One Reporter, Two Articles

Ithaca Journal hockey beat writer Dan Sweeney was published today in both the Journal and the Albany Times-Union. Not surprisingly, he chose different ledes for the respective local papers of the Cornell Big Red and RPI Engineers.

One gem from the Times-Union article which didn't make it into the Journal recap:

Saturday's game also featured a cross-ice exchange between [RPI Coach Seth] Appert and Cornell coach Mike Schafer because the Big Red's Colin Greening was sent off the ice for having his pants unzipped.

"What a wacky game," Cornell coach Mike Schafer said.

Rebecca Johnston Wins Gold

Congratulations to Cornell sophomore Rebecca Johnston and the rest of the Canadian women's ice hockey team for winning the gold medal. Johnston got lots of camera time during the medal ceremony.


However, Team Canada has come under fire for its behavior later that night, when the celebration got a little out of hand.

More than half an hour after they beat the United States 2-0 on Thursday, the players came back from the locker room and staged a party on ice -- swigging from bottles of champagne, guzzling beer and smoking cigars.

Meghan Agosta and Marie-Philip Poulin posed wearing goofy grins. Rebecca Johnston actually tried to drive the ice-resurfacing machine. Haley Irwin poured champagne into the mouth of Tessa Bonhomme, gold medals swinging from both their necks.

The celebration raised eyebrows at the IOC, which said it would look into the matter. Informed of the antics by The Associated Press, Gilbert Felli, the IOC's executive director of the Olympic Games, said it was "not what we want to see."

There's certainly nothing wrong with getting drunk to celebrate a gold medal, and I won't take issue with the fact that one of the members of Team Canada was still one month underage.

But I believe that the celebration should have occurred in the locker room, or at an off-site location; it strikes me as a little disrespectful to be sauntering around the ice surface with alcohol and cigars.

The incident has reminded some people of the 1998 games, when the U.S. men's hockey team trashed their hotel rooms after losing in the Olympics. Certainly, the Team Canada incident is surprising partly because it is something we would more expect from men's teams.

However, even at Cornell, we've seen evidence that the women's hockey team is capable of some antics. Back in 2005, freshmen on the team were caught after they stole 36 cases of toilet paper from residence halls. They had been instructed to do so by older members on the team.

Congratulations again to Team Canada, but I wish one of their coaches or team handlers had stopped them from going back onto the ice.

Snow Snow Snow

According to Weather Underground, Ithaca had 16 inches at 9:45 pm. (Although it also has us listed for 8.1 inches...) It's continued to snow since then, so I assume the total has increased by a few inches. We'll see what the final storm total is.

Supposedly, the SA voted unanimously today in favor of declaring tomorrow as a snow day. One is of course reminded of the snow day debacle of 2007, in which the university refused to close until it became obvious that no one could actually get to campus. By that point, many of us had already trudged to our morning classes, and faculty and staff were already stuck in the snow on their way to work.

I doubt the university will close again, especially since the snow is expected to taper off around daybreak. Personally, I don't have any classes tomorrow so I don't really care what happens. I assume that hockey will be on for tomorrow night either way.

Cornell's Season, By the Numbers

I was watching a few minutes of SportsCenter this morning, and their college basketball analyst (no, not Andy Katz) was breaking down several "bubble" teams' chances of making the NCAA tournament. ESPN looks at factors like RPI, strength of schedule, good wins, and bad losses.

Applying some of the same factors to the Cornell hockey team, one is not impressed.

Cornell's record is 16-8-3, which is good for the seventh-best in the country. So far, so good.

But dig a little deeper, and there are some serious problems.

Cornell's wins have come against teams ranked, on average, 39th in KRACH. That's out of 58 teams in D-1 college hockey. Cornell's strength of schedule is 37, and they've beaten a whopping two teams ranked in the top 32 (#5 North Dakota and #10 UNH). Five number summary for wins: 5, 36, 42, 48, 50.

Against teams in the top 32, which you'll remember is more than half of the teams in college hockey, Cornell is 2-4-2. Losses were to #5 North Dakota, #6 Colorado College, and #14 Yale (twice). Cornell tied #22 BU and #26 Union.

Against the bottom 26 teams, Cornell is 14-4-1. Those four losses have come against Quinnipiac, which was a top-10 team when Cornell played them, Princeton (twice), and Dartmouth.

Phrased another way, Cornell has played only eight games against teams in the top half of Division 1, and has won twice. One of those games (NoDak) required Ben Scrivens to stop all 28 shots to steal a 1-0 victory, and the other (UNH) is generally regarded as Cornell's best performance of the season. Also keep in mind that UNH is horrendous (1-5-1) in non-conference games this season, with the one win coming against Dartmouth.

In the SportsCenter breakdown, Cornell's RPI (14th) and strength of schedule (37th) might hurt its case for a bid to the 16-team NCAA tournament. Good wins would be @UNH, vs. NoDak; bad losses would be to #40 Princeton (twice) and #49 Dartmouth.

There are obviously plenty of ways to spin these statistics, but I don't really see this as an affirmation of Cornell's season.

Governor of Puerto Rico to Speak at Cornell

Follows the recent Cornell tradition of bringing in a high-profile politician around mid-way through the spring semester. Free tickets are available in WSH starting tomorrow.

WHO: Luis G. Fortuño, Governor of Puerto Rico, Vice Chairman of the Southern Governors Association and member of President Obama’s Council of Governors. Formerly, Puerto Rico’s sole representative in the United States Congress.

