It is that special time of year again. On East Hill, it is the most exciting time for sports fans. This is when the mettle of our teams is tested. They are weighed and found to be better than their opponents. Okay, yeah, yeah, few spin this yarn about the postseason more than this writer. So, why does this writer find himself ambivalent about the beginnings of these playoffs?

The reason is multifaceted. And, I find myself likening the emotions to the recent hit Blank Space from Taylor Swift (as the title of this post implies). Hey, if the men can rely on Shake It Off for Pink the Rink, why can't I coast on Miss Swift's coattails and use her lyrics to capture the dichotomy of this season for the Lady Rouge?

Like the star-crossed lovers featured in Blank Space, the love affair between the Lynah Faithful and their team has been a tortured ecstasy-giving one. A four-loss slide began the regular season. This writer did not get down on this team, as any readers will recall. Coaches Doug Derraugh and Dani Bilodeau, and Paula Voorheis all reiterated that unlike the red-hot regular season of last campaign, their goal was to get better and crescendo toward and deep into the postseason.

This writer did not worry. I bought into it. It made perfect sense in terms of sports theory. The goal should be to reach peak performance at the right time because the ability of a team to keep that form for a prolonged amount of time, say, four weeks in February and March, is exceedingly rare. So, Where Angels Fear to Tread bore that torch proudly. 

We were rewarded. Brown, Yale, and Colgate were defeated in seemingly easy order. The disciplined execution of Minnesota-Duluth proved too much for a team in its fourth week that sought to get better over the course of the regular season. Heck, the 2-0 loss in the second game felt almost uplifting because of the response it showed. It was all okay. It was part of the plan.

The streak began next. This is when the early-season narrative picked up epic amounts of steam. The clouds billowed for weeks. In 16 games, the Big Red suffered defeat but once. Cornell won 12 of those contests. Those victories were arranged neatly in three sets of four-game winning streaks. Each of the three included teams that were Cornell's equal or superior at that point in the season. All was according to plan, right?

The unraveling did not occur in the lone loss in that run. There was much to be proud of in that contest. The Red played with a very abbreviated bench when the Crimson scored two goals and added an empty-net tally. Paula Voorheis wowed fans of every partisanship that evening much like she did in New Haven. Crimson fans leaving the event rightfully were heard wondering if their preferred team really won if Voorheis outplayed Maschmeyer, Cornell had a shortened bench, and, according to them, most importantly, Jill Saulnier did not take the ice.

This is not a season recap or a postmortem, so a retelling of the dramatics of the victories over Colgate and Quinnipiac is not required. Senior weekend was when the unraveling occurred. Could there be a more alarming time than that for question marks to emerge? Two weeks removed from the playoffs, Cornell put itself in the midst of its worst losing slide since the beginning of the season. A zero-point weekend when the program sends off some of the most celebrated players in the modern era of Cornell hockey is unacceptable. Say what you wish about the disallowed goal against Dartmouth. Is a one-point senior weekend that much better?

Which team will take the ice in the postseason? The one that found a way to put over four times as many goals as Chelsea Laden averaged allowing past her to guarantee victory or the one that acted like an early goal would defeat an archrival buoyed by giving Boston College its first loss just days prior? From fanatical Lynah Faithful to hard-working clutch play, Cornell hockey is supposed to be on another plane in the postseason. However, only one of those efforts proximate to the postseason resembles what will be required to win in February and March.

All of which is why Taylor Swift blares in my ears right now. She is quite right. "Magic, madness, heaven, sin." All capture how this season has felt to this point. It is truly an exciting insanity, but certainly not the that one any of us expected by this point.

This was not supposed to be a down year. It has been already in one regard. The fourth seed with which this team enters the postseason is the lowest accompanying a Cornell team in five playoffs. The good news for the Lady Rouge is that Cornell hockey in general does not remember teams for their seeding or brackets. It remember them for their moments and triumphs. This team has the makings of one that can be triumphant, and this writer knows with its players, it will be memorable.

There is a corps of players who have made sure that this is not a down season. 

Emily Fulton has made those outside of East Hill realize that she is a bona fide superstar of women's hockey. A better pure goal scorer cannot be found. 

The celebrity that is Jess Brown has outgrown the twittersphere and playoff goal realm, and now explodes consistently on the scoreboard making her always tenacious efforts all the more obvious to even casual fans. 

Taylor Woods does not get as much praise as she may deserve from any quarter. Anyone whose listened or watched a game should know that her name and number are integral to Cornell's success at both ends of the ice. This season, Woods has become a linchpin for this team's success.

Then, at the other extreme, there is the freshman phenom in carnelian. In all of college hockey, there is probably only one freshman whose name has been spoken more. Frankly, when Erin O'Connor is mentioned in opposing venues, one in particular, the air of foreboding is far greater than any associated with any other popularly referenced freshmen, deservedly.

Finally, Paula Voorheis's play warrants her nickname as "Big Paula." Last season, she was playoff-tested. This season, she has proven that she can steal games and keep Cornell in games when momentary lapses may have deserved another fate for the Red skaters.

The last four games of the season, including the disappointing senior weekend and the home-ice-preserving weekend in the Capital District, Cornell recorded 29 points. The senior class, representing 23.1% of the skaters who saw ice time, was credited with 62.1% of those points. Taylor Woods contributed over a quarter of the non-senior points. The new stars of Cornell hockey will be needed to drive any deep postseason push for this team.

These playoffs begin in trying fashion. This writer is not sure what other members of the Lynah Faithful or this team see in St. Lawrence, but what I see in St. Lawrence is the makings of another Mercyhurst. No, this is not a commentary of the style of play of the Saints compared to the Lakers. This is a psychological and strategic commentary.

Mercyhurst is the bane of Cornell's existence. It is to the women's program what New Hampshire has been to the men's program. It is a program that is historic, but less decorated, that slays our giants that were expected to claim national glory. A brief history. Cornell dominated the Lakers, 4-0, in the regular season of the 2012-13 season. The Big Red succumbed to them, 4-3, in the national quarterfinals at Lynah Rink. A win and a tie marked Cornell's record against Mercyhurst last season until the playoffs. The Lakers again defeated the Big Red at Lynah Rink to advance to the Frozen Four.

How is St. Lawrence the same or even remotely similar? The second wave of Cornell's postseason dominance (the first was 1976-81) began in 2010. The postseason in the East has belonged to Cornell since March 2010. The Big Red suffered only one postseason setback in ECAC Hockey tournament play since then. That setback? The 2012 ECAC Hockey Championship Final. The opponent? St. Lawrence at Lynah Rink.

The plot thickens when one considers that Cornell earned a win and a tie against St. Lawrence during the regular season. The same record that Cornell had earned against Mercyhurst last season. A record that may create a very, very dangerous sense of superiority and premature finality about this series with St. Lawrence. 

Cornell cannot underestimate the Saints like it may have twice underestimated the Lakers. Otherwise, the Lady Rouge will suffer the same fate that it has two postseasons in a row to a nearly perfect analog to the Saints. Yes, it is true that this go-around, the Saints will need to claim two victories out of Lynah Rink rather than one like it needed in 2012. This Saints squad is very talented. Don't think so? Why did it finish in a tie for points in the regular season with the Big Red then?

Two games in the postseason from Lynah Rink is a tall task to ask from any opponent. St. Lawrence will be ready with its ladder. If Cornell gives St. Lawrence too much on the ice or give the Saints too little respect, the openings will be there for the Laurentians to shatter the dreams of the Cornellians. This Cornell team is great, but the last few weeks prove that it is mortal.

This writer will not regale you with statistics at this time. If the playoffs continue, there will be a time for that. However, this writer will say, and I am sure others among the Faithful share the sentiment, that we enter the postseason with a little more hope and a little less confidence than we have in recent seasons. We know better than we have other seasons that this run could be remembered forever or become a saddening collapse in proverbial flames. All is the curve of the playoffs.

The mindset of one of the team's leaders is certainly in the right place.

A new season begins. It is time for this team to write its narrative. The postseason is indeed a blank space. The blank space of opportunity. The vacuous blank space of uncertainty. The blank space on the ECAC Hockey Championship trophy where each team hopes to write its name. We find ourselves hoping that Cornell's latter-season triumphant run was not "a nightmare dressed like a daydream." And, that in March, we will realize "the high was worth the pain."

One point. The weekend can be summarized in two words, one figure. One point. Oh, but what a glorious point it was.

The point was sweet not just because it came against Harvard and grave odds, but because the way the weekend unfolded as one continuous narrative. The Red stumbled out of the gate in spectacular fashion. Not since the atrocious affair at Appleton Arena had Cornell done so much to put itself down so quickly. 

Dartmouth converted on a blown defensive assignment in front of Mitch Gillam just 19 seconds after the puck dropped. The Big Green's relentless effort was more to credit on the second tally than the Red's mistakes. Nevertheless, a team living in the shadow of scoring woes buried itself below a two-goal mountain in the first eight minutes and 11 seconds of a roadtrip.

Cornell did something unexpected. Something that floored even this writer. It shook my easy-onset pessimism. The Big Red went to the locker room with the game even. This Cornell hockey team, the same team that has scored fewer than two goals in ten of its previous contests, the very team that took 184:44 to find its third goal of the season, found a way to get two goals in just over seven minutes. It was unbelievable. It happened.

