Harvard Week culminates in an emotion-filled contest. It is as predictable as the fish (or corn) that the week and Game at the end of it will be laden with emotional uplift and letdown. It is the nature of this particular beast. This Week took upon a different tone as most people associated with the program recognized the Big Red's equal need to make a statement against the Big Green. Harvard Week became a protracted saga that included Dartmouth on this rare occasion.

Dartmouth, a rival it may never be, but a great test for mental toughness, it always is. The drama that was Harvard Week opened on Friday, January 22. One could tell from the second period of that game that Cornell was at a crossroads.

The colors of Freddy Krueger's sweater stripe the ice on days opposite Cornell's and Harvard's biggest game as they have since the 2005-06 season. This distraction is why Cornell is barely above 0.500 against Dartmouth since the Granite Staters first do-si-doed with the Cantabs. The Big Red's winning percentage in its series with Dartmouth has dropped alarmingly by nearly one-tenth since the 2005-06 season. Dartmouth is regularly too good to overlook. Cornell needed not to overlook it.

The good news? It did not appear that the carnelian and white overlooked the wilderness yellers. If anything, Cornell's undoing appeared to be that it cared to beat Dartmouth too much; progress with pain's twinge, more on that later.

The first few Red shifts did not find sure footing. It was around the third or fourth shift when Trevor Yates took the ice that Cornell began to execute its game. It was not long-lived. There was a glimmer of hope that in the Big Red's obvious approach to slowing the game against Dartmouth down that it was avoiding burning itself out as to save effort and skill to win both contests last weekend. The first period expired with Cornell putting together a few good stretches of effort.

The unraveling came in the second period. First, physical territory was yielded. Dartmouth's Kilistoff meandered to the blue paint without a mark. Another misstep left a passing thruway. A targeted pass and a nice flick past Gillam put Cornell in a deficit. Then, psychological territory was yielded.

Cornell refused to lose to this team. Cornell roared back. Well, the hockey team wearing carnelian and white charged back. It was no longer playing like the cold and calculating machine of Cornell hockey. Sticks were not gripped. They were pulverized into splinters. The equalizer was needed, it seemed that the Red-wearing skaters thought, and it was needed now.

Not a single home skater stayed high. This lack of respect would cost the Big Red. Desperation became Cornell long before it should have. The clock still had 37:35 to toll. All Cornell players were below the Big Green's blue line. The Big Red had a net-front presence. Dartmouth had the chance of a wide-open rush the moment that the puck did not beat Charles Grant. Scrambling in undisciplined fashion, the Red could not stop the counterpunch. Dartmouth went up by two goals 37 seconds after it had scored its first. Cornell wanted to win too much.

This virtue became a vice as the Red stopped playing the team-first brand of hockey that has made all Cornell teams successful. The remainder of the game saw considerable individual efforts from Jeff Kubiak, Mitch Vanderlaan, and Reece Willcox. The team never harmonized. Inability to remain focused and collected damned the Big Red.

There it was, the weekend began in the worst way possible: a shutout-produced loss.

The Big Green registered 29 shots to the Big Red's 18 shots in the weekend's opening contest. By the time the weekend was over, Cornell led in shots in only one of the six periods played at Lynah Rink. Cornell was outshot 52 to 38 at home and never led. Shot totals are an overemphasized metric except when they are not.

​An endemic problem seemingly resolved has reappeared. Cornell has put more pucks on net than its opponent exactly twice since the first semester. This problem is not new. In the last four games of the first semester, opponents outshot the Big Red as well. Situationally, it is not always necessary to outshoot one's opponent. This is truer when a team plays a system like that of Cornell that puts the burden on its defense to defend late leads. So, how is Cornell doing in that regard?

Producing a greater total of shots is indicative of the tilt of the ice. Despite popular opinion, the ice need not be tilted in favor of a team at all times if that team is comfortable and disciplined in defensive execution. There are two situations in which a good team should have the ice at a disadvantageous angle for opponents: when that team is trailing or when teams are tied. As long as Cornell is producing more shots in those situations, there would be little to fear.

Well, you might not live on Elm Street, but there is plenty cause for nightmare in Cornell's situational figures. In periods in which the Red is either tied or chasing a contest, Cornell does not perform as it should. The Big Red undershoots its opponents 177 shots to 134 shots when Cornell seeks the equalizer or go-ahead goal. The statistic gets more disturbing when one considers it relative to the Red's seasonal shot-margin deficit.

Cornell has taken 24 fewer shots on net in all scenarios than has its opponents throughout the entire season. The Red totals 43 fewer shots when it chases a tie or seeks the lead. This indicates that when Cornell needs to rally to win a contest, it is being severely outplayed. The 43-shot deficit in critical situations is reduced only to the total deficit of 24 shots on the back of Cornell maintaining wide shot margins in contests when it already has a lead. Sustaining pressure is something that the Red should do. A wider chasm in periods when Cornell needs to score to earn a point or win proves that this team rarely takes its game to opponents. If this team desires a fulfilling close to the season, it will need to rectify this congenital deficiency.

Opponents have outshot Cornell in 13 games this season. All but one of Cornell's losses unsurprisingly is a subset of that group. Jason Kasdorf accounts for the other negative outcome. In the "new season," practice in playing in tied games and chasing leads has born some fruits. The Big Red has narrowed its percent deficit of shots taken when tied or trailing (a figure related to Corsi) by 3.25%. Opponents still take more than half of the shots in a contest when the Red needs to be the one finding the back of the net to salvage points from a tilt.

Three games in the "new season" witnessed a Cornell victory. Four games saw the opposite outcome. Cornell has beaten one opponent in 2016. Teams that Cornell has beaten in the "new season" are a combined 4-13-1 since second-semester play resumed. Cornell's résumé in this second season is one-ply.

Cornell has been shut out three times in its last eight games after beginning the season being shut out only once in 11 outings. The Red relies on only 1.88 goals per game to carry it to victory. Carnelian-and-white skaters provided Mitch Gillam a buffer of 3.09 goals per game from October through December. Only seven netminders in the country could average eking a positive result out of the Big Red's current offensive production.

The solution is clear. Cornell needs to go back to the old new. Coach Schafer opened preseason interviews sounding like LMFAO in his extolling the virtue of shots and the dividends that they pay. Now, Cornell is outshot in even the most dire of circumstances. Some anecdotal statistics indicate the success that follows when Cornell trusts its shots.

​The Big Red outshot Providence ten to eight after the Upstate New Yorkers tied the contest. Victory ensued. It is no coincidence that the one period in which Harvard did not earn a goal (on anything other than an empty net), Cornell blitzed the Cantabs with 11 shots, nearly outproducing the Crimson two to one. Cornell took 55% of its shots in the final third of game play. Harvard is not a team to sit back. Imagine if Cornell had taken control of The Game earlier. What may have resulted?

A shooting culture needs to return to Cornell. Coach Schafer preached it earlier. It now appears to be a lost gospel. Cornell's dip in all-important winning correlates fairly closely with this let-off. A warming to the legacies of last season's seniors in the word choices of Schafer risks acceptance of their destinies.  If the Big Red does not re-adopt the shooting- and scoring-oriented forecheck that wowed Jack Parker at Red Hot Hockey V, it can expect to end its season much like last year.

Colin Blackwell returned last season eight games before he provided the insurance on Harvard's ninth Whitelaw Cup. His play in the Crimson's eight-game playoff run slipped his team into a new gear. Blackwell played no small part in ending a nine-year drought for Harvard. The Harvard senior had not lined up against the Red in nearly three years. A drought of no less importance to the Crimson than the one Blackwell broke on March 21, 2015 was his clear focus on Saturday.

By the time the night was over, Colin Blackwell dampened the sod of his program's former drought thoroughly with the tears of the Lynah Faithful. The senior scored his first career goal against the Big Red just over two minutes into the contest. The moment that he unleashed the tensile strength of his shot from the left face-off dot, it appeared preordained that the 146th episode of this centuries-old drama would belong to the Baystaters. A freshman's second-ever goal and a primal yip from Kyle Criscuolo later, the result did not need to be as it eventually was.

Cornell was thoroughly bloodied. The hue of its sweater grew irony. Seconds raced off the clock. Lynah Faithful found themselves hoping that another Crimson skater would not pierce the rarefied air of their sanctum with another ecstatic whoop before the buzzer sounded. Coach Schafer could correct this in the locker room, especially during this ​game, they told themselves. Supporters of the carnelian and white did not need to wait for the stick breaker to work his magic.

