Y'know the "Kids in the Hall" skit: "don't put in salt in my eyes / don't... put salt in my eyes / aaaahhh!!!" ? That's how Anne and I felt stuck outside Barre in the ice storm on Friday. I mean, couldn't we have thought of some better way to spend a weekend than impersonating the Donner party? And all this on the off-chance that we'd actually survive long enough to get to the North Country and watch Cornell get hammered by SLU and Clarkson. Eleven hours later, we got to Appleton barely in time to see Cornell sleep-walk through the first 22 minutes and fall behind 2-0 to a team that'd lost 9 of 10 games. Situation normal. Cornell had their little two goal spurt to tie, then promptly gave the lead right back, 3-2, on a horrendous error in the defensive zone. And then the Red scored three straight goals to win, despite having to kill four minutes of penalties in the last eleven of the game. So, what're we to make of THAT, especially in light of a weak-except-for-a-brief-comeback (doomed) performance against Clarkson the next night? What I make of it is the following: 1. Cornell is legitimately mediocre again. They have enough of a balance of competent goaltending and occasional offense to beat bad teams. They have enough spirit and heart to play with slightly better teams (see Clarkson). They haven't nearly enough ability to play in the same building as substantially better teams (see Minnesota, Maine, Brown). But the very good news is that they aren't going to be anywhere near 5-16-1 in conference again. In fact, they are apporximately as strong as the team which took fifth place in 1991. The difference is that there is no Parris Duffus, and thus there will be no Cinderella drive to the championship game. 2. We can stop holding our collective breath every time Ed Skazyk gets in goal. He's been consistent for ten or so starts now - he'll make a couple fantastic saves, go into vapor-lock on a couple of soft goals (usually early in the game), and be strong enough down the stretch to hold a lead - IF his defensemen help a little (the way they did in Canton) rather than hinder (the way they did in Potsdam). 3. Contrary to popular belief, the whole offense isn't impotent ("and if I'm gonna be impo-tent I'm gonna look..."). Vinnie Auger won the SLU game like Joe Nieuwendyk won games in '87 - single handedly. Geoff Bumstead is one of the most dangerous scorers in the conference. Stop laughing, dammit. Steve Wilson is going to be among Cornell's career blueline scoring leaders. He also has a nice family and a cute girlfriend. Jason Zubkus is not a bad defensive defenseman at all. Chris Felli still hasn't figured out how to handle the puck. P.C. Drouin looks like Doug Derraugh when he plays with Auger; he looks like Phil Noble when he doesn't. Jake Karam stopped scoring goals as suddenly and inexplicably as he started. Joel McArter looked a lot better on the Auger line than did Geoff Lopatka. 4. The powerplay still sucks, but at least the Five Horsemen (Karam, Sancimino, Auger, Drouin, Bumstead) haven't given up a short-handed goal. Yet. 5. The kill is still excellent. Anyway; think about the games that Cornell has coming up. Home (not that that helps or anything) against Vermont, Dartmouth, Clarkson, St. Lawrence, Princeton, and Yale. On the road at Brown, Harvard, RPI, and Union. Granting that three of the road games are immediate write-offs, Cornell has a very soft home schedule in February against teams they went a combined, in my view disappointing, 3-1-2 against on the road. I think it is perfectly reasonable to hope for a .500 conference record, sixth place, avoidance of the preliminary round. Given Brown, Harvard, Clarkson, RPI, and Colgate's large advantage in the standings, sixth is probably about as high as this team can go. And who is their principle competitor for sixth place? UVM, the Friday opponent; a hot team off a tie with RPI and a shutout of Union, which conversely enjoys shooting itself on the road. Call that the first crucial game in two seasons. It's nice to give a damn in February, again. One last observation: Cornell skated 2 seniors (Bumstead, Hannah) and 4 juniors (Bandurski - who didn't play, Ettles - benched the next night, Felli and Karam) in the win over SLU. I believe that left 7 sophomores and 7 freshmen. They're only going to get stronger, and better. With one or two more recruiting classes like this year's, this team is on the way back in a hurry. Greg Somerville Let's Go Red!