WHEN: Monday, March 8, 2010

WHERE: Bailey Hall Auditorium Cornell University

ABOUT: The Governor will give a speech that will last approximately 25 minutes, followed by a 30 minute question and answer session. He will address different topics. Primarily, the Governor will discuss where Puerto Rico’s unresolved political status question is headed. He will also discuss the policies he has implemented in order to restore the island’s fiscal and economic health. He will also touch upon the special relationship between Puerto Rico and Cornell.

Cornell-Western Michigan Revolving Door

With Western Michigan's announcement that Coach Jim Culhane will not be returning after this season, people have begun to speculate on replacements for Culhane.

Current Cornell assistant coach Scott Garrow and former Cornell assistant coach Brent Brekke, both of whom played for Mike Schafer at WMU before joining him as assistants, seem like strong candidates. The whole alma mater thing seems to work well in college hockey, and they've certainly had a good amount of coaching experience (if only as assistants). The question, of course, would be whether they'd be willing to leave highly successful (Miami) or somewhat successful (Cornell) programs to take charge the struggling Broncos. They would also need to be offered the job, obviously.

Blurbs compiled from CHN, MLive.com and the Bronco hockey blog.

Scott Garrow, Cornell assistant — Western Michigan alum, he played under Wilkinson and Mike Schafer, then later coached with Culhane. Schafer is now his head coach at Cornell. Garrow went to Cornell after Jamie Russell left to take the Michigan Tech top spot.

Scott Garrow - Assistant Coach - Cornell: A WMU alum, and the best assistant coach the Broncos have had since his current boss Mike Schafer in the early 90s. He runs a tight practice, has a strong work ethic, wants to win, and loves WMU. He's coaching on a winning program that has many of the attributes a WMU team should have. On the downside he has no head coaching experience, isn't a "big name" candidate, and there may be questions of whether he is far enough removed from the Culhane era.

Scott Garrow: In his 11th season as an assistant at Cornell, Garrow works with the Big Red’s forwards and coordinates the power-play. Set a WMU record by playing in 161 straight games. Coached for four seasons at WMU (1999-2003), where he was recruiting coordinator and helped land 2002 CCHA Rookie of the Year Pat Dwyer.

Brent Brekke, Miami assistant — Another alum with a Wilkinson/Schafer/Cornell connection as well. He was Cornell's assistant until leaving for Miami before last season, and did a great job there coaxing a lot out of a very young defensive group.

Brent Brekke - Assistant Coach - Miami: The third WMU alum to make this list Brekke is a younger coach like Garrow and Schooley. He spent most of his coaching career as an assistant at Cornell before making the move to Miami last year in time to be a part of their run to the national championship game. Brekke is a fantastic defensive coach and a solid recruiter. He doesn't, however, have any head coaching experience at any level.

Brent Brekke: In his second season as an assistant at Miami-Ohio, Brekke is responsible for a RedHawks defense that’s ranked No. 1 in the nation. Joined coach Enrico Blasi last season, one that ended with a loss in the NCAA championship game. Spent nine previous seasons at Cornell, helping Big Reds to four NCAA appearances. Played four seasons at WMU and in 1993-94 became the first player in Broncos history to be unanimously voted captain by his teammates. His wife, Stacey, is a former WMU track and field athlete.

Today's Column

Inconsistency Plagues Men's Hockey

Since the start of the 2002-2003 season, Cornell has lost five games when leading after two periods (124-5-8). Saturday's game at Dartmouth was one of them, and the result was absolutely devastating.

The once inconceivable, that a team with Riley Nash and seniors Colin Greening, Blake Gallagher, and Ben Scrivens could miss the NCAA tournament, is about to come true. Cornell must either win the ECAC tournament or lose to Yale in the final.

Awful.

Cornell Basketball in the NYT

Kudos to Cornell men's basketball, which swept Harvard and Dartmouth and is currently ahead of men's hockey in the NCAA tournament berth sweepstakes.

Here's a nice article on the team from Sunday's New York Times.

Response

I've gotten a fair amount of criticism in response to my first post about the death of Bradley Ginsburg '13.

The blog post was titled, "Report: Suicide off Thurston Bridge."

I posted immediately after hearing from a house-mate that someone had jumped off the Thurston Bridge, and that emergency crews were at the scene. Nothing had been posted on the Sun or IJ websites, so his report was all I had in hand.

As more facts have come to light, it appears that suicide is simply one of several plausible explanations for Ginsburg's death. This much should be clear to anyone who has followed the case in any media outlets.

I have not changed the language of my initial post, as it accurately reflects what I heard at that point in time. The idea of a blog is that authors can write follow-up posts to qualify and correct earlier entries. If and when a definitive cause of death is released, I will blog about it. But I will not scrub evidence of previous possible error.

I shouldn't have to say this, but obviously I had no malicious motive in using the word "suicide" at that point in time, and no disrespect is intended towards the deceased, nor towards his family. I wish them peace as they begin to cope with this difficult situation.

As always, thanks for reading, and I welcome any comments.

Juliana Richer Daily

This Cornell senior (and sorority woman) has made a name for herself as one of the best-known performers at Cornell. I haven't listened to her original songs, but some of her covers are pretty good.

See her Q&A with the Sun here.



This is the last of the automated posts; I should be back to blogging on Sunday night.

Hastings '10 Loses Big

Back in December, Cornell senior Brian Hastings won over $4.2 million in one weekend by playing online poker.

The player from whom Hastings won all that money, Isildur1, just took over $500,000 of that back.