I am very bullish on this team when it plays its game. The game for this team has been one of patience, biding time, and pouncing in transition. Surrendering a two-goal lead sacrifices all of those stratagems. Cornell found a way to do what I did not think was possible with a gritty but low-scoring, defense-first game plan. With more parts grit and tenacity than garish reliance on talent, Cole Bardreau and Joakim Ryan (yes, be forewarned ECAC Hockey, the wonder from the Garden State has potted one) connected to each other on the Red's two-goals-in-just-over-seven-minutes effort.

No matter how valiant the first-period effort was. A foolishly tenacious choice to press late in the third period generated a mismatch that Dartmouth's Eric Neiley converted. No moral victory for the Big Red could wipe Bob Gaudet's near-emoji-like grin (he must not have forgotten about 1980).

With the moon's reflection still glinting off of Gaudet's smirk in the rear-view mirror, Cornell packed up for Cambridge. It was at Harvard that Cornell nearly perfected its lesson from the weekend. Cornell scored first. Harvard put the Ithacans in a deficit two times. Each time, Cornell found an answer in decreasingly less time. A win would have been divine. A tie was satisfying.

A hard-fought 3-2 losing effort and a 3-3 tie made this writer believe. Why? Some things new emerged. A vicious desperation that demands that the team does what is necessary to grapple in the contest. Problems found their solutions in short time. Cornell never quit in either contest. The errors of the previous evening were corrected at Harvard. Cornell found a way.

The second half of this season has seen the diversification of Cornell's game. An eerie soothing approach that lulls opponents into a false sense of security and time has been improved with an ECAC Hockey-leading power-play unit. Opponents are lured still to their own demise, but now Cornell has more means by which to mine victories. Four of the seven league contests from which Cornell has gotten points saw the Schaferian power play convert on at least one opportunity.

The Red power play is lethal, but Cornell has not become overly reliant on it. It can be depended upon, but it is not needed. It is sufficient, but not necessary to Cornell's success. Frame it however you wish. The same can be said of Cornell's scoring during its most recent stretch run. 

Cornell played ten games over the last month. A player in a carnelian sweater found the back of the net for the first time this season in five of those contests. Harvard was lucky enough to be the opponent that ushered two players in one game to the right side of the scoring column on Saturday. Only four skaters on Cornell's roster have not scored a goal. Two of those goal-less players have suited up for fewer than ten contests. 

As the playoffs approach, offense by committee has become more than a talking point. Madison Dias, for example, broke his goal-less performance this season at Union. He has added already a breakway goal against Princeton in the short time of a month. The East-Hill natives have become a dangerous team from top to bottom.

Last weekend was one of efforts rewarded. This writer identified the horror of Joakim Ryan's and Jared Fiegl's tipping on the verge of breaking their scoring droughts. The nightmare that might have come was that both would be so desperately close with all of their skill to scoring, but not find their touch until it was too late. You can hit the snooze button on that alarm. It is not too late. Ryan scored on a cross-ice connection from Bardreau, a play befitting of the nation's most talented defenseman, against Dartmouth. Meanwhile, Fiegl decided that dramatics may typify his scoring when he roofed a game-tying shot past Michalek at Bright-Landry. Both have been working hard and deserved to gouge out their goose eggs in the goal column.

Fiegl was not the only one rewarded for tremendous efforts this season. Since the first period of the Frozen Apple against Penn State, Jeff Kubiak has generated considerable offense and contributed to the wearing down of opponents. It was Kubiak, not John Knisley, John McCarron, nor Joel Lowry, who first instilled fear in the hearts of the Nittany Lions. The Illinois native has been no less integral since Madison Square Garden. He deserved more obvious recognition for the new level of his game. He found his reward in the slot at Lynah East. A five-hole tally against Harvard is undeniable.

Keep an eye on Kubiak. His game is much improved from last season. He does the little things almost every shift that give Cornell the edge with which it wins. As good as Kubiak's play is, he is not the somewhat unexpected standout star of this team right now. From Chicago, one would need to traverse the paths of four Great Lakes to find this star's hometown.

Cole Bardreau is the standout of this team. The second half of the season has been his play thing. He has tallied four goals in eight games since he answered the goal of his former World-Juniors teammate on January 23. Bardreau has contributed at least a point in eight of the Big Red's 12 games since it resumed ECAC Hockey play. Half of those have been multiple-point outings for Cornell's yeoman. 

Bardreau's pace places him among the eight highest point earners in ECAC Hockey in the second half. No player's style nor career fits better the mentality of this team. Cole Bardreau epitomizes grit and swagger. He plays with a chip. He outworks opponents. Having battled what could have been a life-threatening injury during his sophomore season, he has become a senior standout who shoulders a workload that few would have predicted him to carry early in his career. 

None of his offensive improvement has come at the expense of his defensive-forward game that gained international attention at the 2013 World Juniors. Bardreau blocks shots and kills penalties like few forwards in college hockey. Like most of the great forwards in Cornell hockey history, his defensive game is as sound as his offensive game. His play on special teams has an added flash as he is tied for the team's lead in power-play goals and leads ECAC Hockey in number of second-half power-play goals. In other words, like this team over the season, Bardreau adapted his game to find success.

RPI and Union are two teams that most have written off undeservedly. The outing at Houston Field House proved why Cornell needs to afford the Engineers an abundance of respect. They are a fast, skilled team that can gel at any moment. Lapses that last mere shifts could spell the unraveling of a team if surrendered against RPI. Seth Appert's squad has not engineered a victory since demolishing Cornell. We all know how much cherry despises carnelian. It is about as much as Jason Kasdorf loves Lynah Rink. Give Troy's Winnipegger a great Lynah reunion.

The Dutchmen are on a three-game skid. Oddly, their slide is half as long as the one on the other side of the Hudson. However, Union cannot be taken lightly. The Dutchmen are the defending national champions. A team like Union whose roster knows only post-season success cannot be trusted to remain down. Union will be looking to play spoiler over its last four contests in anticipation of trying to mount a playoff defense of its three consecutive Whitelaw Cups. 

Union will click at some point. Its roster foretells it. Union is the only ECAC Hockey team with five of the league's top-20 points-per-game producers. RPI and Union are tough opponents for the last weekend of the regular season at Lynah Rink. Friday is Pink The Rink. The Engineers should feel no less awkward and uncomfortable than they do in Lynah's carnelian glow. Saturday is Senior Night. The seniors deserve a character win before the festivities. Union will test resolve.

Last weekend proved one thing clearly. This team is ready to win. It will gnash and claw to claim victory. It did not even consider quitting when it collapsed behind a two-goal margin early at Dartmouth or gave Harvard two leads. Patience is a potent force for this team. It waits for its opponents to make mistakes. That is this team's default setting. 

This writer learned something that he did not expect last weekend; something that Mike Schafer did not even expect. This team adapts even when playing with desperation. When forced out of its preferred style, Cornell erased three different leads in two days. Half of Cornell's wins this season have come after Cornell surrendered the initial goal. However, until last weekend, two in-game sequences began the drudging march to defeat: a deficit greater than one goal or surrendering a late third-period lead.

Those situations no longer relegate this team to disappointment. The energy with which this team relentlessly pursued victory was invigorating. Neither the length of the season nor hours less rest from a moved face-off time stifled the fire of this team. This team knows what it wants to do and what it needs to do to do it. It seems unfazed and unfatigued. Desperation and adaptability have become it. No wager against this team is safe.

Two entered. Neither fell. Well, unless you ask Michael Ledecky of The Harvard Crimson who likened the 3-3 tie at the Bright-Landry Hockey Center to the famous headline-generating Harvard-Yale 29-29 gridiron result of 1968. Most of the moral victories of the game were carnelian-hued. The dejection on the faces of the handful of Harvard fans in attendance proved that. So, Ledecky is absolutely correct in that regard. Cornell did in fact defeat Harvard, 3-3. One stubborn reality rears its head.

This contest differed in one key way from its November 23, 1968 analog. No, it is not the fact Agent K took no shifts at Bright-Landry. It is the fact that, unlike the game in the Fall of 1968, this is not the ultimate crescendo to a season's final stanza. Cornell and Harvard both have games in the regular season unplayed in a last push for seeding. Even more pointedly, there is the palpable sense from both sides that this was the penultimate chapter in the rivalry this season.

This may make more poignant Ledecky's point. The game may become an unraveling or a recalibrating for the vanquished and the victor. Will a losing tie motivate Harvard? Will a victorious stalemate sate a once-hungry Cornell? Will another demoralizing result prove anomalous the Crimson's win over Colgate? Did the Big Red find its sterner timber in late heroics? The lack of finality is what makes this last chapter in the Cornell-Harvard series most interesting. But, did either team leave the ice with what it needed?

This writer will not belabor the Harvard side of things. The gravity of a game and the trajectory of a season can be gleaned if a team's most talented players deliver. Jimmy Vesey tallied three points on Saturday. A puck did not find its way past Mitch Gillam without first touching Vesey's stick. Three points is not that gaudy for a player as talented as Vesey. Consider that three points equal Vesey's point production over all other games that he has played against Cornell. The leader of the Crimson may be finding his playoff form with his team in tow.

The psychological effects of Saturday's game for Cornell are immense. No, not just because the Red clutched a win from Crimson jaws. It is the manner in which it happened. The few Crimson fans (yes, there were fans there) knew more than the Lynah Faithful give them credit. A contingent of them confessed to this writer that it was their first game of the season in Bright-Landry. However, their inexperience belied actual knowledge, osmotic or learned. When Vesey tucked away Harvard's third goal with just 5:02 remaining in regulation, Harvard fans knew they had won.