​Ryan Bliss found his opening goal of the season at the perfect moment. The twine behind Merrick Madsen buckled as the rafters rattled with the mixed ritualistic harassment and confusion of too many fans who know not yet the rites of the Faithful. The Red's trend of scoring late goals against its rival continued with Bliss' marker leaving the clock with just 14.4 seconds. Cornell has scored five of its 14 goals in its last five games against Harvard in the last 41 seconds of a period.

The Schafer-inspired squad hesitated little in narrowing its deficit before the final seconds of the second period. Trevor Yates informed the new congregants at Lynah Rink that his skills go behind creating time in space in the tight corridors around the net when he scored nearly as quickly in the second period as Harvard had in the first.

​Cornell went down 3-0. It battled back in less than three minutes of game play to a one-goal deficit. This team rectified many one-goal deficits. It never corrected a two-goal error. Was it possible for the Big Red to do that and more in the season's most important regular-season game? Could the crowd's crushing cacophony and the Crimson catalyst curate this team's character?

New fans willing to pay a nearly 70% mark-up for tickets to The Game screamed and hollered in calls that offended the ears of the Lynah Faithful in their ignorance of decades of tradition and cluttered the air of its hymnal celebration. They know not what to do. They do not know why the game is important. They do not know this team. They certainly did not have sentences undrafted and tweets unsent invoking Game 63 racing through their minds when Yates sent the puck charging toward Section G. A few, the dedicated few who were forged that day, they will learn. Like this team, they will learn.

The magic of the contest was in the precious 17 minutes of the second period when carnelian-and-white skaters seemed to have erased the storyline that Harvard scribbled in the first period. Lynah Faithful, including this typically realistic writer, thought that the comeback was coming. The assembly in Lynah Rink believed that Cornell was going to realize the rally. What the Red gave the Lynah Faithful that night was precious belief.

A belief in the bright future of the season had not been so obvious since the win over then-undefeated Providence. A late-game collapse against Union that made a tie more like a loss and nightmare-inducing play against Dartmouth made most Lynah Faithful agnostic about the trajectory of this team. Cornell was on a horrific slide. Then, down 3-0 to its nemesis, in the depths of despair, it found a way to make its loyalists believe. It taught even the most ravenous consumers of information that they have not met this team yet.

The Game plays a crucial role in the ambitions of the programs who play it. Mike Schafer's senior season suffered obliteration at the hands of the Crimson at home and a sweep in the regular season. These setbacks fueled the grit that won the 1986 Whitelaw Cup. Does anyone think that Harvard's inability to beat Cornell last season despite how good it was at points played no role in the Crimson's tear through ECAC Hockey's postseason?

What is this team? The Game revealed some character. The team was half-formed at best. It instilled belief as it played Cornell hockey in a rally, but as soon as Harvard's lead was narrowed to one goal, selfish and asynchronous play returned which allowed the Crimson to reclaim control of the game. The Game is always a great teacher. Did this team attend class?

Contests against Harvard are a window into the future. This Cornell team left Harvard Week with a great deal to prove. It made the Lynah Faithful believe again. It outshot Harvard by a wide margin in the third period and briefly controlled the game against a team that does not sit back even with a lead. The team still came up short.

Coach Schafer offers a scathing critique of where the team is after a week of disappointingly equivocal and accommodating rhetoric. The failures that he identifies are not unlike those that this contributor notes. The head coach condemns his team's recent "refus[al] to shoot pucks" and "want[ing] to make one extra pass as opposed to putting it on net." These problems distill down to one of character in the mind of the championship-winning coach. "It goes back to work ethic and playing with a chip on your shoulder like you have something to prove."

A chip the size of the Whitelaw Cup that Colin Blackwell lifted in Lake Placid last season is planted firmly on the shoulders of this team. This team has no excuse as to why it cannot feel it there. A winless weekend at home should a vendetta make.

This writer promised quietly when the season began that he would not commit the cardinal sin of the Lynah Faithful: looking too far ahead to the playoffs, when real glory is earned, and not enjoy the ride of the regular season in the process. Well, the Adirondacks are calling and their serenade cuts all the more quickly to East Hill through the chill of the Red's recent performance in conference. This team may be on the brink of depriving another senior class at Cornell University of what Coach Schafer dubbed last season, "real senior night." The playoff picture develops without carnelian right now.

Cornell ended the first semester tied for most conference wins. The Big Red was closer to surpassing the winning rate of Quinnipiac than it was slipping into third place with Harvard. Cornell was 0.12 points per game off the paces of the Bobcats. The Upstate New Yorkers led Harvard by 0.25 points per game. Cornell was equally within the all-important top four.

The second semester sees Cornell earning 0.25 points per game. Yes, you read that right. Cornell's winning rate in the conference that it used to dominate and seemed positioned to dominate again this season fell by 84.7%. Nine teams slip above the Big Red in seeding consideration from the first semester. Ah, yes, the points from the first semester may seem like they are erased, but they remain. So, do they save the Red's hopes of a first-round bye?

Cornell averages 1.17 points per game. Dartmouth clawed its way up from a first-semester seventh place to a tie with the Big Red. The combatants from last Friday's contest tie at fifth. If the playoffs were held today, Cornell would have the benefit of home ice, but not real home ice. The Ithacans would leave on the table the ability to gain much-needed rest with a bye.

The first seed may be out of reach. The Bobcats earn more than one-half of a point per game more out of each contest. Arctic frost would need to befall Hamden to give coveters of participation trophies a chance. Good news can be found in two facts. Cornell still has more in-conference wins than does second-place RPI. Cornell is off the pace of prospective seeds two through four by 0.16 and 0.08 points per game, respectively. No program in those slots wins at Cornell's first-semester rate.

Ten conference games remain for the Big Red. Cornell has one game shy of an entire half of its in-conference slate available to prove that it deserves real home ice. It equally gives Cornell time to prove unequivocally right naysayers who expected a bottom-quarter finish. The grace of first-semester points is all that prevents the Red from slumping that low already.

This team fancied itself historic. Observers could tell. People rarely spoke it, but entering the break, some fans prematurely thought of them as a reborn 2002-03 team. Both teams had only one loss in the first semester. However, by this point in that historic season, Cornell had 17 wins. This team still is tied with last season's 11 wins. A chance at history lies before it.

Cornell has not swept in the North Country in more than a decade. The Big Red completed its last road sweep of the North Country at 9:13 pm on February 26, 2005. Winners of NCAA tournament games and a Whitelaw Cup have come and gone. They have not completed the feat. There it is, right before this team: Make history, sweep the North Country.

A sweep would begin Cornell's needed climb to a top-four finish. Victories in Potsdam and Canton would combine to equate to at least the emotional equivalent of beating Harvard at Lynah Rink. Can the chip left from The Game propel this team to break one of Cornell's most widely known droughts in Eastern hockey?

If Cornell returns to a shooting mentality and takes controls of games as it could during the first semester when it was tied or trailed, this team may be able to break a nearly 11-year streak for the Golden Knights and Saints. Coach Schafer knows what will happen if the Big Red does not return to that style of play, "if we play any other way, we are very pedestrian."

Clarkson opens the weekend. The Golden Knights have played only one contest without earning a point in the new semester after going winless in conference in the first semester. The Saints, much like Cornell, despite falling on bad times, are not to be underestimated. This reversal of the quality of the teams from when the Big Red played them at Lynah Rink presents a psychological test. Can Cornell respect its opponents to know the efforts required to deliver victory even if these teams may be playing the reverse from what they were in December? Neither program can be disrespected if history is sought.

The daunting gauntlet of the North Country is thrown this weekend.

​Newcomers dream of making a mark, veterans aspire toward continued dominance, and scoreless seniors yearn to write a legacy as Cornell and Harvard play the 146th edition of The Game. There will be no shortage of those and other storylines between the Crimson and Red at Lynah Rink on Saturday, January 23, 2016 in this edition of their storied rivalry.

Was Howe, Orr, or Gretzky the greatest player in NHL history? LeBron or Kobe, who is the heir to His Airness' throne? Did Brady's ridiculous diet leave him with a waif-like strength that left him no other option but to deflate? Did Han shoot first?

Fans fight about these things. These things matter deeply to fans. They plague all varieties of 'quels and 'peats, and seasons.

One perennial question taunts the fans of college hockey. The partisans of eight (okay, really seven) fanbases defend the distinct, often violent, relationship that their preferred program shares with another as the greatest rivalry in college hockey. This piece resolves that debate between the four most prominent contenders deserving of consideration.