Isildur1 hadn’t quite finished his impressive run, though, and before long a much anticipated rematch was arranged with his old nemesis Brian Hastings. The two pros then faced off heads-up over six $300/$600 PLO tables and 926 hands later Isildur1 had regained a measure of satisfaction as he walked away with $504,987 of the CardRunners pro’s bankroll.

Isildur1 now seems to have firmly hit the comeback trail, with Tuesday’s $869k profits added to his wins over the last few days putting him in the black for $1.4 million and thus making him the 4th biggest winner of 2010 so far.

Cornell Prof. Discovers Secret of Good Movies

It's all about the attention span...

Howard Hawks famously said that all a good movie needs is three great scenes and no bad ones. Well, according to James Cutting, a psychologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, they also need to conform to a special mathematical formula. In a forthcoming paper, Cutting reveals that most modern Hollywood blockbusters conform to a mathematical model for attention span called the 1/f fluctuation.

In his research, Cutting measured the shot length of the 150 highest-grossing movies between 1935 and 2005. He then graphed the varying shot lengths of each movie as a wave. For modern blockbusters, those waves correlated with the 1/f fluctuation attention span waves produced by the University of Texas, Austin, during the 1990s. And the more recent the movie, the closer the movie's editing schemes matched the 1/f fluctuation.

Away for the Weekend

Off to Harvard in the AM. Some things will post automatically over the next couple of days, and I'll be back in town on Sunday night. Let's go red.

IC Considers Switching to Google Mail

As with Cornell, a key issue seems to be storage space. IC only offers students a fraction of the email storage space which Cornell offered before switching to Google Mail.

About 14,000 Cornell students are being served by the Google account that was put into place in April of last year, [CIT Director Rick] MacDonald said. So far, feedback from students has been positive.

MacDonald said Cornell does not pay Google anything to use Gmail, but it does still cost money in manpower to offer the service. MacDonald said in the long run, however, outsourcing did save money.

Ithaca college offers students 75 megabites of storage, whereas Google has 7 gigabites. This means Gmail has 7,000 megabites to the college’s 75 megabites of data space.

I believe that Cornell's Webmail offered something like 300 MB.

GWU Admissions Office Pulls A Cornell

When will colleges stop doing this...

About 200 students who had sought early-decision admission to George Washington University received an e-mail last week that proclaimed "Congratulations" and welcomed them to the Class of 2014 -- for several hours.

Then came every college applicant's nightmare.

You can probably figure out the rest.

Of course, Cornell's 2003 "Greetings from Cornell, your future alma mater!" mistake tends to be mentioned in these situations.

Still, none of these are as bad as UC San Diego's mistake last year, when they accidentally told all 46,000 applicants that they had been accepted.

Harvard and Dartmouth

Cornell needs to secure at least three points this weekend against Harvard and Dartmouth. Anything less, and Cornell's RPI will drop substantially and it becomes increasingly difficult to imagine a scenario in which Cornell receives an at-large bid. Four points, and Cornell hangs on to hope of an at-large bid if they can't win the ECAC tournament.

On paper, this isn't a tough assignment. Eighth-place Harvard is 7-15-3 this season, including a weak 4-7-1 at home. Eleventh-place Dartmouth is 7-17-1 overall, 5-8-0 at home.

However, ask anyone who's made the trip in recent years, and they'll tell you that the normal Cornell hockey team does not tend to show up to these games. Instead, you see a squad which looks shockingly flat and plays down to the level of weaker teams. Last year's ugly weekend featured a sloppy overtime loss at Dartmouth and a painful loss to a terrible Harvard team which would lose in the ECAC quarterfinal round... at home... to Brown... without scoring any goals. And last year's Cornell team came within one period of reaching the Frozen Four.

As we wrote in our column, Cornell is just 1-4-0 in Cambridge since 2005 and 2-9-0 in Hanover since 1999. Ted Donato seems to have Schafer's number, both at Bright and in Albany, and Dartmouth tends to be a physical team which gives Cornell trouble on the road. Here are results from the past few years, with final records for some context.

                2009         2008        2007         2006        2005*

@Harvard        L, 4-2       L, 2-1      L, 3-1       W, 4-3      L, 1-0

@Dartmouth      L, 5-4       W, 4-1      L, 5-1       L, 6-1      L, 2-1

Final record    22-10-4      19-14-3     14-13-4      22-9-4      27-5-3

*Games were on separate weekends in 2005 due to Vermont's still being in the league.

With no margin for error, the team must show up to play. And they must avoid their typical Saturday night slump, particularly if they manage to beat Harvard tomorrow night. A two point weekend is simply unacceptable and places the team in a terrible position for purposes of making the NCAA tournament.

Just win.

More About Ginsburg

The Sun writes that he was reported missing on Tuesday. Someone called the CUPD this morning about a body under the bridge.

Ginsburg is the tenth Cornell student to have died this academic year. Among those deaths, Ginsburg is the third undergraduate to have died in the Ithaca area.

It doesn't look like there will be an official university statement on this tragic event. If it does happen, it will only be the third official statement issued by Cornell in 2010.

Harvard Crimson: Cornell Is Our Top Rival

Traditionally, Cornell fans will say that our biggest rival is Harvard, while Harvard fans will say that their biggest rival is Yale.

Perhaps the Big Red-Crimson rivalry is now two-way.

Crimson staff writer Christina McClintock:

Though Harvard-Yale weekend is historic in its own right, the Bulldogs can no longer be considered the Crimson’s most hated foe.