It seems that far too often Cornell has found itself in that situation. The net ripples. Heavy heads turn to inspect the clock. Fewer than ten minutes remain. Time remains, but the game is over. It may shock you to learn that this sequence of events has happened but three times before Saturday's contest. Princeton, Quinnipiac, and Dartmouth scored goals in the final ten minutes of regulation. Cornell could not find the equalizer. It fell in each of those road contests.

This is not to say that Cornell has not attempted to make valiant comebacks. Red skaters score semi-regularly when chasing a game late in a contest. Need a comeback? Matt Buckles may be the forward to whom to turn. The sophomore has scored one-third of his goals late in the third period trying to mount a comeback. Despite his best efforts, he has failed to inspire a game-tying or game-winning rally. A late goal against Cornell was the Big Red's death sentence.

The Harvard fans in Cambridge knew that whether they were aware of it or not. The on-ice Crimson thought that they had made Cornell die by the same sword that enlivened the Ithacans at Lynah Rink. The Cantabs should have scored 4:22 later.

The public addresser had not finished announcing the last goal before he was backlogged. Teemu Tiitinen and Jared Fiegl did not make the Lynah Faithful wait long to ponder if this late goal would sink Cornell as three others had, including one the previous night. 1:03 was how long the Crimson enjoyed the belief that they had won the game. 

Jared Fiegl, in a manner befitting the legacies of Murray Death and Mike Iggulden, found the puck settled just out of Michalek's reach. Fiegl buried it into the the top of the net above Michalek's ineffectual blocker. It was a syncopated commencement to one's collegiate scoring. It was the symphony's final chord.

The come-from-behind tie in the context of this season is as big as when Cornell finally proved against Yale and Brown that this team could score more than one or two goals. This edition of Cornell hockey is low-scoring. A late goal should be the death knell of its opponents. However, at this time of season, when the stakes of games appreciate, Schafer's team needed to prove that it would not be slain easily by the same blade. Proof of this is what Cornell carried from Lynah East.

A historic series that begs for moments from its modern participants, both skaters and spectators, found several that afternoon. The chickens continued their mid-Winter migration back to the ice of Cambridge. Ears of corn followed suit. Harvard fans were not the only ones engaging in hurling. Dodging the oncoming agrarian assault was captain John McCarron. Obviously, he took exception to the greeting. In a show of solidarity with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the student of the College of Human Ecology collected a chicken on the blade of his stick and returned it to an unoccupied section near its source. This episode and its associated installment may become The One with the Re-return. Time will tell.

For the Crimson, it may be the beginning of an end to apathy. Michael Ledecky and Jake Meagher of The Harvard Crimson have been fighting the good fight against student-fan apathy along the Charles. Both at various times have called for the resurrection of a long-forgotten group of Crimson fans, the "Harvard Hares." I am not sure if contemporaries among the Lynah Faithful have any tales to share, but this writer would love to hear the Cornell side of when Harvard knew true support.

Admittedly, this writer may not speak for the majority of Lynah Faithful, but Harvard's final farewell to athletic apathy would be a welcome reality. Programs as great as those of Cornell and Harvard deserve loyal fan support. A rivalry as rich as the one that these two institutions share demands widespread bilateral, reciprocal involvement. So, come along br'er rabbits, oh the fun we shall have, from Cambridge to Ithaca, from Lake Placid to Boston.

Yeah, I went there. I went all Biblical on you. If any series is deserving of Biblical proportions, it is this one.

This will not be one of those long-winded history pieces (sorry if you're in the market for one of those right now). 

This is a raw, real mid-weekend check-in before the back half of the Cornell-Harvard regular-season series. As the Lynah Faithful brace for the trip into Lynah East (né Bright-Landry (né Bright (né Watson))), they may realize that this trip may be different. Harvard has the germ of a returning fanbase, which could make for a more interesting series. A former home-away-from-home for the Faithful may now more resemble the lions's den. One can hope, can't he?

Yeah, right, Harvard fans? What am I going to tell you next? The ushers will be leprechauns and unicorns will provide shuttle service to the doors? I anticipate those responses. To be fair, a more perfect analogy would be claiming that Homo habilis will man concessions while an apatosaurus serves as the boom for ESPN3 (it is on there, if you did not realize).

Harvard once had fans. The Harvard Crimson reported in 1956 that "[Harvard] College [has] developed one of the most vociferous groups of goaliehecklers in New England, and probably in the East." In Watson Rink's first season, "goalie Dick Marr commented that Harvard...had the worst knots of hecklers he had ever seen." The phenomenon was reported again after Watson Rink broke free of its cocoon and became Bright Hockey Center. "The spirit of Watson's Section 18 lived on," declared The Crimson. The "spirit" spoken of has remained more as an incorporeal spectre than a driving zeal for more recent generations. Perhaps, after these renovations, the Lynah Faithful will have more than empty space and rented bands to compete with for control of a venue whose identity through no amount of rebranding could be anything other than Lynah East.

The implied question at the opening remains. What are Cornell and Harvard? Which is the lions? Which is Daniel?

No, this is a far-from-perfect simile. Neither Steve Hagwell nor Robin Harris is Darius I. And, despite what our friends at Without a Peer may jest, we do not deify Mike Schafer (demigod status is sufficient, no?). Schafer's system is not revealed. 

However, like the Biblical lions's den, that rink at 65 North Harvard Street, Boston, MA 02163 will become a place of pitted wills where aplomb and calmness likely will tilt the balance. What will deliver each is playing their game and forcing their opponents to accept the seemingly inevitable. Harvard explodes. Cornell bides its time. Which game will be played?

Harvard is hyper-motivated headed into this contest. The Crimson has been trapped in those 40.3 seconds since John McCarron blocked Harvard's last threatening dump of the puck into Cornell's zone in January. Sean Malone intimates as much, "Cornell is a huge rivalry game. Usually guys get more pumped up about these games than any others. We certainly want to win."

Harvard is deflated, not defeated. Any team that expects to walk over the Crimson, especially Cornell, is a fool that will not enjoy blissful ignorance. Harvard's games since Lynah Rink have included two brutal, merciless throttlings of Colgate. Yeah, Colgate, the same Colgate that the vast majority of league followers chose to win an ECAC Hockey title. A loss to a Yale squad that has Harvard's number. Cornell knows how it feels when Keith Allain goes on a streak against your program. 

So, remaining are losses to Frozen Four favorite Boston University, defending national champion Union, and perennial season ruiner Brown. Yeah, that loss to Boston University? Don't read too much into it. It may give you nightmares. Michalek delivered a transcendent 63-save effort. Questionable calls were enjoyed and endured. The point? Harvard is very good.

Harvard is one moral uplift away from clicking into its postseason form. A consolation-round meeting with Boston College was postponed. A win in that contest could have served as a spark and alleviated some of the passion in this contest. No win will help a team right its course more than one against a historic foe. Ted Donato and Paul Pearl are well aware that a win over Cornell, in a heated building, with seeding implications, in a series steeped in history, will galvanize this Harvard squad. Let's hope Cornell and the Lynah Faithful are not an accommodating crucible.

Ah, Cornell. We knew your hockey well. 'Twas but mere weeks ago. 

It would be a lie to say that this Cornell team might not need a win over Harvard to find its bearings. Last weekend was the perfect embodiment of the concept that one does not always get what one deserves, but may get things that are not one's just deserts. The Big Red deserved a win, or at least a tie, against Quinnipiac for its efforts. Princeton, meanwhile, outplayed Cornell for most of that contest. Cornell's results were inverted from the effort that it put forth.

That inversion may have been damning in this weekend's contest against Dartmouth. The excuse of the impeding game against Harvard is no shield to this criticism. Cornell, much like it did at Appleton Arena, was mentally unprepared to begin the contest at Thompson Arena. Two quick goals put Cornell down by enough to make the difference. 

Cole Bardreau was the cream of Cornell's crop. Playing with a grit, focus, and tenacity that resembled his form against Harvard, Bardreau wanted to win. However, on this bus there were too many passengers. They played musical chairs with their lapses. The Big Red overall did not deserve to win. 

Yes, it was tremendous to see Cornell surrender a two-goal deficit and then erase it within the same period. There are no moral victories at this time of year when playoff form is being honed. What it means is simple, another weekend passes in which Cornell will not get a sweep. No matter the result against Harvard. As the leadership of this team reminds us, a loss erases a win. Well, the Red began this weekend with a deficit.

This game will be fun. It is one of the great spectacles in sports. It will be even more enjoyable if Harvard alumni and students appear for it. It will append a torn and tattered chapter of this rivalry's saga. Harvard's fanbase rightfully is growing. This Crimson team is talented. Like all great Crimson teams since 1910, it must test its mettle against Cornell.

That question lingers yet. Who will be the lions? Who will be Daniel? Which team will be the once-dangerous foe that faith and conviction topples? One outcome is known. Like Daniel, both teams in this lions's den will find truth. The truth of what this season means.

Face-off has been moved to 4:00 pm. Adjust your travel plans accordingly. It may be the last time to cajole and collaborate with our compatriots from Cambridge on their own hallowed turf. Do not fret if you cannot make it. We all know that if all goes according to plan for these two archnemeses, they will meet again in the postseason. 

