Are you excited about hockey yet?
Today, we have season previews from two of the online expert hockey sites, USCHO and INCH.
USCHO's ECAC Hockey correspondent, Brian Sullivan, doesn't take many chances, predicting the same top five as the coaches and media. (This puts Cornell at #2, behind Yale). His specific season preview for Cornell has plenty of quotes from Coach Schafer, but not much analysis.
INCH's Joe Gladziszewski has a general preview for the ECAC, with little talk about Cornell. But he picks Cornell to finish 1st in the ECAC, making him the only pundit to have done so. He drops Yale all the way to #3, behind Princeton, because of concerns about Yale's goaltending.
I'll do my own analysis as we get closer to Cornell's opening game, but I can't believe that anyone can write a preview about Cornell without addressing the terrible stretch of hockey which lasted from late January to March. Cornell had the talent last year to compete for a national championship, and you saw that with our 13-1-3 opening and then the come-from-behind victories over Princeton and Northeastern in the tournaments. But the question for this season is: can we put it together for a whole season? Or, at least for enough of the season to guarantee ourselves a good NCAA seed and a chance at the Frozen Four? No one disputes the fact that Ben Scrivens is a talented goalie, or that Riley Nash and Colin Greening can anchor a productive, dangerous offense, or that Cornell has size and experience on the blue line. The problem is putting it all together, not simply over the course of the season in general, but also at the right times. The big games. And last year's team left a lot of question marks.
Bonus link: CHN's Adam Wodon takes on the NCAA over the Ford Field seating issue.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
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Elie, anything you want said to Brian? My BU season tickets are directly behind his (his roommate is Vanessa's cousin). At Harvard game time when his column mentions "friends from Ithaca" that's us each year.
ReplyDeleteHaha...no, that's okay. He had a lot of writing to do, since USCHO insists on putting out previews for every team in the NCAA. At least he got some comments from Schafer. Make sure you yell at him every time he picks Cornell to lose.
ReplyDeleteWe took to editing his column in purple, sparkly pen last year. And of course, when mailed back to him each week it pointed out his failures to pick Cornell as the winner in all games.
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