That enemy would prove to be Cornell, Harvard’s biggest rival in men’s basketball and men’s ice hockey. The newfound rivalry between the Big Red and the Crimson is more current, more competitive, and much more focused on the actual game at hand. And Friday’s upcoming games in both sports have the Harvard student body in a kind of pre-game fervor that November’s football game can’t match. This time, the attention focuses on the contests themselves rather than on which house will sport the best tailgate.

Expect a Big Red invasion of Allston, Mass., on Friday, with Cornell playing Harvard in both hockey and men's basketball.

Report: Suicide Off Thurston Bridge

Emergency crews are on the scene currently.

Update: The Sun reports that workers recovered a body, and that the bridge is open once again.

Update 2: The victim has been identified as Brad Ginsburg '13, a resident of Donlon Hall. Ginsburg was pledging Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity.

Unhelpful Uncle Ezra

Mired in pedantry, Ezra ignores the point of the original question. As someone who often took advantage of the Store's return policy, I'm interested to hear the definitive answer.

Hey Uncle Ezra,

I purchased my books from the school store and just had a question about the return policy. It states you can return books up to 7 days after purchase. Would that, for example, be Monday to Monday or Monday to Sunday? Let me know, thanks.

-Confused Consumer

Dear Confused,

The store is not open on Sunday. If you purchased books on Monday, you have until the next Monday to return them.

A Changing Lynah Rink

Hopefully MetaEzra won't be mad if I post the whole thing:

An Open Letter to the Lynah Faithful

Hockey games start at 7PM in the evening. Not at 7:10. Not 7:20. Section A should not be 75 percent empty when the puck drops, let alone when the starters are introduced or the Canadian national anthem is played.

I know I am sounding like a crotchety old alum, but part of the Lynah experience is being in the barn before the hockey game starts. If we're not going to win on the ice, at least we can win in the stands.

That said, I was pleased that most of you seemed to know the lyrics to My Old Cornell. The Yale fans that I was sitting with were impressed.

There are so many factors which play into this.

Broadly, you're seeing a response to changes in ticket policies which have out-priced many students and have resulted in unsold season tickets each of the last 2-3 years. Section A did not sell out this year. See this, and this, and this. It's not simply the most dedicated fans who have season tickets, but basically anyone who wants tickets.

You're also seeing a shift away from hockey as Cornell's sole big-time sport. Basketball now directly competes with hockey on many weekends, and I know there are people who have hockey season tickets but go to some of the basketball games instead. I was criticized on eLynah for saying this, but the RELATIVE MEDIOCRITY of the current Cornell hockey team also plays a role. This isn't a team which is going to go 15-0-0 at home (like 2003), or 15-0-1 at home (like 2005), or finish miles ahead of everyone else in the ECAC Hockey standings.

This is a good team, but not so much better than the Cornell basketball, wrestling, or lacrosse programs as to warrant nearly uncontested student attention.

More specifically, attendance always drops during this part of the spring semester. Freshmen who purchased tickets may begin to tire of attending hockey games on weekend nights, and the steady parade of formals, mixers, and pledge events make it difficult for Greeks to attend every game.

Perhaps, we're also seeing a bit of golden age syndrome. See, for example, Greenberg, Daniel S. (2001), “The Glorious Past,” Science, Money, and Politics, University of Chicago Press, ch. 4. I was able to attend some games at Lynah during those big years earlier in the decade, and I, too, recall a more active and early-arriving crowd, but there is no way to tell for certain.

The Lynah Faithful, which include both active students and alumni, remain the best fans in college hockey. But it's only natural to expect that fan enthusiasm will decline when the team drops off a little.

Where is Isaac?

I'm not sure how you can write an article of this length, on this subject, without mentioning Cornell professor Isaac Kramnick.

Following Up on Yale

How did I do with my pre-game post?

Cornell needs to focus on defense. Yale is a fast team and our slower d-men will often find themselves a little behind the play;

This wasn't as much of an issue as it was earlier in the season in New Haven. In that game, Cornell had some truly awful line changes which allowed cherry-picking Yale forwards to get ahead of our fresh defensemen. On the powerplay, however, Yale's rapid puck movement seemed to confuse our PKers and they had some nice back door opportunities.

despite this, we need to limit Yale to 3-5 powerplay chances.

Well, we limited them to five. Yale was officially 0-for-5, although their first goal came on a continuation of a PP. Things could have been much worse if Scrivens hadn't played so well. Yale, perhaps remembering how well our PP did earlier in the season, was very disciplined and only went to the box twice.

Hope for a strong performance from Scrivens,

Strong would be an understatement. This was an epic performance in a losing effort, along the lines of Dave McKee's game against Wisconsin in 2006.

and maybe the monster line of R. Nash-Greening-Kennedy will generate some offense.

They got the first goal and will probably be the top line through the end of the season. Look for Blake Gallagher's production to continue to decline with him off the top line.

In New Haven, Yale outshot Cornell 22-8 in the first period, but it was tied, 2-2, after one.

Similar feeling on Saturday. Tremendously outshot, but a tie game into overtime.

Although Yale didn't pull ahead until the end of the game, they outplayed Cornell for most of the night and certainly deserved the win.

Ha. You could argue that Ben Scrivens deserved the win more than anyone else did, but as a team, Yale certainly generated the most chances.

I know goaltending has been a liability for Yale this season, but Cornell has had a lot of trouble getting pucks on net.

It's hard to get shots on goal when you don't have the puck. Blase played pretty well, but he wasn't called upon to do much.