Let's make sure that it is the Crimson, not the Red, who has the more difficult route to the reunion.

P.S. Check out the historical murals that were added during the renovations of the Bright-Landry Hockey Center. They do a great credit to a great program that serves as the foil to Cornell's proud hockey tradition. Yes, a few of Harvard's celebrated moments come at the expense of the Red, but Cornell has won more than it has lost.

Rivalries are at their best when they consume entire cultures. The purest form of antagonism is contradistinctive refutation.

The repartee between the students of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University and those of Harvard College is focal now. The narrative unfolds with the choice of many associated with Harvard College to ridicule academic standards at Cornell University because of the proximity of a practical and, more alarmingly according to some, agricultural education to the more traditional fora of liberal education. A chicken was lobbed to prove the point. Fish followed.

Focusing upon this blinds one to what germinally distinguished Cornell and Harvard Universities. It was not Cornell's being a land-grant university that raised the ire of Harvard. Both Brown and Yale Universities sought, and realized for a short time, status as land-grant institutions of their respective states. Although Harvard's sensibilities are often far wiser than those of the other two Ivy League brethren, the Cantabs do not go too far adrift. Practical education was not the principal point of friction. Opportunity was.

Cornell University afforded all persons who bore the proper merits the right to be educated at "the great American university." Harvard University insulated Harvard College from such bold steps. Co-education of women was particularly perplexing to the Cambridge-based university. The students and administrators of Harvard College did not demean their legacy with resort to the polemics of subjugation. Harvard was unlike other universities with which Cornell shared actual hostilities in this way.

Harvard moved glacially nonetheless. Gradualism and slow integration was its chosen course. A course that Cornellians found repugnant to their sensibilities. Women were able to attend Cornell University since it first accepted students in 1868. Women did not receive the same treatment at Harvard College until 1972. The cultures of the two converged despite this difference.

Hockey has been the great unifier of the Northeast's great institutions since the early 1900s. Cornell and Harvard were the class of the eventual Ivy League. The fanbases of both institutions expected greatness in all things. An enduring truth emerged. Football may be the Ivy League's sport. Hockey is its passion.

It was in this regard that the Cornell-Harvard rivalry, based on ice, became the greatest in college athletics. Ironically, when this statement is defended, one turns to the voluminous annals of the Cornell-Harvard series in men's ice hockey. What should no longer be overlooked is the purity of the Cornell-Harvard rivalry in women's ice hockey representing the real clash of ideals between two vaunted programs and two august institutions.

The contests between Cornellians and Harvard women have been steeped in tradition, lore, and pride from their first face-off.

Cornell University was novel. The first female student enrolled in 1870. Demand for female physical activity and athletics arose almost immediately. Sage Hall opened in 1875 to house the women who came to partake in Ezra Cornell's and Andrew Dickson White's grand experiment. The exceptional accommodations offered at Sage included a gymnasium and swimming pool for female athletic activities. Why should female athletes remain relegated to the indoors when their male counterparts dazzled crowds on the frozen pond?

There was no reason why, especially at Cornell University. Hockey showed the potential to become Cornell's game before the Big Red's perfect championship season in 1911. Its popularity only grew after that historic triumph. Proving what has become the norm of women at Cornell University, from alumnae as varied as Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Rebecca Johnston, a rendition of Annie Get Your Gun's "Anything You Can Do" ensued. It was not long for female Cornellians to catch up.

The first organized women's ice hockey team took the ice of Beebe Lake in 1919. Its meetings were sporadic. Its opponents were only intramural because it was unique. There was no intercollegiate hockey competition. Interest in intramural hockey for women waxed and waned until hockey was all but banned on Beebe Lake in 1948. For nearly three decades, Cornell iced women's hockey competitions 36 years before Brown University ushered in the modern era of women's ice hockey.

The construction of Lynah Rink resurrected the tradition of the men's ice hockey program in 1957. The culture of women's ice hockey at Cornell was not so easily rescued. It laid dormant until 1971. Regina Baker helped inspire the creation of the team and recruit its first coach. The Big Red of Cornell became the third-oldest program in the modern era of women's ice hockey after only the teams of Brown University and Colby College.

One century and one year after the first female pupil avowed her loyalty to "our noble alma mater," female students were training to compete in intercollegiate hockey contests. The terms of "Harvard woman" or "coed," a phrase whose suggested place of coinage is East Hill, were oxymoronic at Harvard for another year. Women's hockey would take longer to take root in Cambridge.

The Ivy League began sponsoring hockey in the 1975-76 season. With so few members, the League forewent its customary choice of selecting a champion through a round-robin tournament and elected for a quasi-postseason tournament. Cornell compiled an all-time record of 30-15-0 and an in-season record of 8-5-0 before the inaugural Ivy League tournament.

Brown and Yale were the first postseason victims to the Lady Rouge. Predictably, Brown and Cornell, as the oldest and most entrenched programs, were the last two standing in the tournament. The former Pandas fell, 3-2. Harvard was unrepresented in the next two Ivy League tournaments.

Cornell won the 1977 and 1978 Ivy League championships. The dominance of the Red was growing, as was its winning margin in the playoffs. Harvard entered the fray of Ivy League women's ice hockey the next season. The playoffs were the beginning of an unraveling. Six wins, six losses, and one tie marked the success of Harvard's first female hockey team before the 1979 Ivy League tournament. Brown and Dartmouth would sweep the Crimson out of the tournament. The Cantabs would add three more losses to close its first season.

Cornell played the same teams in the tournament. Harvard fell by a combined margin of seven goals allowed to four scored. The Big Red more than reversed that margin, downing the Big Green and Bears by a combined nine goals scored to three allowed. Cornell won the tournament again.

The results were the same the next season. Harvard fell to Brown and Yale. Cornell defeated Brown and Princeton. Cornell could not seem to lose its luck in the playoffs and Harvard could not seem to find it.

The next season did very little to alter that narrative. The Crimson fell in two overtime contests to Dartmouth, then Yale. Cornell obliterated Dartmouth with five goals to which no Big Green skater could find an answer. The championship game ended after four overtimes. Neither Cornell nor Brown could wrest from each other a win. Both were declared champions.

The 1982 Ivy League tournament was the tournament to end all tournaments. No, that is not hyperbole. The Ivy League announced before the 1981-82 season that the 1982 postseason tournament would be the last to determine the Ivy League champion. Cornell had won all of the Ivy League championships. Cornell won five out of those six tournaments outright.

Bill Duthie, a former captain of the Big Red, helmed the carnelian and white for his tenth season. Harvard had in John Dooley its third coach in just four seasons of existence. From the perspective of continuity of leadership, it would appear that Cornell had the advantage if the two programs were to meet. When the season commenced, neither line caller, no matter how insightful, could have predicted how memorably it would come to a close.

The regular seasons for both programs did not unfold as expected. Duthie never had led a Cornell squad to anything but a winning season. The makings of a mediocre season became apparent early. Princeton had in freshman Patty Kazmaier the makings of a great player, but a 10-4 loss was unacceptable on East Hill. The Big Red had not lost to the Tigers in five years. The omens remained ill until the end of the season approached.

High expectations remained abated for Harvard women's ice hockey. A first-year coach scarcely could be expected to right all wrongs in one season. The weight of a program 19 games below 0.500 in just three seasons could not be lifted in one fell swoop, could it? No one told John Dooley's Crimson that it could not.

The prologue was written by February 27, 1982. Cornell was in the throes of its worst season. Harvard could not end the season with a losing record. Harvard had twice has many wins as did Cornell in the same number of games. Both programs knew that the playoffs were a different mindset. Cornell had never lost in the Ivy League tournament. Harvard had never won.

Harvard's spectacular regular season purchased a day's rest for the Crimson skaters. The Big Red was forced to begin without the bye to which it had grown accustomed since the bye's advent. It had stars on its roster. Digit Degidio and Diane Dillon were carnelian scoring menaces. Digit was in the midst of her second season of scoring more than 30 goals. Sarah Mott was a reliable backstop. Duthie had no doubt that his squad would shine.

Brown could not do much to keep Cornell's playoff form in check. The traditional power and the perennial runner-up grappled in the last Ivy League tournament's first round. The Lady Rouge advanced to compete against a rested Harvard. Cornell may have lost more in its defeat of Brown than it gained.

The evening before the historic first meeting of the women's ice hockey of Cornell and Harvard Universities should have been dedicated to the weight of the coming contest. The two great hockey powers of the East whose male counterparts had doled out triumphs and disappointments to one another for 60 years were on the brink of their first meeting. John Dooley may have discussed this storyline with his team. Bill Duthie did not. 

Sarah Mott, Cornell's mainstay goaltender, was injured during the first-round game against Brown. The Big Red had no back-up goaltender for the Pittsburgh native. Duthie was headed in to a contest that would commence a series of epic proportions. The night before which, he simply was trying to decide which warm body to put in Cornell's crease.

The carnelian contingent skated to center ice as its members were announced at Thompson Arena on February 27, 1982. The partisans wearing a deeper shade of red were shocked to see that it was Diane Gregoire who tended the opposing crease. Gregoire served as Cornell's manager. Befitting the drama of a great series, it was Duthie's improvisation to tap his team manager that left the first impression before the puck struck the ice.

The Cornellians's defense smothered the Harvard women. Duthie's directive was to make sure that Gregoire was challenged as little as possible. An often offense-first team stifled a rested Harvard team on the large ice surface. Dillon was the star. She notched a goal for Ezra's and Andrew's grand experiment in each of the periods. 

