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I saw in the paper that Coach Schafer was satisfied with Cornell at 6-2-1 considering the injury situation and the closeness of the league and I guess I concur. Last year after 9 games we 5-2-2 and had been in OT 4 times. In the losses to BU and Michigan State we were thumped 7-1 and 6-2. I won't add up the numbers but it looks to me like we had allowed more and scored fewer. I do believe that the ECAC is stronger (compared to the other leagues) and better balanced than it has ever been. By my quick rough calculations in non league play the ECAC is 25-19-5 which is better than past years. In my glance at the computer rankings of teams only Brown consistently appears in the bottom dozen while Harvard just barely makes the bottom 12. In past years the ECAC might have 3 or 4 teams in the bottom of the bottom 12 some on the very bottom. This year Brown seems to be about 6 up from the bottom on the rankings. The top dozen show the ECAC with two or three in the top twelve which we did not have most of last season. I wonder how this can be? I think we saw the beginning of this last year where the ECAC teams did just fine in the NCAA's instead of the humiliating first round thumpings. There is only one coaching change in the league at Union and that has certainly made a dramatic difference. Cornell and RPI have relatively new coaches which could impact their recruiting and play. I'll conjecture that more of the top shelf (ie potential NHL all star type) talent is going to Major Junior in Canada instead of to selected high profile college programs. With the expansion of the pro's (NHL and Minor Leagues) and changes in the NHL draft procedures maybe more kids think Major Junior is the best route to the pro's. It may be that NCAA rules on academic standards and limiting the number of hockey scholarships have also had an impact sending some players to Major Junior. Some people on hockey list have voiced the opinion that top talent is not going to Div. 1 as in the past. The ECAC did not get many if any of these players so this would have no significant impact on the ECAC. It may also be that the ECAC is better focused on getting, developing and playing with the more average college talent pool players. Mike Schafer was also probably used to working with the same talent pool at Western Michigan. Perhaps if a team is used to getting NHL 1st or 2nd round draft picks their style of play may be focused on getting the puck to those guys or counting on them a lot. This is all just conjecture and we may only be seeing anomalous variations in the data and nothing has changed. HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.