See our column in the Sun today for more on the Yale game and some striking parallels between Saturday's game and the loss to Princeton last February at Lynah.

A Cornellian in the Senate?

Come November, Cornell may have an alum serving in the U.S. Senate.

Mark Kirk (B.A., History, 1981) is the Republican nominee for the Senate election to replace Roland Burris. Burris was appointed last year by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich after Barack Obama moved to the White House.

U.S. News has some basic facts on Kirk here, and the New York Times profiled the race here. Kirk appears to hold a small lead over Democrat Alexi Giannoulias.

Perhaps the most interesting thing I found was this 2006 article about Kirk's then-wife on the Northwestern Law site, the school from which she holds a J.D.

Accepted at Northwestern Law School (“one of the happiest days of my life”), [Kimberly] Vertolli-Kirk was able to indulge her lifelong interest in international feminist jurisprudence in Thailand and India with a focus on women's reproductive rights, not the usual areas of study for Republican spouses.

In fact, while her husband sits on the right, Vertolli-Kirk leans left. “The role that government and religion play in the exercise of women's rights remains one of my primary intellectual interests,” she says. “If the NRCC knew how different we were politically, they'd probably want to find him a new wife!”

Funny, that. Mark and Kimberly divorced last year.

Update: Here today, Sun tomorrow.

Low Expectations

It's been a long time since I was this pessimistic about Cornell's chances of winning a hockey game. Cornell has struggled in most Saturday night games this year, particularly against decent teams. Yale is dangerous offensively (top offense in the NCAA) and got a lot of great looks at the net when the two teams played in New Haven. Scrivens was playing pretty well at that time; recently, he's been a little shaky. Cornell is 0-4-1 against Yale since 2007, including some blowouts. Even at home, I don't see the Big Red winning.

Cornell needs to focus on defense. Yale is a fast team and our slower d-men will often find themselves a little behind the play; despite this, we need to limit Yale to 3-5 powerplay chances. Hope for a strong performance from Scrivens, and maybe the monster line of R. Nash-Greening-Kennedy will generate some offense.

In New Haven, Yale outshot Cornell 22-8 in the first period, but it was tied, 2-2, after one. Although Yale didn't pull ahead until the end of the game, they outplayed Cornell for most of the night and certainly deserved the win.

I know goaltending has been a liability for Yale this season, but Cornell has had a lot of trouble getting pucks on net. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see good things happening tonight.

Worst Seating Chart Ever

Colgate wins the award for creating a seating chart which is completely useless. You can't see half of the rink, and have no idea which side is which. Amazing.

Cornell Law School Selectivity

With the ridiculous 52 percent jump in applications, it would make sense for the law school admissions committee to be more selective. They've stated that they don't want to increase the size of the entering class, so they can't be admitting too many more people this cycle than last cycle.

However, at least from a somewhat unscientific standpoint, it's not clear that this is happening.

The site LawSchoolNumbers.com is a pretty cool way to see who's getting into which law schools. Users record their important data (GPA and LSAT are basically the two main components of law school admissions) and then report their admissions decisions at various schools. LSN creates a neat scatterplot for each school based on these reports.

Here is Cornell's graph for last year's cycle (2008-09) - click for bigger and non-blurry. Green is admitted, yellow is waitlisted, and red is rejected. GPA is on the y-axis and LSAT score is on the x-axis.

And here is Cornell's graph for this year's cycle (2009-10):

Although we still have a couple more months of admissions decisions to add to this year's graph, it doesn't look like things are much different. Note that, in both cycles, an LSAT of 167 or higher is basically enough to gain acceptance. The GPA distributions are also pretty similar.

Of course, it may just be that the people who have received decisions already are the ones who applied the earliest, before Cornell realized they would be besieged by applications. The people who applied later in the cycle might have a significantly harder time getting in.

Still, at least so far, it doesn't appear (at least from this data) that Cornell has raised its admissions standards much this cycle. We'll see what that means for the size of the fall's incoming class.

Cornell Police Concerned About Deadhead Invasion

Ha...

To Cornell Greek Community:

This Sunday, February 14th there will be a concert hosted in Barton Hall featuring a band called Further. This band in part has members from the old Grateful Dead band and will certainly generate an active crowd of what are affectionately referred to as “Deadheads”. This fan base is very loyal to the Grateful Dead and their remaining members. We are confident that they will be showing up in large numbers as early as this Friday.

Our concern is that this particular group of fans will set up camp wherever they can and will certainly avail themselves to the warmth of any open building. Even if they do not have tickets to the venue, they will still come in the hopes of gaining access to the concert, and they will be seeking shelter from the elements over the weekend.

Please be extra vigilant in securing your buildings this Friday and throughout the weekend. [...]

Sgt. Philip D. Mospan
Coordinator, Office of Professional Development
Cornell University Police

Yahoo! Picks Up Pi Phi Story, Gets it Wrong

Yahoo!'s fashion section picks up on the Pi Phi story, a month after it happened, but doesn't really understand what's going on.

The document, which is meant to be followed by all Pi Phi pledges and was recently leaked to several online outlets, reveals the kind of oppressive, elitist fashion advice that's your basic "Mean Girls" nightmare.

No, no, no... the fashion suggestions were not for the pledges; they were for the sisters to make a good impression on potential new members.

Kudos to Cornell for once again fielding a request for comment and refusing to give in to the media's desire for some sort of scandal. There is nothing wrong with Pi Phi's suggestions, unless they sound completely unreasonable to you. In that case, you wouldn't be joining the sorority anyway.