Gregoire served admirably. The Crimson penetrated Cornell's defense with 34 shots. The team manager stopped 31.

Overtime saw Harvard cling to hopes that neither Dillon would add to her hat trick nor Degidio would find the back of the net. The odds did not seem in Harvard's favor at times. Pressuring the Crimson's Cheryl Tate and safeguarding Diane Gregoire was a greater imperative as Cornell needed to win the game in overtime. Frantically trying to rewrite its script, the Red would not.

The game advanced past overtime. A complete team effort made Diane Gregoire, who entered the contest with very little notice or mental preparation, stand as an equal to one of the élite goaltenders in women's ice hockey at that time. There was one scenario in which Cornell's collected, disciplined effort could not shore up its perceived weakness.

A shootout decided the result of the first meeting between the women's hockey programs of Cornell and Harvard. Gregoire stopped one of Harvard's five shooters. Tate stopped three of Cornell's salvos. Harvard won.

The Crimson would lose its final contest to Princeton in the Ivy League championship game. The Tigers downed Harvard by a 6-2 margin. A twist of fate contributed to Harvard's loss. In a day's time, Duthie's quandary became that of Dooley. Cheryl Tate was injured in the Cornell contest. She was unable to play. Harvard fared worse than did Cornell relying on an untested netminder.

The victory over Cornell was the biggest in the short history of Harvard hockey. John Dooley was pleased with the performance of his team despite a season-ending trouncing courtesy of the Tigers. Dooley's joy was apparent when he recalled defeating Cornell. He stated that he "would be more than happy if we could ever duplicate a season like this one."

The sentiments on East Hill were quite the opposite. The women of Cornell hockey suffered its first losing season in its decade-long history. The Big Red's opportunity to win every Ivy League tournament ever played slipped through the fingers of Ithaca's skaters. Cornell won six of the seven Ivy League tournaments.

Cornell lost its first playoff game at the hands of institutional foil Harvard. Harvard earned its first playoff victory at Cornell's expense. The rivalry has experienced periods of simmering and eruption ever since that controversial decision in 1982.

Cornell and Harvard have played 80 times in 33 years. The Red and Crimson have clashed in 15 postseason meetings.

An interconnected tradition was forged in the first meeting between Cornell and Harvard. Like most interactions of the institutions of the two universities, the stakes were high. The cornerstone of women's hockey at Cornell was equal opportunity. The cornerstone of women's hockey at Harvard was quarried from a victory over the Red.

These contest matter because, like all great rivalries, more is at stake than the game. Ethics and identities collide.

The contest encapsulates celebration. Results become validation.

Now, let's enjoy great hockey.

Cornell has been playing well. The results are not entirely synced with the effort on the ice yet. However, the Big Red has battled and executed at a very high level since its series of implosions in Troy. Four complete games have passed in which this team has acquitted itself well with the legacy of the carnelian and white. Yes, it is true that over two weekends, the Big Red did suffer one loss and one tie. However, the effort on the ice was there finally at a consistently high level.

Losing is painful. It is annoying. What really raises the ire of this writer is losing without dedication; surrendering without a fight. Cornellians never should do that. There were a few games this season when a dedicated fan would find himself wondering, "do they even care?" That question has been absent from the minds of the Lynah Faithful during this second half.

Outrageous fortune lobbed its slings and arrows at this team during the last two weeks. A penalty shot and three strange goal reviews went against Cornell in the games that yielded less-than-desirable results. Cornell was not without fault in all of those sequences, specifically a blown defensive assignment and necessary reaction led to the penalty shot. Let this not become a diatribe about questionable calls, because the team never did. 

Fate dealt Cornell a blow in its recent loss and tie, but Cornell grappled back. Cole Bardreau's grit laid over from the Harvard game in spurring the Red's comeback attempt against the Big Green. The effort fell short, but there was no doubt that this team and its alternate captain wanted to win. The same could be said of John McCarron's goal as a passion-driven response to a disallowed goal. The team did not quit. A team like that is the type of team one should look forward to seeing in the playoffs.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. The rungs of seeding remain to be climbed.

The surprising underpinnings of this new tenacity is that it has arisen during a rash of injuries. Cornell's roster consists of 24 skaters. A total of 22 skaters have dressed just since January began. The only skaters who have not dressed during the second half of the season are Joel Lowry and Eric Sade. Both are out indefinitely due to injury.

From the eight games that the healthy mainstays have played to the two contests for which players like Alex Rauter were called upon to fill crucial voids, every player who has taken the ice over the last few weeks has bought in to the process. They have done so absolutely. Every player has rotated in and out with little effect on an entire game's effort.

Whether matched against respected Crimson foe Jimmy Vesey, or the overhyped Seussian-like Spink 1 and Spink 2, every player has played his role on the team at a considerably high level. Yes, lapses have led to goals, but in all frankness, some of these players who have filled in nearly seamlessly were not expected to be called on to player either because of injury or development. Nonetheless they played and did well.

Consider Alex Rauter. He has played as many games in the last three games as he did during the entire first half of this season. Over his appearances in those three games, he has not been on the ice for any goals against despite the opposition's scoring seven goals in the games for which he has pulled the Cornell sweater over his head. His play may be refining as games develop and his ice time somewhat reduced, but he has played a key, but popularly neglected, role in helping Cornell's recent successes.

Then, in the greatest shock of the freshman class, Dan Wedman has stepped up as a defensive phenom. Wedman has proved that good things come from Alberta for the Big Red in a big way. His play was most astonishing in dismantling Harvard. With the skill of a drilled explosives expert, he disarmed the Crimson's most dangerous lines and plays.

Schafer rightfully has pointed the spotlight on Wedman as a star on this team. His team defense is calm-inducing. No matter which line in college hockey may be bearing down on Cornell's defensive zone, the Lynah Faithful should find placidity in seeing the carnelian 20 minding its back half. Wedman's rise is not surprising in its altitude, but its earliness. 

One could anticipate that he would be this good. However, seeing him this good at this early stage is astonishing. Everyone in ECAC Hockey should be taking note of his exceptional defensive play, even if he has not appeared on the score sheet.

When Patrick McCarron went down against RPI and Reece Willcox followed against Harvard, the pressure fell on stars like Jacob MacDonald and Joakim Ryan to fill the void. They could not do it alone. Wedman picked up some of the workload, but Ryan Bliss was not to be left out.

Yes, Bliss' scoring recently has given him right to a few verses already in the saga that is being sung of this team, but the acclaim for his defensive skill remains relatively mum. It is easy to get lost in his offensive presence and willingness to enter the game. It is even more tempting right after he scored an overtime, game-winning goal against Colgate in a game during which he sustained a questionable hit. Don't let his being the highest-scoring defenseman on this team distract from the huge strides he has taken in defensive responsibility during the course of the season.

Trust me, this list will not contain only freshmen, but Dwyer Tschantz has proven that he has come to play Cornell hockey with an edge. His size is an asset and has proven not to be a liability at all this season. He is aggressive around the net. He has become the archetypical Big Red hockey player with not only his ability but his desire to win the little battles that tilt the balance.

Then, there is the triplet. We all know the members. We know when they are on the ice. However, when talking about the pivotal moments of any game, few of us will mention their names. Well, on a partial change, the one found a way for us to not help but mention his name. 

Dias, Tiitinen, and Freschi. Maddy, Teemu, and Mr. Clutch. Call them what you will. When Cornell is in a lull or is having trouble penetrating the opposition's defense, they are the best bet to tilt the ice. The three have racked up only five points between them. They may not be the line that scores the goals, but they will stem the tide or start the rally. 

The once-unscoring Captain may no longer deserve inclusion in a post so entitled. He sits here nonetheless. Too much can be made of individual scoring. As long as the team is focused, motivated, and winning collectively, John McCarron has done his job. His legacy wearing the C at Cornell will be decided not by how many goals he scores, but if he leads this team to victory and with what character he instills in his teammates. 

Having said all of that, with a booming shot that can be heard or felt (ask Shawn Hunwick) all the way to his home state of Michigan, it is great to see his offensive talent as a threat that opponents must revere. However, The Captain's contributions go far beyond that. His blocked shot at the end of the Harvard game that forced the Crimson out of Cornell's zone was second in importance only to the game-winning goal that Freschi scored. 

He harasses goalies and outcompetes skaters along the boards. He proved that despite recent cutbacks that Theatre Arts are alive and well still as "any study" (ask Teddy). In short, after a game in which his team was flailing and disorganized against RPI, John McCarron has made sure that his team has arrived to each subsequent contest ready to battle and compete until the bitter end. It is fun to watch him score. His leading attitude will be his legacy.

If this team is so resilient and so many unsung players have played so unexpectedly well, then why has Cornell not swept a weekend? Mistakes have been neither systematic nor widespread, but individual. The effort of a whole team cannot be damned, especially at this early stage, for individual missteps. Yes, in the playoffs, the curve is that harsh. There is no grade inflation here. But, this is the regular season, and corrections can still be made. 

Cornell has not played a perfect game. It has been close to a weekend sweep. Look at last weekend. Cornell is on the verge of tipping toward greatness or plateauing at competitiveness. A decision is near. A sense of inevitability seems to weigh in favor of the former. Think of it like Fiegl or Ryan scoring. We knows it is so close to happening that the anticipation may kill us. However, the possibility of it never happening is frighteningly real. Choices must be made.