If one's rivalry consists of no meetings in modern championship games and a first playoff meeting of consequence in 2001, one needn't apply. The viable contenders are Boston College-Boston University, Cornell-Harvard, Michigan-Michigan State, and Minnesota-North Dakota. Each is compared and weighed to all other contenders in terms of antics, background, consequences, and emotions of the series. Reader, you anticipate the end result already. The elements are compared in parts to put to rest the debate as to which rivalry is second-best to the Crimson-Red rivalry.

There is one guiding light throughout this piece:

Origins are an essential part of any story. Exposition lays the ground work for all that follows. A program's first opponent easily becomes a program's opponent. Boston University and Michigan State bring this flavor into the gumbo that is the brewing stew of their respective series. Neither Cornell nor Harvard offer that to their potluck.

The Eagles of Boston College are the oldest opponent of the Terriers of Boston University. The hockey program of Michigan State commenced with a game against its most hated foe, Michigan. Neither participant of the Minnesota-North Dakota rivalry extend this historical honor. Harvard's first opponent was Brown. Cornell's first opponent was Swarthmore.

This counts as a decided win for the Boston College-Boston University and Michigan-Michigan State rivalries. There is great dignity in being able to say that a rivalry that draws national attention today marked the beginning of it all. However, that victory must be tempered by a proper understanding of the relationship between Cornell and Harvard Universities.

Existence as refutation is a powerful germ. That is exactly what Cornell offers Harvard. Cornell University would not exist if Harvard University was not derelict in its duties. Andrew Dickson White excoriated Harvard as the standard bearer of the old guard for failing to educate adequately the élite of the United States and to become America's Oxford. The namesake of Cornell University, its other founder, believed Harvard University's failures were dual.

Ezra Cornell cited Harvard University's failure to espouse the rejuvenating ideals of the mid-19th Century in admissions as a motivator for his creation of the great American university in Upstate New York. Harvard excluded students on the basis of religion and class. This sat poorly with the self-made Quaker. Ubiquitous racial prejudice limited opportunities at Harvard University. Both Cornell and White who championed abolitionism and racial equality saw in Harvard a cynical view of the United States, not the aspirational tones of the era. In American education, Harvard was founder, Cornell was redeemer.

Someone who lacks understanding of true rivalry may find himself asking, "what does this have to do with hockey?" It has everything to do with hockey. Xenophobia was another one of Harvard's preconceptions. The student-athletes at Cornell University from its first teams reflected the values and embodied the composition of their University. Early greats of Cornell hockey came from Canada, the Midwest, the Jewish-American community, and working-class families of Upstate New York.

The philosophical rift is literally traversed when Cornell and Harvard meet. Why did it take the programs nearly a decade before their first meeting? The stakes were simply too high for either side. The programs negotiated regularly from Cornell hockey's first seasons. Each time, one party would walk away from the agreement.

It was as the negotiation between two prize-fighters in the early 20th Century. As Tyson proved with Holyfield in the 1990s, a champion can evade for only so long. The hockey programs of Cornell and Harvard were already great before their first meeting in 1910. As every time since, players for Cornell faced the self-doubt of irrelevance, those of Harvard confronted the same of obsolesce, not just for their respective hockey programs, but for their universities.

It took two tries to deliver an eternal moment. On January 28, 1911, the children of German immigrants from Buffalo who would go on to serve their nation honorably in the First World War connected to give Cornell University its first victory over the privileged sons of Harvard. Jeff Vincent's scoring in overtime cemented the Cornell-Harvard series's universality of meaning. The goal made Cornell national champions. It was the first game of consequence in the series.

The Cornell-Harvard series, inaugurated in 1910, is nearly a decade older than its nearest rival for the most heated rivalry of college hockey. The Minnesota-North Dakota series did not know an installment until the Truman Administration. Minnesota and North Dakota fans quickly will resort to arguing that the scale of the games in their series makes that rivalry preeminent. Those fans even go so far as to allege that the NCAA has an elaborate conspiracy to place Minnesota and North Dakota on collision courses in the NCAA tournament. This cabal makes Minnesota-North Dakota the most intense because the programs meet so often in games of great consequence. Well, the rodents and the feather-donners have a point.

Rivalries are most vested and interesting when their constituent games matter. Games never matter more than in the playoffs. Which rivalry of the four considered counts the greatest number of all-time playoff meetings?

The four series are surprisingly consistent. All of the rivalries have met between 13 and 22 times in the playoffs. The tail of the group is the Michigan-Michigan State series. The head? Well, as expected, the Minnesota-North Dakota rivalry is the series that counts the most playoff meetings between the two programs. Where do the other two fall?

Boston College and Boston University have tangled five fewer times than have the Gophers and the Former Sioux. A three-game deficit is all that separates the Cornell-Harvard rivalry's 19 playoff meetings from the 22 of the Minnesota-North Dakota rivalry. The offering of the former WCHA despite its youth (Boston College and Boston University first met in the playoffs in 1949 while Cornell and Harvard first met in the playoffs in 1911) edges the historic Eastern foes very narrowly.

​All fans know that intensity grows in proportion to depth in the playoffs. A fever pitch is not reached until hardware is on the line. Spartans and Wolverines have sparred only three times with a postseason title on the line. Minnesota and North Dakota drop from the highest rung to the penultimate slot with five meetings for championships. Eagles and Terriers have clawed and snarled six times for playoff rings since their first meeting in 1949.

The clash of Crimson and Red has blotted seven championship games in its history. Critical readers may wonder if inclusion of pre-NCAA era playoff match-ups skews this figure in favor of the ancient foes. Cornell and Harvard remain the most common rivals to meet in title games in college hockey even if controlling for the modern era.

Michigan and Michigan State did not meet in the playoffs until 1997. They preserve all three of their title-game meetings. The same situation benefits the programs of Minnesota and North Dakota that did not meet for a trophy until 1979. The Beantown rivals fare badly. Only three of their six title game appearances occurred in the modern era. Their series plummets to a tie with the Spartans and Wolverines at the bottom of the heap. Carnelian and Crimson lose but one championship meeting.

The rivalry of the Ivy League is the most commonly played definitive match-up in college hockey.

The most decorated rivalry in college hockey is the Cornell-Harvard rivalry.

Combining regular-season and playoff titles that Cornell and Harvard have won produces a gaudy haul. The constituent programs of the series combine for 86 championships. No other rivalry comes close to the dominance that the Crimson and Red wield over ECAC Hockey, the Ivy League, and the NCAA.

Boston College and Boston University share 67 championships. A combined Minnesota-North Dakota trophy case would hold only 58 championships. Once again, the Michigan-Michigan State series checks in at the bottom of this criterion with a combined title haul of 56 championships. A note of methodology is in order here.

The total for the Minnesota-North Dakota rivalry includes for tournament titles only those in which either program was the absolute champion of its league. The WCHA previously divided its conference into an East and West. The Conference recognized co-champions proving that the era of participation trophies is not new. These "championships" (more aptly semifinal victors) are excluded from the series's total because no analog ever existed in the East in the modern era.

The nearest competitor of a rivalry in the hardware or glitz-and-glamour criterion lacks nearly 30% of the combined titles that the Cornell-Harvard series claims. For those curious, if one were to include the overglorified holiday tournament that is the Beanpot, yes, the haul of the Boston College-Boston University rivalry finally would surpass that of the Cornell-Harvard series. The Beanpot-inclusive total for the Beantown rivalry is 116 championships.

Intellectual consistency dictates that attention should be drawn to which rivalry owns the greatest number of postseason tournament championships. Alas, it is not the Cornell-Harvard series. The Big Red and Crimson share (as best that they can) 24 tournament titles. Boston College and Boston University lead all of the rivalries with 36 collective tournament titles.
​
All four rivalries share something in common. They all were intraconference at one time. Only three of them remain as such. The similarity that they all shared when Minnesota and North Dakota were in the same conference was the dominance that the rivalrous pair exerted over its conference. Boston College and Boston University in Hockey East, Michigan and Michigan State in the CCHA, and Minnesota and North Dakota in the WCHA claimed the greatest and second-greatest numbers of conference tournament titles in their respective conferences.

Harvard has the second-largest share of Whitelaw Cups of any team in ECAC Hockey. Its total is second only to that of Cornell. The uniformity of this trend across all four rivalries reinforces the role that playoff meetings play in igniting and maintaining the passions of college hockey's greatest rivalries.