Truth is, when I was president of my fraternity I could have written six pages about how I expected my brothers to look and act during rush week. We could have covered rush strategies, topics of conversation, things to avoid, etc. This document would have looked pretty bad to someone not affiliated with the Cornell Greek system, but to us, it's just business as usual. Fashion and appearances are very important during panhellenic rush, and no number of incredulous reactions from national media will change that.

More Riley Nash Bashing

The Edmonton Journal hockey beat writer fields three questions, and one of them is about Nash...

Q: How is the progress of former first-round draft choice Riley Nash, who is at Cornell University, coming? What's his prognosis for becoming an Oiler?

A: In 2007, the Oilers had three first-round picks, taking Sam Gagner, then Alex Plante and Nash, who was playing junior A at Salmon Arm (B. C. junior league) at No. 21. He had a scholarship to Cornell [bah...why do they always make this mistake?], and was anxious to go there because his defenceman-brother Brendon was also there. Frankly, the Oilers wish he'd gone to a higher-echelon hockey school that plays more games against better-calibre teams, like a North Dakota or Denver or Boston U. The 20-year-old forward only plays a 36-game schedule. He was a point-a-game guy his first two years, good but not great. He's a smallish forward, about 175 pounds. This year, he has a very pedestrian 14 points in 18 games. He's a long way from being an NHL player. He needs at least a full year in the American Hockey League, but he's only a junior at Cornell. If he decides to stay in school, we won't be seeing him for awhile. He's down on the Oilers' list of prospects, certainly behind Jordan Eberle, Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson, Jeff Petry, Anton Lander and Linus Omark.

Cornell Gets Back Some State Money

If I understand this correctly, some of Cornell's funding will be restored, at the expense of SUNY schools.

Other amendments proposed by the governor Tuesday would:

* Reallocate a portion of proposed reductions to the State University of New York statutory colleges ($3.2 million for Cornell University and $304,000 for Alfred University) to SUNY state-operated campuses to ensure that cuts are more equitable. Statutory colleges are parts of private universities that receive state funding.

Vote for Colin Greening

Greening is up for the Lowe's Senior Class Award. Greening carries an impressive 3.95 GPA, and he's involved in a ton of community service activities in the Ithaca area. You can read more about his qualifications here.

You can vote for Greening once each day at this page. Text messaging is also available. Fan voting counts for one-third of balloting. Greening is currently in first place with around 32 percent of the vote.

Cornell athletes have had a lot of success with the Lowe's Award. Hockey forward Topher Scott '08 was a nominee for the award two years ago. In lacrosse, Matt McMonagle '07 won the inaugural award (with Mitch Belisle '07 as a finalist). Michael Carbolotti '08 was another finalist the following year. Last year, Max Seibald '09 won the award on his way to winning every individual award under the sun.

EZAC

Remember how the ECAC was supposed to be good this year, with three teams (Yale, Cornell, Princeton) ranked in the top 10 in polls at the start of the season?

As of right now, Cornell is the only ECAC team making the NCAA tournament, and that's because we're leading the conference so we're expected to win the ECAC tournament. Of course, I don't think that will happen (think 6-2 Harvard in 2006 and 5-0 Yale in 2009). Either way, it looks like it'll take a strong tournament run for two ECAC teams to make the NCAA tournament.

Bracketology has us in the East Regional in Albany, which is perfect. Unfortunately, our bad seed means that we have to get through Wisconsin, and then either North Dakota or Boston College, to get to the Frozen Four. No Bemidji State this time.

East Regional:

Cornell vs. Wisconsin
North Dakota vs. Boston College

Let's see here... Wisconsin is certainly dangerous; case in point: beat the U-18 team 7-1 (Cornell lost to them 3-2). North Dakota is better than us, as became clear a few weeks ago at Lynah. Since mid-January, Boston College has beaten Harvard 6-0, toppled UMass 7-1, and trounced Maine 6-1. Hmm.

Yes, yes, things change, and Cornell's seed will hopefully improve a little. But even with improvement we're looking at a 3 or 4 seed in the NCAA tournament, which means a very tough two games to get to the FF.

Starting a New Sorority

Back when we were freshmen, I would joke with a few of my friends about starting a new fraternity. When I was on IFC, we voted to grant probationary membership to a new, transfer-oriented fraternity (Theta Xi) which had been active on Cornell's campus some decades ago.

The process for establishing a sorority on Cornell's campus is different from that for establishing a new fraternity, and I don't think that Delta Phi Epsilon will be successful in its efforts to re-establish at Cornell.

What D Phi E has going for it is that it owns a house at Cornell; Alpha Xi Delta's former house on the Knoll is actually owned by D Phi E's national organization. The sorority was initially chartered at Cornell in 1962.

D Phi E also (from what I hear) seems to have a large number of Cornell women interested in joining. They've been mixing with fraternities and participating in events as a cohesive house.

Unfortunately, D Phi E has too much going against it. First, the current sororities will have to vote in favor of extension. Such a vote failed last spring, and it will probably fail again. With fewer houses, it's easier for sororities to make quota, and they have more of a say over which members they want. Cornell lost a sorority last year (Alpha Omicron Pi) because they weren't recruiting enough new members, and it might be a little premature to bring one back. I doubt the vote for extension will pass.

Second, even if the vote for extension passes, Panhellenic will invite delegates from any of the other national sororities (there are 26) to make a presentation to Cornell. D Phi E will have an advantage here for the aforementioned reasons, but they will still need to compete against sororities like Chi Omega and Delta Zeta which are quite large nationally and have thriving chapters as other upstate schools.