Last weekend, this team played its vintage hockey. Can a team have a vintage style only this far in? I think that it can. On Friday, Cornell surrendered the lead. In a fashion that is now typical of this team, it did not get concerned. Panic was absent from the faces of Mitch Gillam to John McCarron to Mike Schafer. Cornell won that contest. 

The Big Red ground Colgate finer than the abrasives in toothpaste. Lying in wait, the team anticipated the opportunity to pounce. Knisley and Bliss were the names of the claws sunk into the Raiders. Cornell dominated Colgate for five of the six periods. For the third time in four games, it was the Red that outshot the celebrated offense of its opponents.

Sound defense and opportunistic capitalizing on opponent's mistakes underwrite this team's victories. Colgate head coach Don Vaughan recognized the lethality of Cornell in transition upon watching tape. His team suffered its effects once.

Colgate was the team expected to reign as ECAC Hockey's champion. Cornell took three points out of a possible four points from its series against the Hamiltonians. This team has not yet determined if that series was three points gained, in the modesty that some want imposed on this era of Cornell team, or one lost, in the self-assuredness of Cornell legends.

All good things must come to an end. The undefeated streak that the Lady Rouge was on is no different. Much was made of the undefeated streak. It stretched for 10 games of consequence. Lest we forget though, this is Cornell hockey. The Red never measures success in terms of spans without losses. The carnelian weighs its success in terms of wins accumulated.

Win streaks of three and four games constituted the decade of games that passed without a loss. The ability to win games consecutively pay dividends when the second season arrives. Four games, conveniently, is the number that Cornell must win to bring an ECAC Hockey Championship back to East Hill. Three victories are required to win a national championship.

Those winning streaks contained wins of every variety that a championship-calibre team must be expected to win. There were games that Cornell should have entered expecting to win, particularly the meeting with an improved, but still beatable, Syracuse. There were games littered with emotion like that against Clarkson in the North Country (can we just name it the Jessica N. Brown Arena of Domination already?). There were games with pesky opponents whom Cornell should best but never could take for granted, in the guise of the respectable defense of Brown and a better-than-advertised, pesky Yale squad. There was a contest against a historic foe that Cornell found not only a way to win, but dominate, in the tilt with the Terriers. In other words, the ladies in carnelian have proven that they have the capacity to realize playoff glory.

Why did the streak end? Did Cornell's fuse run out? Was Harvard simply too good? Did the programmatic and institutional catharsis after the men's hockey team bested the Crimson prove too much to manage the next day? All but the lattermost are entirely untrue. The ultimate is likely inaccurate. The real culprit is far more reasonable. Its unsettling is proportionate to its reason.

In Cornell's run of ten games without a loss, four of the contests have been played without Doug Derraugh's preferred numbers. The season opened with the Big Red dressing 19 players against Boston College. Last weekend against Dartmouth and Harvard, the Lady Rouge dressed 13 and 14 skaters, respectively. The Red's numbers are depleted.

The 11 games that have passed since the Minnesota-Duluth series witnessed only ten skaters dress for all of the contests. The reasoning behind rotations in and out of college-hockey line-ups can be indiscernible, but the Lady Rouge have lost as many as 18 player-games due to injury during this 11-game span. The figure is likely lower, but serves as a model for envisioning with how short of a bench that Cornell has been playing.

Jill Saulnier has made her game more versatile. She has lost little on her offensive game from last season despite the return of Brianne Jenner, rise of production from underclassmen, and arrival of offensively skilled freshmen. The Nova Scotian is now a defensive marvel with her shot-blocking and puck-pressuring. Others may lead the team in goals or points, but few on this squad would have as high of a Corsi number for tilting the ice in Cornell's favor as she.

The loss of Jill Saulnier to injury should have proven fatal to this team. The senior, even when she is not scoring, relieves pressure on the Big Red's oft-tested backside. So, when she went down during the second game against the Elis, Cornell should have been doomed. It was not.

The team missed her sorely, but it found a way to win. One goal and a superb defensive effort in front of a jaw-dropping 41-save effort from Paula masked what would have been in most cases a season-altering storyline. Make no mistake, Jill is missed and will be missed until she returns, but impressively Cornell found a way to win two out of three games after she suffered an injury. The injury woes did not end there. 

Hanna Bunton did not appear in either game last weekend. The reported cause was injury. Within two games' span, the Lady Rouge lost ice-tilting extraordinaire Saulnier and the forward with the second-greatest rate of shot blocking. Cornell toppled a Dartmouth team that was a week removed from defeating Harvard. These absences are just the most ostentatious absences of late. This team has rallied around defense and exploited opportunity.

Unlike some of the juggernaut squads of other seasons like the 2010-11 team, this team has needed to prove that it can play defense with discipline and confidence. It does so often. It generates pressure, but Cornell can no longer walk over most of its opponents like it could just seasons ago. The rise of parity in women's hockey increases the need to win on strength of character. This trend is to Cornell's favor. This team has real character.

Players have stepped up to increase their offensive production. Four of the top five scorers for Cornell have remained the same before the unbeaten run. So, how can one believe that players have stepped up to put together such an impressive run? The answer is obvious. The top point producing players on the team averaged increases in their point production by 120% from the first nine games of the season and the 11-game run. 120%.

Let that settle. The leader of this group of six points-per-game producers during that run was Jess Brown. The Cat Lady was surely on the prowl during the last 11 games. She produced points at a rate of 395% more than she had in the first nine games of the regular season. 

The calls of vite vite pay dividends. Poudrier follows Brown closely with a positive production differential of 232%. Captain Brianne Jenner averages nearly two points per game now. She increased her output by over 90%, an astounding figure that the increases of other players dwarf still.

If Cornell is such a great team and so many trajectory lines indicate that the Big Red is improving at an impressive rate, why did it lose so deflatingly to its archrival? The answer is simple. No amount of spin from Katey Stone can mask how the Crimson beat Cornell. Sorry, Coach Stone, your team is neither the Minnesota Gophers nor the Edmonton Oilers of the 1980s. It was not speed and finesse that defeated Cornell, it was the Red's depleted numbers.

Harvard player Miye D'Oench boasted after the win, "Cornell has a really short bench, so we really wore them down with relentless forechecking and backchecking. By the end of the game, they really didn’t have that much left in the tank, so we were able to bury them." It was not quickness or creativity. No terms that Stone uses to distinguish Cornellian and Canadian hockey from their Harvardian and American counterparts to disparage the former and exalt the latter can change that.

Harvard played aggressive, hard hockey that wore down a team with an anemic roster. The Crimson did what any great team would do. It did what Cornell would have done if the tables were turned. Harvard is not a better team. Harvard was a healthier team, which made it the better team for those 60 minutes. One needs to recall only how the regular season and postseason of last season went to avoid panicking about a loss to the Cantabs. Cornell will have at least one more chance.

The focus is now on the next run. This writer is never one who demands winning out the regular season to get to the playoffs so long as the Lady Rouge wins in series of four and three games to occupy space above hallowed ice. Cornell has the personnel to carry itself on such a run. 

Kaitlin Doering and sometimes-forward-sometimes-defenseman Taylor Woods have put together impressive seasons. They look to continue to do so. Erin O'Connor, the Harvard rejector, glimmers of the possibility of being a blueliner unlike any that Cornell hockey has known during the NCAA era. Her comfort and speed in the offensive zone render her a continuous, rather than momentary, scoring threat whenever she is on the ice. O'Connor's defensive play has refined over recent weeks.

Any article about this team would be remiss without discussing Big Paula (we're all cool on that name, right?). The Shanty Bay native has become one of the most dominant goaltenders in the nation. Her save percentage places her among the nation's élite. Impressively, her performance trailed that of three-season starter and honorable adversary Emerance Maschmeyer, a goaltender whose talents are renowned, by merely two-tenths of one percent over Cornell's last 11 games.

Paula's potential is now known. She is a game-changing goaltender. She was the difference early against Boston University. The sophomore made Marie-Philip Poulin look unthreatening for most of that contest. The Yale contest would have gone differently if Voorheis was not there to weather the storm. Paula's save percentage of 0.950 and defensive play in front of her produced one of the nation's ten lowest goals-against average since the Minnesota-Duluth series.

Cornell has its eyes locked on another streak. It will be rejuvenated as the playoffs approach. The returns of players like Bunton and Saulnier are unclear. The debut of Sydnee Saracco is expected around the playoffs. She will provide yet another spark. When former 30-goal scorer Doug Derraugh describes her as an offensive threat with a natural scoring ability, one cannot help but look ahead to her first time in the Cornell sweater. Cornell will have the boosts to continue to improve over the course of the season as it did over the last run of 11 games. Health will return. There is one thing key not to forget. 

Battling injuries, Cornell went on a 7-3-1 run. What is the amazing part about this? Cornell continued to win.

Where will the next run take us?

Dear Cornell students who think that Cornell hockey is played but once a season at Lynah Rink:

We, the contributors of Where Angels Fear to Tread, write this as alumni, neither as fans nor new media. This letter is not directed at all of those who filled the stands of Lynah Rink on Friday, January 23. The thrust of this piece is pointed at those who seem to think that the carnelian and white take the ice only once a year, against the crimson and white. Yes, Friday's win was exhilarating. It was historic in ways that your cohort cannot comprehend. However, when The Game ended and Mike Schafer granted his customary post-game interview, he was loath to laud the assemblage of fans for the contest. 