Inflation devalues all things. Even the most valuable thing can be diluted to the point of worthlessness if it becomes awash in meaninglessness. Long periods of irrelevance for programs within a rivalry or long stretches of games of little consequence serve as wet timber to a fire that eventually will extinguish no matter how roaring it may have been at one point.

Rivalries can be overplayed. There is a reason why college football rivalries are usually viewed as uniquely preeminent. Success sustains for an entire season. Failure festers for an entire year. The closer a rivalry in college hockey approximates the frequency of meetings in college football the greater the likelihood that a series's passions can reach a zenith.

Sheer number of installments is too crude of a meter for comparing the dilution of a rivalry. The percentage of high-stakes meetings within that series must be considered. The series with the highest percentage of meetings in the playoffs and title games is necessarily the most heated because a greater percentage of the chapters to that series' saga bears gavest consequence.

The Cornell-Harvard series consists of the greatest fraction of contests of import. The margin between the Cornell-Harvard series and its nearest rival rivalry in terms of preponderance of playoff meetings is understood better in terms of percentage deficit than absolute terms. The Crimson and Red are more than 70% more likely to clash in the playoffs than have been the Gophers and Fighting Hawks. Playoff meetings between Boston College and Boston University, and Michigan and Michigan State suffer from a relative deficit of greater than 100% in terms of the prevalence of playoff meetings in their all-time series.

The dominance of the Ivy League's greatest rivals does not falter when looking at only the percentage of games in a series that have decided championships. Cornell and Harvard do have a challenger different than they did for the percentage of playoff meetings in a series. Boston College and Boston University claim the second slot. The Eagles and Terriers series are in a hole 117% as large as the frequency of their title-game meetings. Cornell and Harvard have met nearly 400% more commonly in title games relative to the density of title-game meetings in their series than have Michigan and Michigan State.

The most played rivalry of the four is the Michigan-Michigan State rivalry. That series knows 302 installments. The two least played rivalries are those between Boston College and Boston University, and Cornell and Harvard. Fans have watched Boston College play Boston University 269 times. Cornell and Harvard have met but 145 times.

The Cornell-Harvard series maintains its passions with only bi-seasonal meetings in the regular season. One regular-season game at each campus every season preserves interest without dilution. Each contest matters because each program is guaranteed only one chance to defend its ice.

All other later rematches in the season are earned through the attrition of the playoffs. More than 15% of the series's 145 games occur in the playoffs. Nearly five percent of all meetings between the two programs decide a title. The unequaled zeal associated with the Cornell-Harvard rivalry can be attributed to these realities.

A rivalry has arrived when it becomes far more than just the game. Antics must become nationally known. The theatricality cannot be limited to the players on the ice alone. The drama must overflow the frozen pond to consume spectators if not entire campuses. Which rivalries of the four meet any of these requirements?

Sorry, Minnesota-North Dakota, clever misspelling of interrogatives to mock the misfortune of your opponent's losing its historic name because of NCAA censure neither truly manifests an institutional invective nor amuses national audiences for more than mere seconds. Reduction of one's overwhelmingly crude repertoire to an even more simplistic exclamation for a hated foe is, in a word, lazy, Michigan-Michigan State. Boston College-Boston University offers a little creativity and musicality to a chant that still falls short in an era when Tarantinonian dialogue makes the pep band's refrain seem befitting of the Disney genre. Yes, Terriers, those Boston College sweaters do look like Grey Poupon, but expect more of yourself!

The essence of the Cornell-Harvard rivalry is distinct. Unlike the other three prominent rivalries, its essence is neither encapsulated in the detergents of the laundromat nor preserved in the keystrokes of the cartographer. Cornell-Harvard plays out on a hockey rink, but the elements of the rivalry involve so much more. Many of the memorable elements of the rivalry occurred before puck-drop and long after stick salute.

When one has to make a trip to a farmers's market or grocery store before a game, one knows that one has something special. Everyone knows about the hurled chickens (Harvard's salvo to mock the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University) and the responsive fish fly (Cornell's retort to criticize Harvard College's perceived unfortunate proximity to Boston). Come on, Boston College-Boston University, even New Hampshire throws a fish.

The chicken-and-haddock exchange is most well known. It is not alone. The propensity of Harvard to hurl things at Cornell does not end there. Ask Darren Eliot, at one point, Harvard fans took Trader Joe's two-buck chuck as a literal suggestion. Today? Crimson partisans lob ears of corn onto the ice of Bright-Landry Hockey Center. This act presumably doubles as a sad homophonic pun and a post-H5N1 ridicule of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Cornellians expand the assortment of sea fare with which they welcome their visiting Cantabs. Sharks and squid join fish. Beach balls, inflatable dolls, and other items blot the ice of Lynah Rink from time to time. At one point, phallic projectiles were the choice of airborne harassment.

Now, the Lynah Faithful take to reminding the Crimson that this rivalry is about more than hockey. It is about a clash of ethics and ideas. Chants critical of Harvard College's lax grading system and policies that favor grade inflation endure and grow after more than a decade. The students and alumni exchange taunts of "safety school." The antithetical existence that stalled the first meetings of the programs now finds seasonal release during each hockey contest.

This blurring of the academic and athletic, and the institutional and programmatic is unnovel. Players who often felt that one university slighted them conveniently find themselves donning the antagonistic shade of red. Athletic directors in Cambridge became quite familiar with the streets of Toronto and Montreal when trying to disqualify student-athletes at Cornell University during the Harkness era. Harvard relished in recruiting the advantaged children of New England's prep hockey system. Figures large in Crimson athletics despised the opportunity that Cornell extended to the sons of farming and working-class families in Canada. This extension was no different than that offered to Cornell's earliest American players.

The first note in the Cornell-Harvard symphony that resonated on campuses rather than just within rinks, the note that made the series forever an institutional clash, was one that Harvard students struck in Boston Arena in 1911. It was more than a half-century before chickens, fish, phalli, or corn skated. Harvard alumni and students who throw an ear harmonize with a tradition that their predecessors introduced to the rivalry. Dead rabbits littered the ice after Jeff Vincent bested Harvard in overtime. Never again was any rivalry in college hockey on equal footing for its all-consuming, all-encompassing nature.

Chuck Klosterman penned the words above for the January 29, 2007 issue of Esquire. They are as timeless as the tensions incumbent in the Cornell-Harvard rivalry. The January 28, 1911 game folded permantenly into all Cornell-Harvard games a grating clash of class and age. Cornell and Harvard are nemeses in an eternal rivalry. The other six combatants are mere enemies pitted in long-standing traditions of contests with depth that seems superficial by comparison.

Only by two metrics did the Cornell-Harvard rivalry not register as the most contentious series. Boston College and Boston University combine for more tournament titles. Minnesota and North Dakota have met three more times in the playoffs.

The rivalry most played in title games is that between Cornell and Harvard. No rivalry is more decorated than the one shared between the Crimson and Red. The greatest density of games that are in the playoffs or decide championships are played in the Cornell-Harvard series which indicates that each installment matters more. It is the permeation of institutional identity into the ritual of the series and how the play of each team reflects identity that catapults Cornell-Harvard above all others.

Cornell University and Harvard University are nemeses. They, like their associated hockey programs, make each other better. Cornell would have little to aspire to if it were not for the example of Harvard. Harvard would be a far less egalitarian institution if it were not for the example of Cornell. Both hockey programs would be mediocre without the goading presence of the other.

Each game between the two universities is about hockey. Each game is about so much more. Remember that this week.

​Cornell extends an offer this Saturday for the Crimson to accompany it to Theodore Zinck's for highballs. To answer another question, Cornell assuredly would attend Harvard's funeral. The carnelian reserve the right of putting the Crimson on the pyre.

There are few things that come out of the Cornell hockey program that actually surprise me anymore. However, this week, when reading an article from U.S. College Hockey Online, a quote leapt from the screen of whichever device I was using at the time. The quote was the one atop this post. Its contents were the words of John Knisley.

The words were sufficiently pointed and powerful to change which piece that this particular writer drafted this week.

A crisis of culture seems to be afoot on East Hill. One of this team's determined leaders directly, and perhaps deservedly, challenged the loyalty of a faction of the Cornell hockey fanbase. I addressed such fair-weather fandom last season after The Game at Lynah Rink. No matter how embarrassing the loss was to Ohio State. True Lynah Faithful, not those of the face-timing variety, remain planted firmly outside of the thicket.

