What a Weekend

Wow, what a weekend of Cornell hockey and hoops.

Saturday night I got to see the Cornell Big Red win the ECAC hockey championship, which was a first for me. They scored in the first and second periods to take a 2-0 lead over Union, and to their credit the Dutchmen didn't fold. They helped Cornell goalie Ben Scrivens earn the tourney MVP award by keeping pressure on throughout the third.

As the Red enjoyed a two-goal lead, it never really had a nail biter feel, but in the midst of a Union flurry after pulling the goalie late in the third, Cornell iced the game with a 185 shot to the empty net, to which the Lynah faithful still yelled, "Sieve, sieve, sieve." (I also enjoyed when with two minutes to go the students chanted matter of factly, "Townies up!" and the non-student fans obediently rose, stood and cheered for the remainder of the game.) My brother Jerry, and nephew Patrick and I were among the red-clad faithful who were out in force and we all roared as the clock ticked to zero. The players went yard sale as they scrambled over the bench, flinging their equipment all over the ice, and piled around Ben Scrivens.

Later they paraded the tournament trophy to our corner of the rink, and the crowd chanted "Hobey Baker" when they handed it to Ben Scrivens, who's a finalist for hockey's version of the Heisman. He's a bright lad, and he showed quick thinking turning the photographers around so that the candid team championship photo had the Cornell fans in the background.

The Cornell team got good news Sunday morning when the NCAA 16-team tournament was announced and learned they would be travelling again to Albany to play in the East Regional. They'll be playing UNH who they beat in January and if they can get past the Wildcats, will face the winner of the game between # 1 seeded Denver and RIT, a relative newcomer to Division I hockey. While Cornell beat UNH this year, they've lost a couple of tough ones to them in NCAA tourneys past like 2002 when UNH stopped the Big Red from making the final four and 2003, when Cornell's dominating 27-2-1 team lost to UNH in the national semifinals -- Cornell was on the wrong end of a tough (translation: lousy) call early in that one but fortunately, I've forgotten all about it.

So the hockey team had made the final 16, and so the question Sunday afternoon was whether the Big Red could make basketball's final 16.

Coming into the tournament, I knew the hoop team was good. I knew they could beat Temple, and I knew they were good enough to beat Wisconsin, but I wondered if they would execute well enough to pull off another upset. I didn't have to wonder for long.

Jumping out to leads of 11-1 and 16-4, Cornell looked awesome, right out of the gate. I didn't know much about Wisconsin, but as one of the top teams in the Big Ten, I figured they would make a run and reel Cornell in. They did, sort of, but 24-21 was as close as they got. They steadily pulled away in the second half, and you knew it was a good day for Cornell when the coverage swicthed away to another game with about 10 minutes to go. (Note to Buffalo Wild Wings, food was great, and always happy to support a Cornell-owned business, but no it wasn't CBS' fault, you do have direct feeds of all the games -- it's why sports bars exist. Wish we hadn't missed five minutes of the second half while the staff figured that out.)

As impressive as their offense was (and it was, putting up 87 points on one of the top defensive teams in the country), the thing that stuck out to me again was their defense. I wasn't sure Cornell was big and athletic enough to stop big, tough teams like Temple and Wisconsin, but they answered that question too. Kentucky will raise that bar yet again, but let's worry about that one in a few days.

I'll get to find out in person if Cornell can rise to the occasion against the Wildcats Thursday night at the Syracuse Carrier Dome, Cornell's seniors have played there four times, and given Syracuse a bit of a scare the at least a couple of times in their careers. Hopefully they can parlay that experience and the Central New York crowd to an improbable victory. From there, I'll move on to the hockey game Friday vs. the Wildcats from New Hampshire in the hockey tourney. The ride could be over by then, or I may have the kind of tough decision a sports fan can only dream of, which Cornell team do I root on to its final four on Saturday.

I should note the weekend wasn't a clean sweep as the Big Red women's hockey team lost in triple overtime in the national championship game. Doug Derraugh '91 who I got to watch when I was an undergrad has done a great job rejuvenating that program, so I have no doubt they'll get another shot it, though I'm sure that's little consolation for the 2010 squad. They should hold their heads high as they fought valiantly just to get to overtime, tying the game on a late third period goal after falling behind a few minutes earlier.

Hockey excellence isn't new to Cornell, but to have similar success in basketball on a much larger national stage is a new feeling. Normally, my Cornell pride in hockey is private, the kind shared among the select cadre of die hard college hockey fans. My advice to showboating sports stars is to act like you've been there before. I'd say the same to fans, but the truth is we haven't, not like this.

So hopefully we'll figure out how to enjoy the ride without too much woofin', but then again, no telling when we'll have this chance again. Go Big Red!