We support his criticism of your lot. I doubt many of you even heard his words. Nothing else mattered to you once Harvard was slain. The season was over. It was the one game of the season in your minds riddled with foolish myopia.

The words of Coach Mike Schafer '86 follow. 

This is the moment at which we will engage in some self-congratulations. On December 16, 2014, the twitter account associated with Where Angels Fear to Tread highlighted a startling fact. Lynah Rink sold out only once in the entire first half of the season. That lone game occurred during "Parents' Weekend" on November 1, 2014. Games against recent national champion and arguably second-most hated Ivy League foe Yale, and uncommon guest and historic archenemy Denver did not sell out. An average of nearly five percent of the crowd was empty for those three contests.

This may not seem significant to once-per-season pilgrims of Lynah Rink like you. Trust us, it is disappointing. One may regard it as humiliating. Few generations of Cornell hockey players and coaches have known anything other than fanatical, sell-out crowds. Those players and coaches who struggle and labor continuously to represent well our University and you deserve your unflappable loyalty. 

Coach Schafer is correct. This team, the 99th team to represent Cornell University on the ice of intercollegiate competition, and its successors demand, and should receive, the support of full carnelian-clad buildings. Schafer's comments are neither hollow nor informed by the standards of long-forgotten eras. The principal contributors to Where Angels Fear to Tread are alumni whose time as students on East Hill and in Lynah Rink expired a complete generation after that of Schafer.

Do you remain incredulous? Do you need something more tangible to justify this criticism that you disappoint even the most recently graduated cadre of Lynah Faithful? Modernizing renovations at Lynah Rink wrapped before the 2006-07 season. The capacity of the Rink ballooned to 4,267. Cornell hockey has played eight complete seasons in a building with its current capacity. Those eight seasons drew crowds averaging fewer than 68 vacant seats. Half of those seasons enjoyed average draws above 99.0% of Lynah Rink's capacity.

Schafer's and our disgust is not a curmudgeonly one. Fans huddled around Beebe Lake in the 1910s to watch mere hockey practices. Their heirs watched outdoor games on the same lake in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. The passion, involvement, and ritual associated with the Lynah Faithful for decades emerged and expanded around games that Ned Harkness, Dick Bertrand, Lou Reycroft, and Mike Schafer managed. Your chosen indifference mocks alumni from sprawling eras who viewed hockey as the embodiment of Cornell's ethos.

It is not hard to be a Cornell fan. Cornell wins, and it does so often. No decade has expired since the 1960s in which Cornell has won fewer than two tournament titles. However, we anticipate that you will claim that this Cornell hockey team or its era do not meet some amorphous standard of "good," which you believe justifies your indifference. Both points are far off-base.

Schafer's senior season, 1985-86, was removed further from an appearance in the NCAA tournament and a tournament championship than is this current season. Five and six years distanced Mike Schafer's senior season from those accomplishments, respectively. Cornell won the ECAC Hockey Championship in 2010. In 2012, the current senior class was integral to Cornell's NCAA tournament run and historic victory over Michigan. This team and era, no matter the outcome of this season in particular, provide exciting times during which Cornell hockey is played regularly at a moderately high level.

If you want the team to be better, why not go? The most imposing manner in which a collegiate fanbase can demand excellence from its team is attendance. Each day in practice and during every game, Cornell players see the banners hung above the ice. They know what student fans standing on the bleachers demand. If the team loses, and you find yourself nestled away in your room or bracing for the cold walk into Collegetown prematurely, whom did they disappoint? An empty building? The look of 4,267 disappointed Cornell fans is a far more potent motivator than truancy en masse.

Perhaps, we are guilty of hyperbole. An average of 107 empty seats in Lynah Rink inspires this diatribe, after all. However, addressing a group whose members largely strive to enter self-regulating professions, this missive seems appropriate. 

The Lynah Faithful have standards of admittance. We have expectations of behavior and conduct. History and tradition govern us. We are a self-regulating profession of sorts.

It is better to avert a burgeoning problem than grapple later with an entrenched deficiency, especially under a regime of self-regulation. This piece should serve as such an aversion. The pedigree and practices of Lynah Rink can be lost in the apathy of a few classes. These errors compound over time. One needs to regard only the fearsome home advantages that once accompanied programs like Boston University, Maine, New Hampshire, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to realize that in short time, much can be lost. Those programs are lucky to draw crowds that fill 85.0% of their respective buildings now.

You will be remembered for your choices. Students of the McCutcheon era are reviled within our fanbase for choosing to forsake the student-athletes who represented our alma mater in our University's preferred pastime. Those fans who endured in Lynah Rink gained respect that accompany few others. It is more trying to support a program in its difficult times. No one is challenging that. Supporting a team in its difficult period is about proving character.

Character is why hockey is Cornell University's sport. It demands hard work. It is difficult in its simplicity. It is beautiful in its brutality. It is honest. It is blue collar. Hockey is quintessentially Cornellian. 

Passionate and zealous support is as well. The ethic of Cornell University never will be about doing what is easy. In fact, quite the opposite. Cornell University is about doing the difficult well because it is right.

The right thing in this context is to support this team. It is flawed and somewhat underachieving, but its grit and indomitability reflect our collective values. Trust us, this team is special. Even if in your mind it grows to be not, your time on East Hill is. Trust those whose time far above Cayuga's waters ended not too long ago. Some of your greatest memories will be at Lynah Rink, supporting Cornell hockey like generations of alumni before you.

Cornell hockey is at its greatest during each season's Cornell-Harvard series. Cornell hockey is always great. How do you even know that this game is special if you have been to few others? We assure you, despite your anticipated opinions to the contrary, it is not your self-aggrandized presence at the Cornell-Harvard game that increases its import. 

The Cornell-Harvard game would be special even if it were played in a vacant building. The series is too rich in its history to lose its meaning. The game manifests a clash of ideologies. Cornell and Harvard are foils, on and off the ice. The governing principles of Cornell University were enunciated in contradistinction to those of Harvard University. The hockey programs of both great institutions are equally diametric. The shared similarities and differences between these prestigious universities as they have played out in college hockey's greatest rivalry are what make the series unequaled. Fan support is a factor, granted a large one, but a factor nonetheless in the saga between these two universities and their hockey programs.

Frankly, you do not deserve to watch this team topple its archnemesis if you have not endured the scoring drought and suffered through the lean times. Enjoyment of the Cornell-Harvard game costs more than the absurd price of admission that I am sure many of you paid for the one contest that you will attend this season. It is purchased through the trials of the season and knowledge of that particular game's history. Most of you are delinquent in your payments. You do not grasp what the Cornell-Harvard game means until you fathom its contemporary and historic context.

You did yourselves a disservice. It is time that you correct it. Care. Learn something. Make generations of alumni proud to claim that the legacy that they built as Lynah Faithful endures in your loyalty and antics. Attend each remaining home game. Arrive during pregame warm-ups. Be there to demand of Cornell University's hockey team the same excellence expected of every student in the classroom during the week. 

Excellence in Cornell hockey is reciprocal. This team and its successors will give as much as it gets.

Truly yours,
Alumni who wish to preserve the tradition and character of Cornell hockey

Relive the experience of last week and its culmination in Friday's dramatic Cornell-Harvard game.

A great rivalry becomes known by its episodes much like a great sitcom. Like episodes in all ground-breaking sitcoms, any individual game encapsulates the essence of the great continuum that is the rivalry. The Cornell-Harvard rivalry resembles one great sitcom in particular: Friends. "Why Friends?," you may ask. The rivalry is so intertwined and consistent across time that one feels impelled to partake in observing it while the fan must resort to referring to each installment by its key events.

You know of what this writer speaks. A few key prompts, like the title of an episode, uncorks the dam that holds back a cascade of memories. The obvious installments are: The One with the Chicken and The One with All the Fish. Some other less common but equally important episodes are The One with the First Playoff Meeting, The One that Ends Bill Cleary's Career, The One where the Crimson Killer Strikes in Overtime, and The One that Completes a Four-win Sweep. 

There are many more that we can recall readily and feel compelled to share with other generations of fans. But, this is not the story of any of those that this writer has stated. This is a story whose retelling is almost as ubiquitous as those of the obvious installments. This is the background story of a tale that generations of Lynah Faithful know.

The Big Red of Cornell University and the Crimson of Harvard University barely could have approached their December 10, 1983 contests more divergently. Cornell had registered just one win against a college hockey program at the NCAA Division I level. The win came against ECAC Hockey's relative newcomer, Maine. A 2-5-0 record hung around the Big Red's neck.

It was the play of Harvard that better resembled at least some shade of red. The Crimson racked up four wins, one loss, and one tie before it braved Lynah Rink. Harvard hoped to be building itself one step closer to its elusive national title in the 1980s.

The Cornell-Harvard game had fostered all of its passions since the 1910s and maintained all of its spectacle from the 1960s. It had acquired even the fish that coated the ice as Harvard entered Lynah Rink more than a decade before December 10, 1983. However, the rivalry was in an interesting period of anabolism nonetheless.

The two installments preceding the December 1983 meeting prove this fact perfectly. Harvard fans found a novel way of wresting from Cornell a precious victory in February 1982. It worked so well that Harvard claimed a 7-0 home triumph. What was the tactic of Bright's denizens? Was it chants? Of course, not. The Harvard partisans hurled at Brian Hayward the customary chicken. The fowl found friends soon after in fish and tennis balls. The fare of the farm, sea, and court unsettled Hayward.