Yes, yes, I used that word again. Embarrassing. There is no contradiction between certain embarrassment with the effort of fellow Cornellians through two-thirds of their last game and agreeing with Knisley's sentiments that fans should support their program during the highs and lows. The creed of the Lynah Faithful is that carnelian-and-white gladiators are entitled to present support and the implicit hope that the next game will be better than the last, no matter how bad the previous result is. Cornell teams are not entitled to compliments, just like Cornell students are not. They are due support.

The metric for all of the writers at Where Angels Fear to Tread lays bare in a piece from last week. "[Cornell hockey] is about playing an impassioned pastime in a way that brings honor to their University." Whether one is a new initiand, Cornellian who remained Faithful since his days as a student, or someone born into the zealotry that is Cornell hockey, the sentiment should temper your approval or disapproval of a given effort, not the result.

​The effort last Tuesday failed to bring such honor.

A disappointing outing does not excuse disloyalty. A collegiate fanbase should not expand and contract with real-time results. Its displeasure should be manifest in attendance. Attendance demands results at a program like that of Cornell. Lynah Rink has launched 14 postseason championships. The players live the expectations. They need an audience that exacts excellence from them. Attend games if you want results to improve. Express your dissatisfaction in disappointment.

No, I would not endorse the creation of an environment in which visiting teams would wonder with the reception that a floundering home team received if a Chickie's and Pete's had been installed in the eastern concourse of Lynah Rink. I advise strongly against that in fact. Do as the participants of Where Angels Fear to Tread did. Our emotions were stated clearly. We went nowhere. And, other than being momentarily swept up in the excitement of the Red giving Providence its first loss since last March, comments were equally divided and equally clear about our sentiments.

Do not flatter idly. Do not flee needlessly. Neither the thought of not supporting this team nor not attending the Merrimack series crossed my mind.

John Knisley, a loyal corps of the Lynah Faithful and we are not about to become part of the woodwork.

This team needs to reprove that it is deserving of exuberance, not loyalty.

A hope that the next game will be better than the last is an essential part of loyalty. One may even call its fidelity, perhaps faithfulness.​ Coach Schafer delivered to this writer much-needed hopes from the depths of handwringing despair.

Why did that statement deliver so much hope? It differs so greatly from what Cornell's head coach said last season in far too frequent postgames. The keyword? We. Coach Schafer internalized and personalized the shortcomings of the team. He indicates that his leadership in guiding this team will adjust to provide the team with whichever push it needs after an apocalyptic hangover led to catastrophic second and third periods against the Buckeyes of Ohio State.

Loyalty, academic or familial, often requires telling people what they do not want to hear. So, out of loyalty to this team and the Lynah Faithful, here are several doses of reality. Grab a glass of water.

This is a new season. Cornell averages currently only 1.00 goals per game. The New Brunswick-Illinois-New York Express delivered the winner against the Friars. This kept the Red's most prolific line on pace with its "first-season" rate of one even-strength goal per game. Getting shut out in the next contest halved this production rate. Comparing likes to likes, Harvard's top line has upped its game to 1.25 even-strength goals per game since returning to action. This carnelian-and-white freight carrier may need to close the 150% deficit after outperforming Harvard's top line by 30% on even strength in the "first season" to stoke Cornell's success.

The need to get the Vanderlaan-Kubiak-Angello line and Canadian Club rolling again is paramount. After contributing an aggregate of 1.93 goals per game in the first semester, the two lines produced only 0.50 goals per game. What is most alarming? A Red team that once produced more than three goals per game gifted Christian Frey his first shutout in a three-year career. Frey averaged surrendering nearly as many goal as Cornell was accustomed to scoring.

A sliver of hope, like a sunbeam, cuts through the darkness of last Tuesday's contest to the present. Returners to the line-up added new life. The most obvious example is the magic that Eric Freschi and Jared Fiegl worked to know the contest against Providence. Fiegl missed both contests against the North Country. He returned and sank a goal reminiscent of his preseason performances last season. Freschi, well, the Minnesotan played as the Lynah Faithful expect when he finds his way onto the scoring sheet. He kills penalties and grinds out opponents, but when he aids in scoring, he is clutch.
​
Coach Schafer's elected to begin Cornell's bid to defeated the undefeated with Jared Fiegl, Eric Freschi, and Teemu Tiitinen. It symbolized a tremendous vote of confidence. Providence scored 27 seconds later. Fiegl, Freschi, and Tiitinen redeemed themselves. They restarted the game. They gave their team a chance to win. Faith was not misplaced.

It was not only Cornell's starting line against Providence that showed great potential in this new season. Brendan Smith began to impress. After shaking off the early jitters of wearing the carnelian-and-white sweater for his first time against Clarkson, Smith seemed poised against Providence in every situation. His reliability, already impressive, seems to be improving and after only one game of playing like a freshman, he fits nearly seamlessly alongside veterans like Patrick McCarron, Dan Wedman, and Reece Willcox.

At long last, Dwyer Tschantz returned. Return he did. The sophomore forward registered neither a goal nor an assist. One saw as soon as his blades cut the ice that his game was on the brink of being where he hoped it would be last season. He is averaging only one shot per game. Expect none of those totals to remain zero or so low for long. Last season, Tschantz appeared to play somewhat with the shaken self-assurance of playing through injury as a freshman. He still led his class in goals-per-game production last season. Tschantz will continue to play with a vengeance with injury hopefully behind him.

The whetted skills of Freschi, Fiegl, Tiitinen (it seems like this contributor never ceases to mention him), and Tschantz should allow Cornell to find more easily its scoring touch with more weapons. Other changes will need to be made to return a robust offense to East Hill. The Red insists on scoring the hard way. Cornell's power play, in bygone seasons known as the pride of Coach Schafer, has been poor at times and horrible at others at the close of "last season" and the opening of "this season."

​When did Cornell last score a power-play goal? No, this is not a trick question to reinforce the mindset that the first semester was another season. Really, when did the Big Red last celebrate a power-play goal?

​If your answer was Red Hot Hockey V, you are right. Remember that goal? Cornell has played four complete games since then without finding the back of the net with the man advantage. Cornell has failed to convert on 16 consecutive opportunities. The haphazard, no-rhyme-or-reason approach needs to end. 


Against Providence, only Cornell's first power-play opportunity managed to gain the zone for any amount of time and try to generate the mismatch off of cycling for an open shooting lane. The other three opportunities were equally fruitless but appeared exceedingly clueless. Cornell, its personnel and coaching staff, can do this. The Red ripped open the Bobcats of Hamden on the power play with three man advantage goals after Quinnipiac had allowed none through seven games. Rand Pecknold's penalty kill still sits among the nation's top three. Solving this problem will prevent fears of a scoring strain.

The Warriors of Merrimack may be the perfect opponent for Cornell to find its scoring touch when it outnumbers its foe. Merrimack's penalty-killing efficiency of 80.8% resembles the current rates of the penalty-killing units at Colgate and Princeton. The bad news? Cornell combined for only one power-play goal against either opponent in three games.

Whether the Warriors will present the opportunity for the Red to finds its power-play edge is unknown. What is known is that Merrimack presents the right test at the right time. Cornell lost to Ohio State because it did not respect its opponent. The Buckeyes had few wins and fewer championships. The carnelian and white took for granted that it could glide past their Midwestern challengers. 

Merrimack is not a blue blood of college hockey. Misguided arrogance could lead members of this Cornell team to overlook the Warriors of Massachusetts. The temptation is great. Succumbing to it will damn the Red.

This team needs to prove that it has learned to respect its opponents. If it has not already, hopefully this series will serve as an invaluable learning experiences. Imagine if Cornell were to earn a bid to the NCAA tournament, what would happen if it met a program of less acclaim? Say, randomly, of course, a Bemidji State or Ferris State. It is better to learn now than later.

A frontier ethos that would make Frederick Jackson Turner proud distinguishes Cornell University from its Ivy League counterparts. This ethic demands rugged individualism. Resolve and perseverance, like that to return early from injury, are the hallmarks of a Cornellian. Those of this anima, like I am sure the Pittsford native who inspired this angle, want to earn respect and deserve success, not be given them devoid of merit.

Hours from now, this contributor will be bound for "the woodwork." Captain John Knisley's choice of preposition will inaccurately describe the setting of this writer. This contributor, like fans, students, and alumni, will be headed onto the woodwork; the woodwork of the lacquered benches at Lynah Rink. We will be there. The burden of prepositional or verbal changes belongs to the team. This team decides if we remain seated on, stand upon, or leap above the woodwork in ecstasy.