I'm not sure how many sororities will have to vote in favor of extension -- 9 of 11 so they have 75%? -- but I can't say that things look good for D Phi E at this point.

Drake for Slope Day

The Sun article...

Meh.

In the tradition of fellow rappers T.I. in 2007 and Asher Roth in 2009, I expect Drake to give an awful performance. On the other hand, he's had some big commercial hits which will be fun to hear in person.

I thought Slope Day headed in the right direction in 2008, when they brought Gym Class Heroes as the headliner. GCH wasn't the most talented or successful act, but they gave a good show. Rappers just don't sound particularly good live.

Of course, with Drake, there's always the chance he'll do something like this:

McKee Charges Dropped?

I've gotten some comments that the rape charges against former Cornell hockey goalie David McKee '07 have been dropped. His Wikipedia page says charges were dropped on January 29.

However, I can't find any media reports about the McKee case, and the Orange County DA's office still has McKee listed under "cases in the news," with a date set in April for the trial to begin.

It seems likely that the charges have been dropped, but I haven't seen anything confirmed. I'm too lazy to call California to find out directly.

Anyone have information?

Cornell Alum Sells Plane to Iran

and gets in trouble for it.

Balli Aviation Ltd., a subsidiary of the UK-based Balli Group PLC, pleaded guilty today in D.C. district court to a two-count criminal indictment that it illegally exported a commercial Boeing 747 plane from the U.S. to Iran, the Justice Department said.

Under the plea agreement, Balli Aviation Ltd. agreed to pay a $2 million criminal fine, a $15 million civil settlement, and to be placed on corporate probation for five years.

Balli Aviation's CEO holds both a B.S. and M.S. from Cornell.

The Hockey Season

Talking about the Cornell hockey team after they lose, which is what happened on Saturday, usually divides people into two camps. There are those who shrug off the loss as a minor bump in the road, as a rare blemish in an otherwise solid season. And there are others who view the loss as a coming of the apocalypse and are ready to throw in the towel.

I exaggerate a bit, but it's not too far from the truth.

Personally, I think I'm somewhere in the middle. I haven't been "sold" on this year's team, and I don't think I will ever be. But I don't think we're a bad team.

I don't want to play down some of our good results this season. The victories over UNH and UND were legitimate, and we've played some great games against other ECAC Hockey teams.

But don't for one second think that this team is anywhere close to a top 10 team nationally, as it has been in the polls for the last few weeks.

Take the North Dakota weekend. NoDak completely outplayed Cornell over that weekend, and it took an amazing performance by Ben Scrivens to steal a win that first night. Just like a hot pitcher in baseball can steal a game against a better team, a great goaltending performance can steal a victory against a superior hockey team. It was great to win, but there should be no doubt in our minds that North Dakota is a better hockey team.

But what of North Dakota? They're 8-9-3 in the WCHA. In the ECAC, they'd be at least 16-2-2 by this point. Their road trip to Cornell was bookended by weekend sweeps at the hands of Minnesota and Denver.

Imagine playing in a conference in which a team like North Dakota is routinely swept by other teams in the conference. Compared to the ECAC, the talent differential is striking.

Cornell can certainly beat a WCHA team in the NCAA tournament. Look at that 1-0 victory this season, or the games in 2005 and 2006 in which strong defense and goaltending came oh-so-close to earning the 'W' for the Big Red. But Cornell would certainly be the underdog in that match-up.

The UNH win was a great game for the Red, but keep in mind that UNH had yet to win an out-of-conference game at that point. The Big Red had just been humiliated down in Florida, so they certainly were fired up for the UNH game. Without that added spark, I'm not sure we would have looked so good.

As I've written previously, Cornell blew major chances to make a statement against Yale, Quinnipiac (in November), Boston University, and Colorado College. 0-3-1 in those games, with the tie coming after blowing a two-goal lead in the third period.

I'll take the Cornell team which toppled New Hampshire and match them up against any team in the country. But that's not the team we tend to see every night. Recall the 2006-7 team which beat UNH 5-2 over Winter Break and ended the season during the ECAC Quarterfinal Round.

If I could describe this year's team in a paragraph...

We're a top-four ECAC team which relies on superb goaltending to remain in games. We shut down weak teams in the third period to preserve small leads. Our powerplay was phenomenal early in the season, but has since turned into an embarrassing display of telegraphed passes and poor shot selection. Offensively, no one is having a particularly bad year, but no one has stepped up to be the difference-maker in key games. Defensively, we take too many dumb penalties and allow too many odd-man rushes to win big games.

Cornell will make the final weekend in Albany, and I think they'll make the NCAA tournament. (Although the Pairwise is crazy these days, with Cornell going from 8th (2 seed) to 15th (out of the tournament) after Saturday's game...) Maybe Scrivens will bail them out and they'll make the Frozen Four. Or maybe we'll sit at home this spring, wondering what might have happened if Riley Nash played to his potential. Or if we'd showed up to play in Florida. Or if our powerplay hadn't tanked halfway through the season. Or if we'd been more disciplined. Or if...

Back Soon

Sorry folks, it was a hectic weekend on the road to CT and NJ. Check back tomorrow for some real posts.

Cornell's Poll Bubble

The Big Red is up to #5 in the national polls, which is quite different from our current #13 in the more-important pairwise.

Especially after seeing how Cornell played against #9 North Dakota a couple of weeks back, I don't think we deserve to be in the top 10, much less the top 5.