Harvard fans attempted the same the next season. Darren Eliot was undeterred dodging fowl, fish, and felt. He produced 42 dazzling saves on the banks of the Charles River. The Cantabs in the stands grew apoplectic. A foolish and depraved member of their ranks hurled a wine bottle and beer can at Eliot's back-turned neck. The bottle missed. The can did not.

The flying aluminum connected with the back of the Red netminder's head. He collapsed to the ice. In the confusion, Cornell's skaters were robbed of the ability to distinguish between those Crimson players relishing in just scoring the game-winning goal and those who were celebrating Eliot's misfortune. The Big Red retaliated. A mêlée ensued.

In a statement that served to be to his credit and prophecy, Harvard's legendary coach declared after the game, "if those are the fans we've got then we'll play in an empty rink." It was always far from an empty rink that greeted Bill Cleary and Harvard to East Hill. A sophomore defenseman had a new gimmick in mind to add to this notably vicious period in the rivalry.

Mike Schafer had seen the inside of the penalty box 23 times more often than pucks leaving his stick had found the back of the net in his freshman season. His fiery temperament was obvious. His team needed a spark to exact revenge. Intimidating the opposition and inspiring the lathering Lynah crowd were the best means by which to achieve that goal. He would not even wait until the opening face-off.

The fish flew. The newspapers of feigned indifference rattled. Harvard braved the blue line during line announcements.

Cornell's line-up was to be announced. Skater by skater, the Big Red starters raced to the blue line and sprayed the visiting Crimson. A blast of snow kept the Faithful primed. Schafer was ready to rile.

The announcement of the sophomore defenseman's name boomed through the mass of 4,100 fans. Schafer flashed the crowd a grin and the Crimson a look as he ventured from his own red line to the blue line. He waved his stick to the packed house as he neared his teammates. For those who could not read it during his skate, its blazoning became apparent the moment that Mike Schafer stopped and elevated the stick above his head.

"Harvard sucks." The stick had that scrawled across it. The whole congregation knew now as Schafer held the stick with both hands over his head, making sure that everyone in the building, whether wearing carnelian or crimson, knew what it said. He flexed. The stick plummeted down onto his head. The tool of his craft exploded into splinters when it met his head. The crowd erupted.

Schafer shook the fractured pieces ferociously at the Harvard line-up at the other blue line.

Most fans who were not even students at the time of that game can recount the events of that December 10, 1983 game before face-off. What few can speak of with any ease is how that contest unfolded after now-legendary head coach Mike Schafer broke a stick over his head. What followed the broken stick should be remembered equally.

Mike Schafer stood at the blue line while national anthems blared. He hoped that he had inspired his crowd and teammates to down the vitriolic villain in the annals of Cornell hockey history. The game would go far from how the defenseman expected.

It was the players of Harvard, not those of Cornell, who seemed invigorated by the pregame fanfare. The Crimson skaters took advantage of the intentions of the Big Red's defense to maintain a rigid bulkhead along Cornell's blue line. Harvard penetrated Cornell's zone and exploited its speed. Cornell fell behind 21 seconds into the contest.

Dave Connors, Phil Falcone, and Gary Martin constituted a Harvard line that filleted Don Fawcett, Cornell's netminder. Those three Cantabs gave Harvard three goals. A second line contributed another goal. The game was unraveling. It was aged only seven minutes and eight seconds.

Down four goals in less than half of a period, Lou Reycroft called his timeout. Fawcett was pulled. Freshman goaltender Jim Edmands replaced him. A borderline miracle would be needed for the Ithacans to salvage a tie let alone a win.

Cornell enjoyed a miraculous comeback five seasons before in the playoffs. The Big Red fell behind the Friars of Providence College by an identical margin to that by which Cornell was trailing Harvard in the 1979 ECAC Hockey Quarterfinals at Lynah Rink. Very unlike the Crimson, it took Providence over 40 minutes to amass that lead. 

No player from that 1978-79 team that defeated Providence remained on Cornell's team. The sweater remembered. The intervention of a Randy Willson would be unnecessary. That day, Cornell would make its own luck. Game play resumed.

In a critique laced equally with criticism and envy, The Harvard Crimson marveled at the behavior of the Lynah Faithful. "Anywhere else in the known world the fans would shut up. In Lynah they just got louder...," it reported. The working-class Ivy League institution and its fans were unimpressed. They knew that the yeomanly ethos of their skaters would stem the tide.

Reycroft knew that he needed a quick response. He gained one. The head coach sent Gary Cullen, Pete Marcov, and Duanne Moeser to take the next face-off. Instantly, the trio peppered Harvard's Grant Blair. The onslaught was as deadly as it was sudden. Blair made two saves. He needed to make three. Marcov backhanded the puck into the Crimson net. 

It took 12 seconds. It was obvious something special was about to happen.

The same line banked a puck from behind the Crimson net to winnow the margin. That was all just the first period.

The second period may not have involved a broken stick, a four-goal collapse, and the beginning of an apparent resurgence, but it did witness Cornell's continued dominance and determination. Captain Geoff Dervin deposited the puck off of a pass from Gary Cullen on the power play.

Cornell's defense had improved. It benefited from an aggressive press into the opposition's end. The Crimson registered just two shots in the second frame. Fittingly, it was a goal from Moeser assisted by Marcov and Connors that tied the contest. Cornell's top contributors outperformed their Harvard counterparts's early-game rush. Duanne Moeser registered a point on all four Cornell goals.

Mike Schafer's breaking the stick motivated his team. The carnelian and white played with uncommon fire. A broken stick and a stirring start to the affair would not remain the sophomore defenseman's only act in this contest.

Schafer was a key participant in Cornell's suffocating defense during the final 53 minutes of the contest. However, in this contest more than most, offensive pressure proved to be the most effective means of neutralizing Harvard's scoring potency. The stick-breaking berserker was compelled to partake in the game's more celebrated side of defense.

Cornell had sustained pressure in Harvard's end. "Ithaca's Rambo," as Harvard fans grew to call him over time, roamed around the corners in crease. He saw a familiar face in his opponent's netminder.

Grant Blair and Mike Schafer played junior hockey together before parting for rival programs in ECAC Hockey. The pair had won the famous Buckland Cup of the Ontario Junior Hockey League for the Guelph Platers. Blair saw far less game time than did Schafer, but Schafer was familiar with the netminder from Cambridge. The Red defender saw consistency in Blair's play.

Consistency became predictability in the mind of Schafer. The future captain patrolled the low slot. A shot from the blue line sent the puck deep. Schafer knew how Blair would play the puck. Schafer knew where an opening would be. He anticipated it. A rebound bounced out. A pouncing Schafer propelled it into the net. The crowd clamored.

Mike Schafer tucked a way what was then a go-ahead goal. The lead belonged to the home team. The sophomore defender gave it to his squad 1:56 into the third period. A Crimson tidal wave had been abated and contained.

Mark Henderson purchased insurance with a breakaway goal from Pete Marcov and Mark Major. Bill Cleary of Harvard, whom the superlative play of Cornell had silenced for much of the contest, tried to cut through the swelling cacophony of Lynah Rink to protest Henderson's goal as resulting from an offside play. It was not. The officials confirmed.

Schafer's goal stood as the game-winning tally for 15:29. For three-fourths of the third period, Schafer the motivator stood poised to be Schafer the difference maker. Harvard thwarted the ability of one of its most loathed and respected foes to stand as the player to tip victory in its favor. The Crimson marred that narrative from the record books with about two and a half minutes remaining.

Cornell avenged the disappointment brought to bear on the sophomore defenseman who would serve as captain in his next two seasons. A Red barrage of Blair prevent Bill Cleary from calling the goaltender to his side. Cornell had won.

The Big Red had overcome a 4-0 deficit against its archnemesis. The comeback was of the magnitude in score and emotion as the one four and a half years earlier. On that Saturday, Cornell had overcome momentum greater than that Providence brought to bear in 1979. The exuberance of the players and fans as Harvard departed the ice proved the enormity of the event.

Lou Reycroft was asked after the game what the historic and thrilling comeback win meant when it occurred against Harvard. In the moment, Reycroft dismissed with emphasizing the manner in which Cornell had downed Harvard and decided to focus on the emotion of the moment and result. The tenth coach of Cornell hockey summarized the episode that just wrapped and the entire rivalry by extension, "anytime you beat those bastards, it's a big win."

In the other locker room, Harvard head coach Bill Cleary marveled still about the stick-breaking opening of the contest. Perhaps, the untested pate of Bill Cleary was jealous because it was not the focal point of the contest as it usually was. Ithaca's least favorite "bald guy" characterized the rivalry and its newest spectacle, "it's a big show, and if he wants to do that, that's his choice. I hope his head's all right."

With the baldness of Bill Cleary, the container lobbed at the head of Darren Eliot, and the stick broken over the head of Mike Schafer, the Cornell-Harvard rivalry in the 1980s took upon a decidedly cranial tone in the nation's most cerebral rivalry. It was the broken stick that inspired a rabid rally from the Big Red and invested the Lynah Faithful in a contest that looked bleak early. The breaking of the stick may be most remembered or recalled, but the tremendous character-proving comeback it propelled should be no less forefront.

Fans from Ithaca to Cambridge never have forgotten The One with the Broken Stick.