There is always great anticipation when one of college hockey's blue-blood hockey programs (can one have both blood and a collar of blue?) meets for the first time one of the sport's relative newcomers. The designation as newcomer tends to take upon a less-than-common meaning when one's preferred program began playing at the turn of the century (the one two turns ago). The series this weekend with Merrimack has elements, accurate and inaccurate, of such a meeting.

This is not the Red's first meeting with the Warriors. Cornell and Merrimack have met twice previously. The series is split. Both meetings occurred in the now-defunct Syracuse Invitation Tournament.

Merrimack hockey is young. It just is not that ​young. The Warriors first took the ice one season before the carnelian and white moved into Lynah Rink. They have earned two berths to the NCAA tournament at the Division I level, one appearance in Hockey East's championship game, and a Division II national championship in the late 1970s.

So, how did these two programs with seemingly disparate pedigrees come to arrange the first on-campus meetings of the series? Mike McMahon, who does double duty for College Hockey News and his The Mack Report, interviewed Merrimack's head coach Mark Dennehy. McMahon, despite his known suspicions of Ivy League recruiting, elicited many of the right responses. The audio is somewhat crude. This contributor transcribed Dennehy's thought-provoking comments on the series.

This answer from Dennehy presents as many answers as it invites questions. Firstly, Florida? Does Merrimack's head coach mean the Florida College Classic? Or, does Dennehy mean the annual coaches's conference in Naples? Both are plausible.

A coach of another program may have backed out of games during the conference in Naples. It is equally possible that slots opened in Cornell's schedule when North Dakota decommitted (readers of Where Angels Fear to Tread know that was for Dennehy) from the 2013 Florida College Hockey Classic. The series with the Fighting Hawks (née Sioux) may have included an arrangement for a home-and-home series over the next few seasons which deteriorated at North Dakota's breach.

Either way, Mark Dennehy came to the aid of Coach Schafer and Cornell hockey in arranging this game as a favor to the hockey program of New York's land-grant university. Dennehy, as much as opposing coaches can be viewed, is a friend of Cornell hockey.

Dennehy still fails to sate the curiosity of the Lynah Faithful as to which programs reneged on their agreement to play at Lynah Rink. He does not clarify what he means by "Florida" either. However, that is not Dennehy's purpose. He arrives at a far more interesting point in that comment as well. Merrimack hockey sought to end its 17-year gap between meetings with Cornell for "years." Merrimack's and Dennehy's admiration for Cornell hockey is clear. It grew more obvious throughout the interview. The respect expressed did not relegate itself to dust found on the carnelian and white's oldest banners.

The respect for Coach Schafer speaks for itself. I will not insult the intelligence of the readers of Where Angels Fear to Tread with attempts to glean more from Dennehy's share words. I will note that the bench boss of the Warriors is very astute in his assumptions and observations (he proclaimed that he has not dissected tape with his team, but might have seen footage elsewhere). Like Jack Parker, a coach deserving of recognition for his on-ice products as one of the all-time great coaches, Mark Dennehy knows that Cornell's approach to the game is mutable in degrees. The alterations to the Red's forecheck that are lost on partisan, both foe and friend, and national media are not lost on the best of coaches. Cornell's style during the 2015-16 season proves that Coach Schafer, like coaching greats, "change[s] a little bit with the times." Dennehy's penultimate statement expressed the obvious. It is his comments on the ability of Coach Schafer to adapt with the times that indicate that the charges of a modern great will face off with those of a savvy underappreciated bench boss. Who will prevail?

An assistant coaching position at Princeton served as a two-season stopover for Merrimack's head coach before he landed his current head coaching job by way of another stint as assistant and associate head coach at the University of Massachusetts. The first of Dennehy's years as assistant in New Jersey enjoyed Princeton's winning its first Whitelaw Cup (you know, the one people forget about because Guy Gadowsky did not win it before he bolted for Central Pennsylvania). The Tigers bested Cornell in ECAC Hockey's play-in game en route to that title. Needless to say, Mark Dennehy is familiar with the antics of the Lynah Faithful. He knows of the incomprehensibility of the 1969-70 team. The last time that he coached in Lynah Rink, the Big Red owned only 11 tournament titles, not its current 14. Dennehy's last game as an assistant coach at Princeton was 6-5 playoff victory at Hobey Baker Rink that ended the Big Red's season. Like the series with Cornell of the program that he is coaching presently, Princeton went 3-3-1 when he assisted there.

​He knows Cornell. He knows how to beat Cornell when it matters.

This places the burden on the Lynah Faithful. Fans, regional students, and nearby alumni need to rise to the occasion and bring their chronistic chants. Mark Dennehy will have his team ready for Lynah Rink's worst (say, for example, a reminder that the most famous player to play for Merrimack College is Mike Eruzione...and he did not even go there) (Background: Eruzione committed to Merrimack College before Jack Parker discovered him in a Boston-area hockey game). The more moribund that Lynah Rink is during this intercession contest, the more likely Merrimack is to become emboldened in its efforts. The Warriors will remember Lynah Rink as a place that is comfortable to play. Cornell hockey cannot abide that.

Dennehy does know what to expect. He experienced Lynah Rink firsthand as a player. Boston College braved Lynah Rink during his senior season. Merrimack's head coach assisted on the Eagles's third goal. Four goals from Cornell's Ryan Hughes, an assist from Doug Derraugh began the Red's attempt at a rally, was not enough. The Eagles won, 5-4.

Former players of Boston College often quake about the horrors that they experienced on East Hill.

Lynah Faithful who can attend must attend to make sure that Mark Dennehy and his team do not leave disappointed.

Okay, this is where it got personal. The contributors found themselves dabbing tears from the corner of their eyes. Lawler Rink is one of the most feared venues in all of college hockey. It faults the publicity or hype, often deserved, of Yost Ice Arena or Lynah Rink. It is no more kind to opponents. Mark Dennehy is successful in making Lawler Rink nearly as hostile as Lynah Rink. The contributors of Where Angels Fear to Tread would love for the Red to travel to North Andover to face the test that is an environment based upon the atmosphere of a hockey contest in Ithaca.

​Readers, take heed at Dennehy's emulation of Cornell's style. There are two frequent opponents of Cornell that imitate Coach Schafer's style of play in recent years: Union and Quinnipiac. Union, well, Union did not pose a problem for Cornell despite its rise under Nate Leaman and Rick Bennett until they met in games of extreme consequence.

​The Dutchmen have rattled off three unanswered postseason victories against the carnelian and white. And, Quinnipiac, well, they are this era's great thorn in its side. The Bobcats claw and gnash, and wrest victory from the Big Red far too often. Astutely, Dennehy implies that the style that Merrimack will present Cornell is similar to those of Union and Quinnipiac. The weekend will be a good test to see how this Cornell team in this new season will fair against a Union or Quinnipiac with at least three games guaranteed against those programs in the coming weeks.

Classes may be out, but this weekend's test, like all those on East Hill, will have a steep curve.

The only non-verbal response that Mark Dennehy gave said the most. It was the most disappointing.

Laughter was the extent of any reaction that Merrimack's head coach had to Mike McMahon's implied inquiry. The writer of The Mack Report opened his questioning about the Cornell series dryly, "I assume with the way you guys schedule now that they'll be coming back to Lawler at some point." Dennehy responded with laughter.

Dennehy with ease danced around the direct question. He did not give an outright denial that Cornell will not visit Lawler Rink in the coming years. So, in that there is the possibility, that Cornell will return the trip. However, Mark Dennehy intimated very obviously that Coach Schafer does not plan to repay a two-game trek for Merrimack with any game, let alone a series.

Coach Schafer seems to be grappling with the above paradox of azurine blood and collar. Most Cornellians do.

This season is a mixed bag in that regard. Cornell began the season on the road at Dwyer Arena. It was a great experience. It was a great environment. It was great for college hockey. Now, the Lynah Faithful and contributors at Where Angels Fear to Tread hear that the Cornell hockey program may, not definitely, remain tainted with the very programmatic arrogance that Coach Schafer boldly broke in other programs with refusing to play a program in its building unless it returned the trip.

The hypocrisy is a bit disconcerting. Cornell should travel to Lawler Rink. It is great for the game. It is great for both programs. How can the coaching staff of a program demand that its team respects each opponent on its schedule equally after disrespect caused humiliation when that staff does not respect each prospective opponent equally in making the schedule?