As usually happens, the Big Red will stumble a bit and our ranking will fall back to Earth. Such an event could certainly occur this weekend. I'll try to do a weekend preview later tonight or tomorrow morning.

More Cornell Fans Going to Away Games

The Cornell ticket office has no tickets remaining to the away hockey games at Quinnipiac and Princeton. I don't remember this happening last year.

Forecast looks bad for Saturday's game at Princeton (the current winter storm warning calls for 8-12 inches in central Jersey), so I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of empty seats. That, and the general apathy among Princetonians for college hockey.

Grade Deflation

So, Princeton students are griping about faculty-imposed grade deflation.

The percentage of Princeton grades in the A range dipped below 40 percent last year, down from nearly 50 percent when the policy was adopted in 2004. The class of 2009 had a mean grade-point average of 3.39, compared with 3.46 for the class of 2003. In a survey last year by the undergraduate student government, 32 percent of students cited the grading policy as the top source of unhappiness (compared with 25 percent for lack of sleep).

Grade deflation is one of those things which sounds good in theory until it starts happening to you.

At Cornell, grading depends a lot on the type of class you take. I can remember only one time when I was the victim of grade deflation. It was a history class; our grade was primarily based on two pre-lim exams and a final. The tests were graded as points/100, which was converted on the standard scale (i.e. 88%=B+). I did well on the second pre-lim, but apparently the rest of the my section did as well. So even though I received around 90% credit on the test, I was told that the professor had lowered all of our grades. My 90% counted as a B-, which dropped my final grade to a B+.

I realize that professors, from time to time, make an effort to curb grade inflation in their particular classes. But many Cornell professors seem happy to reward hard work with an A. If you have 15 people in a seminar, and everyone works hard and has a genuine interest in the material, why not give everyone A's?

The Princeton article talks about job competitiveness, and the same thing could be said for graduate school. People looking at our transcripts aren't always going to know that it was easier for me to earn an A than it was for my competition from Princeton.

Of course, publishing median grades on transcripts was supposed to negate this issue. That A- doesn't look so good when the median grade is an A.

Denver Goalie Supporting Blake Gallagher?

Denver goalie Marc Cheverie, whose own name has been floated as a contender for the Hobey Baker, is a member of the "Blake Gallagher for Hobey Baker" Facebook group.

Cheverie played on the Nanaimo Clippers, which has served as a feeder program to Cornell recently. The Devins, Mike Garman, and Colin Greening would have played on the Clippers with Cheverie.

Cheverie is also Facebook friends with Gallagher, and they both hail from Nova Scotia.

Personally I think Scrivens is a more deserving candidate than Gallagher or anyone else on Cornell's roster. Gallagher has very little chance to win the award, since his production has tailed off recently and his 13-12-25 line is nowhere close to RPI forward Chase Polacek's 18-22-40, or Michigan State forward Corey Tropp's 19-19-38.

Harvard Should Quit the Beanpot

The Beanpot is the annual tournament between the four major Boston-area collegiate hockey teams: BU, BC, Northeastern, and Harvard.

Every year, Harvard's desire to play in the tournament forces the ECAC to make schedule adjustments so Harvard can play more conference games earlier.

And nearly every year, the Crimson's pathetic performance in the Beanpot thoroughly embarrasses the ECAC and hurts decent ECAC teams in the Pairwise Rankings by providing two opportunities for Hockey East teams to beat up on an ECAC squad.

Last night, in the semifinal, Harvard lost 6-0 to Boston College. Six. Nothing.

Harvard hasn't won the Beanpot since 1993. This is a feat which requires winning two hockey games, and Harvard hasn't been able to do that for 17 years.

In fact, Harvard has only made it to the championship game three times since that 1993 tournament. Three first-round wins in 17 years.

On the ECAC side of things, Harvard has actually been somewhat helpful to Cornell this season. The Crimson beat Quinnipiac, Yale, and Union in the last month; at various times this season those three teams have been battling Cornell for first place.

But, man, does Harvard suck in the Beanpot. (Actually, in all non-conference games. They don't have an out-of-conference win in two years.) Why don't they quit and let Bentley or UMass-Lowell play instead?

Update: Thanks to the Beanpot, Cornell moved from #10 to #13 in the Pairwise. BU, Michigan State, and Colorado College all moved ahead of the Big Red. Thanks, Harvard!

Dave McKee Rape Trial Pushed Back

Although the trial was originally scheduled to begin on January 19, things have been pushed back.

Pre-trial hearing is scheduled for Friday at 9 am.

Trial is scheduled to begin April 6.

Giving Credit to Ben Scrivens

This week's column is about Cornell's senior goalie.

Although we wrote that Scrivens hasn't gotten much Hobey hype this season, there was this from last week:

Also, keep an eye on goaltender Ben Scrivens of Cornell for a finalist spot. Marc Cheverie of Denver had a rough weekend against Wisconsin, and Scrivens posted a shutout of North Dakota on Friday. As it currently stands, Scrivens is tops in the nation among true everyday starters in both save percentage and goals-against average, and while that has been said about a number of Cornell goalies, it’s also gotten just about all of them into the top 10.

Scrivens won't win, but a spot in the final 10 would be a nice way to close out a solid Cornell career. That, and a national championship.

Cornell Basketball Cracks Top 25

This was a great weekend for hockey, but it was an even better weekend for Cornell basketball.

They blew out Dartmouth and Harvard to improve to 4-0 in Ivy play. Harvard was expected to challenge Cornell for the Ivy title this year; the Big Red won 86-50.

The Cornell basketball blog has the details.