Cornell to Play Colgate in... Newark

After selling out Madison Square Garden in 2007 and 2009 for highly anticipated Thanksgiving weekend match-ups with Boston University, Cornell hockey will be moving slightly south this fall to play Colgate at the Prudential Center in Newark.

It's easy to see the logic here. Cornell's two games with BU have been sellouts, highly profitable for both schools and for the venue. Cornell and Colgate have substantial alumni bases (as well as student fans) in the NYC area. And Cornell certainly earns more money over Thanksgiving by sending the team to play in a big arena instead of shipping them (via Canada) to North Dakota for two games, as they did in 2008. Perhaps Athletics is trying to start an annual tradition of Thanksgiving hockey games in the NYC area. It is anticipated that Cornell and BU will face off in MSG again in 2011.

However, this is a disappointing decision in terms of hockey. The Cornell-BU rivalry is fueled by all of those years in the 1970s and 1980s when the two teams battled for supremacy in the ECAC. Moreover, both Cornell and BU have continued to battle for their respective conference titles and NCAA appearances in the years since. Colgate, aside from its geographic proximity to Cornell, is a mediocre hockey program with little emotional significance to Cornell fans.

Over the past few years, Cornell has had the misfortune several times of playing ECAC teams in a neutral venue. In December, Cornell lost to Princeton in Florida in a terrible game. The previous year, they tied Colgate in Florida. The previous year, they tied Clarkson in Florida.

The key is this: as an Ivy team with a responsibility to schedule home games to earn revenue, Cornell has few opportunities to leave Ithaca to play a significant non-conference game. The few high-level non-conference opponents over the last couple of years, such as North Dakota, BU, and UNH, have provided entertaining hockey and a good challenge for the Big Red. You don't want to waste these opportunities by playing mediocre teams which you play twice each year anyway.

Assuming the Red Raiders once again finish in the middle of the ECAC and fail to qualify as a Team Under Consideration, this matchup has little benefit to Cornell. Winning or losing this game in Newark isn't going to have much of an impact on Cornell's season.

I really hope that Cornell was trying to schedule a big game for Thanksgiving -- maybe Boston College, or Northeastern (as was rumored), or another eastern team with a lot of NYC alumni -- but that the arrangement fell through and they had to turn to Colgate. Given the scope of the opportunity, the result is disappointing.

Update: After thinking some more, there is a way this may work to Cornell's advantage. If the Big Red consider the Newark game to be their "home" game against Colgate, and they move the game in Hamilton to a Tuesday (as was done this past year), that frees up a weekend on the schedule. Cornell could bring in (or travel to) a quality opponent at that time, or else have more flexibility to schedule some sort of home-and-home across two different weekends. But this is probably just wishful thinking on my part.