Coach Schafer knows the right thing to do. He proved that this season. This writer hopes he will do the same with Merrimack.

Those are fighting words.

Mark Dennehy, a former player, assistant coach, and associate head coach, and current head coach in Hockey East, intended that comment as a compliment. Well, in ECAC Hockey, we do not take comparisons to the lesser of the Eastern half lightly. Cornell, the historic standard bearer of ECAC Hockey, will have to set Dennehy straight with a healthy dose of ECAC Hockey. Unless Dennehy was making a comment on officiating. If he is doing that, then everyone should plan for a four- to five-hour game because Hockey East officials or ECAC Hockey officials imitating Hockey East officials become embroiled in the game and degrade all flow to the contests. Yes, there are officials worse than those in ECAC Hockey.

All ribbing aside, Mark Dennehy shows great respect for Coach Schafer, Cornell hockey, and the Lynah Faithful (even in the last comment). The weekend should be an exciting occasion of college hockey before the Red resumes ECAC Hockey play.

The dog days of Winter beset Upstate New York over the last week. Just as the snow, cold, and other seasonal facets return, so does the Cornell hockey team to its home in Ithaca. The team returns leagues away from victorious having achieved dichotomous results in Florida (besting the then-undefeated defending national champion and losing to a team with but three wins before the semester break). Sunshine setbacks render not our student-athletes less deserving of unwavering support.

Games during the intersession typically spell disaster for attendance and home-ice advantage. Such a series in the wake of a humbling, if not humiliating, shutout to Ohio State further complicates the situation. Cornell Athletics has done its part. Tickets to the January 8 and 9 games are now on sale for $10.00. This value puts those tickets at less than half the price of all other contests at Lynah Rink. Considering this figure's reasonability, the contributors of Where Angels Fear to Tread provide regional fans, alumni, and students with 10 reasons why this series is worth the trek to Cornell University's haven.

34 days. Yes, as hard as it may be to believe, more than one month has passed since Anthony Angello beat the buzzer for the game-winning goal against Clarkson in the early days of December. Holidays have begun and ended since then. A new season has begun. The only way to gauge how this team looks headed into the crucial close of the regular season is to go see it compete firsthand against a quality out-of-conference opponent.

Everyone in the college-hockey world knows that Coach Schafer speaks frankly and clearly. Anyone who doubted that had his memory refreshed last November. On Friday and Saturday, on the bench opposite Cornell's now-iconic tunnel, will stand Mark Dennehy of Merrimack who is known for his frank, sometimes abrupt quotations. The utter sincerity of both coaches coupled with the drama of a two-game stand at one of college hockey's most grating venues may make for some memorable antics or comments. As for an example of Dennehy's openness, consider what is probably his most publicized comment on the state of college hockey and its recruiting process.

The Lynah Faithful implicitly know why the carnelian and white have reason to be angered. Come on. They lost that way to that team. All opponents deserve respect. As this contributor warned, Ohio State was a solid team and was dangerous with Christian Frey between the pipes. However, accepting losses to a program that ended seven of its last ten seasons below 0.500 was, in a word, nauseating. Equally nauseous must be the fans loyal to the Warriors of North Andover.

Merrimack is winless in its last three outings. One win and three consecutive losses mark time for the hockey team from Merrimack College since it returned to action after a nearly three-week break. Merrimack did not return with the winning pace that it expected. The Warriors have earned 75% of its first-semester losses in just four outings. They are hungry to return to their winning ways.

The hockey teams of Cornell and Merrimack are known for their physical styles. The bruised ego of Cornell and the disappointed start for Merrimack sets up quite the volatile combination for a two-game series that undoubtedly will begin to grate on its participants. With two hard-hitting times, as they times gets tough, the hitting only grows harder.

Cornell's power play is bad. Nay, the Red's extra-man unit is awful at times. In Florida, the Big Red failed to convert on any of 11 power-play opportunities. The brisk air above Cayuga Lake should go a long way toward waking up this moribund unit. Sure, Providence and Ohio State currently rank in the top half of the nation in terms of rate of penalty killing. What if the Red fails to capitalize on the man-up advantage against the Warriors? What excuses could mollify the Faithful then? Merrimack affords opponents a goal after 19.2% of its infractions. Statistically, the only penalty-killing units that currently are performing worse that the Red has played are those of Brown and Colgate. Facing a weaker (not weak) penalty kill in the Warriors should give the Big Red the opportunity to find its all-important power-play swagger that drives Coach Schafer's teams.

Boston University. Boston College. Maine. Providence. New Hampshire (maybe?). Those are the wheatiest of chaff-laden Hockey East. They are the nationally well-regarded vanguard of the secessionists. But, does Merrimack belong on that list?

​The answer simply is yes. Forgotten in all the ruckus that has been Eastern hockey over the last five seasons, is the fact that the Warriors charged triumphantly to the Hockey East tournament's championship game in 2011. That season was the last time that Cornell played for its prized Whitelaw Cup. Since the 2010-11 season, the hockey teams of Maine, Notre Dame, and Vermont have appeared in the same number of championship weekends as the team of Merrimack. Would either the Red or the Lynah Faithful look over those programs if they were on the docket for this coming weekend? Merrimack should be treated no differently. If Providence were braving Lynah Rink, would it be overlooked? The Friars have not equaled Merrimack's appearance in Hockey East's title game in the last five seasons. Providence has not kept that date in 14 years.

Cornell respects championships. Cornell respects playoff runs. Merrimack produced one of the best of the latter in the last few seasons. That season, the Warriors earned a second-seed bid to the NCAA tournament, the same as what Cornell would earn if the Red did not have to play out the remainder of the regular season and Eastern playoffs.

Two often disregarded programs from relatively small colleges in states with giants of the game dared the long slog to brand-name status in the late 2000s. Union College would break through to the upper echelon. Merrimack College would backslide a bit. However, before the 2011-12 season when the Dutchmen cracked the ice of the Frozen Four, most in the East would guess that Merrimack would be the next "surprise" national champion of the East. The Dutchmen and Warriors had nearly identical win totals of 26 and 25, respectively. The Warriors, unlike the wearers of the wooden shoe, found success in the playoffs. Colgate eliminated Union at home and Minnesota-Duluth jettisoned the Dutchmen from the national tournament. Merrimack swept Maine, dominated New Hampshire, lost a tightly contested title game to the defending national champion, and forced overtime against Frozen Four-bound Notre Dame. Merrimack, playing in the then-perceived as better conference of Hockey East, seemed the underdog team of the future. Few knew what Union would do. Their paths diverge. Merrimack remembers actively that season of success and is aware how the fates of Schenectady and North Andover parted. It desires to get there. Dennehy and his team know that a win over the Red at the East's greatest hockey venue would reinstill the confidence to fulfill on the promise lost of a few seasons past.

Real men eat quiche. They cry a little too. Frankly, with victories in the Shillelagh Tournament and Mariucci Classic, Jimmy Vesey hasn't had a whole lot to cry about. The Crimson star is due a good catharsis and Cornell can help.

It always comes down to Cornell and Harvard. Well, in this case, Cornell and Harvard's daddy...err, Jimmy Vesey's father.

​Jim Vesey, the father of the current Harvard senior, was a player on the first hockey team from Merrimack College to make the NCAA tournament at the Division I level. The Warriors with the elder Vesey on board won a two-game total-goals series against Northeastern on the road. Jim Vesey's team fell to the eventual national champion with getting outscored two to one in a national quarterfinal series against Lake Superior State. This season and its associated NCAA-tournament run (the first of two bids that the Warriors have earned) are regarded as important benchmarks in the history of Merrimack hockey.

Jimmy Vesey, the legacy to Merrimack College, not his father who helped ensure the relevance of Merrimack hockey, may be a bit perturbed if the Crimson's archnemesis wrests victories from his father's alma mater at Lynah Rink. The Cornell-Harvard rivalry is a deep one. One can assume the younger Vesey would react in such a manner. Hey, he will still have that Whitelaw Cup and, of course, grade inflation to aid his sleeping easily at night as his head hits a pillow in Manhattan.

