:59
(EA)
4-4
And if that's not enough of a gut-punch, that last one was off a
face-off
with four stinkin' seconds left. Yeesh.
Cornell goaltender Nate McDonald is likely to get roasted for this one,
and
he did let in a couple of what-the-frippety-fripp-was-that goals, but
he
also put up 34 saves, including some pretty stellar ones over the first
50+
minutes to keep the Golden Knights off the board. And this meltdown
was, as
they say, a total team effort. McDonald may have dumped a rebound
or three
right there in the slot, but its really not asking too much for some of
his
teammates to try and make sure there isn't an unmolested opponent
somewhere
nearby, casually skating over and flicking the puck toward the net
Yet
Again. These were efforts that were being made fairly consistently
by the
Big Red earlier in the game, but over the last four minutes not so much
really, hardly at all.
Grumble, grumble - even the officials got into the act. Or, what
in the
world constitutes icing these days? When I was relatively new to
watching
hockey, I didn't really get what icing was, and I used to thing
(half-
seriously) that it was a call made when the official felt that the game
was
getting away from him, so everybody would stop and he could catch
his
breath. Let's just say that, toward the end there, this particular
group of
officials was not doing a great deal to disprove that theory.
Clarkson deserves full credit for this one. They kept pressing
and
absolutely did not back down despite the unpleasantness on the
scoreboard,
and it obviously paid off. And yes, I'm far enough off the ledge to
realize
that, as bad as the taste left by this one is, it wasn't quite a
total
collapse. It goes into the books as a tie, so the Big Red got one
point
anyway. (Yes, that means they lost the shoot-out. Shut up and
go away.)
Another silver lining from the Cornell standpoint would be that at
least
this one was relatively early in the season, and the Big Red does have
a
coach who is capable of saying "See, I told you so!" in a
variety of ways to
his charges over the next month they'll have off before taking on
Arizona
State in the new year. But if the Big Red ends up, say, one point
out of
fourth place (or victimized by the ECAC's god-forsaken tiebreakers),
or
thousandths-of-an-RPI-point away from an at-large postseason bid well,
I
know exactly where my mind is going to go.
Argh.
Bill Fenwick
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