Losing in the NCAA regional final would have been a great finish given our expectations at the start of the year, but this was a winnable game. In fact, this was a game I'm convinced we should win most of the time. I wouldn't have had as much of a problem losing to BU or Notre Dame, since these teams are better than Cornell. Bemidji State played very well this weekend, but we had the talent to win. If only we'd come ready to play...
We should be playing in Washington next week, but it doesn't matter now. Season's over. We had a great first half and a lousy second half, going 13-1-3 in our first 17 games and then 9-9-1 in the last 19. Given how much we collapsed, it's a miracle we made it as far we did.
I made it to 34 of 36 Cornell hockey games this season, traveling to 8 states and paying $488 for tickets. I don't even want to think about gas, food, etc. And it was all worth it.
You can be down on this team and choose to remember our implosion down the stretch, or the 8-1 loss at St. Lawrence, or the zero point weekend at Harvard and Dartmouth, or the last-minute collapse against Princeton, or being blown out by Yale in the ECAC final, or losing to freakin' Bemidji State in the game that would have sent us to the Frozen Four.
Or, you can remember how we won tough road games at North Dakota and UMass, how we won the Florida Tournament in a shootout, how we were ranked #2 in the nation at one point, how we came from behind to beat Brown in Providence on the last night of the regular season, and, of course, how we came from behind to first beat Princeton in the ECAC semifinal and then Northeastern in the NCAA tournament.
I have some great memories of this season, and some not-so-great ones. I'm choosing to remember the better ones and stay positive. See you at Lynah in the fall.
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