Boosts in confidence are nice. They grow even nicer when they are earned against steeper odds. While Merrimack's penalty killing willingly should accommodate Cornell's power-play unit finding its edges, the Warriors's defense will make the Red earn all other goals that it scores the hard way. As has become expected, Merrimack executes at a fairly high level a containing and stifling backcheck. Cornell returned to play in this veritably new season averaging 1.00 goals per game. This equates to a nearly 70% offensive drop-off after the semester break. The Red will need to prove that it can score, not just big goals like it did against Providence in overtime, but many goals. Cornell has played four teams with defenses currently stingier than is the defense of Merrimack. Carnelian-and-white skaters averaged 2.00 goals per game against those opponents. Cornell's stable of forwards and offensively minded defensemen will need to produce more against Merrimack if it hopes to re-establish its offensive confidence in the second semester. Merrimack provides a stout test. The Lynah Faithful can trust that what Cornell scores is earned and earned against one of the nation's best defensive teams.

Too many make too much of Merrimack's recent losses. The Warriors dropped contests to Army, Union, and Dartmouth on the road. The timber of Union and Dartmouth is unknown, especially after a long break. Army is always a challenging opponent. Those losses may indicate that Merrimack's return to greatness may be another season in the future. What of Merrimack's other results? Merrimack is viewed often as a one-trick pony that relies on the insanity of Lawler Rink to carry it to victory. A 0.500 road record indicates that trope is not wholly true this season.

The Warriors defeated on the road a Massachusetts team that took publicly touted Yale to overtime. St. Lawrence met greater defeat at the hands of the Warriors than it did at those of the carnelian and white. The Warriors twice forced Lowell to settle for a tie. Merrimack did what Cornell could not in defeating Boston University. Merrimack has quality wins that Cornell does not. Those wins that the two program share, arguably Merrimack has more quality in their execution.

Last week's problem was obvious. Cornell defeated the defending national champion. Those around the program (partially complicit were the contributors of Where Angels Fear to Tread) knew ​that after a win like that that Cornell could never lose to a four-win team from a football school. Well, puck, that's exactly what the Buckeyes proved they could play. Why was Cornell not ready? Hubris. Merrimack is the perfect test to see if this program has purged that inclination for this season.

Merrimack, like Ohio State, does not have the banners that Cornell does. Neither has the history of Cornell hockey. Both do have determination. Any lack of respect for the Warriors immediately will lead to Buckeye-like embarrassment. For the idle pairwise gazers, Cornell's rating is not static. The system is dynamic and volatile. Cornell is not guaranteed a bid to the NCAA tournament on the back of its solid first-semester play. One of four teams with the Red's current rating fail to earn a bid to the NCAA tournament. If the carnelian and white fail to respect the Warriors like Coach Schafer's charges did the Buckeyes, it may be a few weeks off, but this team's season may be found seasonally appropriately roasting on an open fire.

​This season had high expectations for Cornell hockey. A Frozen Four in the East again. A senior class full of character. Sure, the seniors who graduated left sizeable holes. The small but mighty class of 2015 counted a gold medalist, over 200 goals (231 to be precise), and nine ECAC Hockey Championships. Most pundits expected Cornell to go into a dark age again. Who were the name-brand players who could carry the Lady Rouge into the next era of Cornell hockey? This contributor was not worried. Cornell counts in its senior class strong talent and character with captain Cassandra Poudrier, sparkplug Jess Brown, clutch player Anna Zorn, defensive stalwart Morgan Richardson, versatile Taylor Woods, and heart of the team Stefannie Moak. Add stellar incoming freshmen and great classes in the sophomores and juniors, this team looked poised to surprise some people. This contributor did not expect to be the one surprised.

Cornell began the season with then-undefeated Boston College at Lynah. The two games saw the same result but could not have been more different. The season did not get much better from there. The Red has yet to win a game on its home ice and sits at tenth in the conference in points. But, you may say, each team has played a different number of games. Intrepid reader, you are not wrong. Adjusting this metric is the approach preferred by this contributor. However, the adjusted metric in this case yields the same result: Cornell is earning 0.86 points per game and falls in tenth in the conference. (Few changes yield using this metric, notably with Colgate jumping Dartmouth.) With each team rounding out the remainder of its schedule, Cornell needs to seriously wonder for the first time since 2007 if it will even make the ECAC Hockey playoffs.

Though some may think this to be an exaggeration, with 15 conference games remaining in the season, this is intended to be a wake-up call, not a death knell, on the 2015-16 team. If the season ended today, Cornell would be the second team left out of the ECAC Hockey playoffs, playing its last game of the year in February for the first time since February 17, 2007. There is a mountain to climb if this team wants to keep playing through the end of February and into March, here is what it needs to do in order to make the playoffs.

For those crying in their soup about standings, take heart. There is yet a scenario in which Cornell manages to not only make the ECAC Hockey playoffs, but get home ice. If Cornell were to win out ALL of its remaining games, it would finish with 36 ECAC Hockey points with a point-per-game rate of 1.63 points per game. If we make the (unsound) assumption that each team finishes with the same rough rate of points per game that they currently have, this would place Cornell second to only Quinnipiac. That’s right. In the rosiest of all scenarios (so unlikely that this writer cringes to even mention it), Cornell could win out all of its remaining 15 regular-season games and come in second in the standings.

One of the many reasons that this is unlikely is that the remaining 15 games include every single opponent in the conference, including opponents that Cornell lost to (Clarkson, RPI, and Quinnipiac), teams that Cornell failed to beat at home (Colgate and Union), and opponents that Cornell has yet to face this season (Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale, and Brown). 

​Now that the hopeless optimists in the group have been placated, let’s move on to the more sobering statistics, the more likely scenarios.

This season seems very different than many others by some people who think they understand women’s hockey. That being said, hockey is hockey. Did anyone expect Clarkson to win the National Championship in January of 2014? If you said yes, you probably are being less than truthful. Contributors of Where Angels Fear to Tread made the trek to Hamden that year and even the Clarkson fans did not expect to be there. ECAC Women’s Hockey has been a conference for some period of time but it only took the current composition in 2006-07. Since then, Cornell has only missed the playoffs once: 2007. That is right. Cornell only missed the playoffs in its first year of being with this group of 12 teams. Since then, Cornell has made the playoffs every single year, including being the last team in both 2008 and 2009 before winning its first ECAC Hockey Tournament Championship in 2010.

So the historical statement that would be made if Cornell misses the playoffs should not be lost on true Lynah Faithful. But what about the teams that have made it in over the past 11 years? Many who do statistics like to look at point totals from previous years. This method is flawed, but most statistics require assumptions. So let’s lay the assumptions on the table and run these numbers. The main assumption through this model is that each year, parity is roughly equal. Looking at the data, that assumption doesn’t necessarily hold. Some years have people placed in eighth and ninth at an equal number of points (14 in 2012, 18 in 2011), while other years there are cliffs as big as nine points (notably last year with the last team in at 20 points and the first team out at 11 points).

So, with those flaws laid bare, here are the numbers. Since 2007, the highest number of points a team has had to have to squeak into the last spot is 21. That team was Cornell in 2009. The lowest number of points that a team was able to squeak in with is 14 as Brown edged RPI in tiebreakers in 2012. The average over that time was just under 18, so we will round to 18 out of convenience. If history is an indicator, let’s see where Cornell would have to finish over its last 15 games to make the playoffs in the highest possible year, the lowest possible year, and the average year.

Currently the Big Red has six points. To reach the smallest possible point total in over the last decade, the Lady Rouge would need eight points over its next 15 conference games. That equates to a mere four wins (Or eight ties. Or some combination that results in eight points.). Quite frankly, it seems incredibly unlikely that only 14 points will be needed for the eighth playoff spot when looking at who is directly above Cornell. RPI and Yale, tied for the eighth spot presently, already are halfway to 14 points with Colgate, Clarkson, and St. Lawrence over halfway there.

The final way that this contributor looked at the possibilities was using information from this year. In order to get into eighth place, Cornell would need to best both RPI and Yale that are tied in eighth place. If we use the points-per-game model, that puts Cornell at 0.857, and the Engineers and Bulldogs at 0.875 points per game. In order to best that, let’s say that Cornell needs to average 0.900 points per game (if the teams directly above Cornell can so oblige to stay where they are or decrease their productivity). In order to do this, Cornell would need to produce 13.8 points per game for the remainder of the season. If we round this up to 14, that gives Cornell seven wins to get 14 points. This is not a conservative estimate and still means that Cornell fans have to pray to the Hockey Gods that RPI and Yale do not improve their rates.

If we inch the rate of points per game up ever so slightly (to one point per game) that requires the Rouge to get 16 points or a record above 0.500 in the second half of no worse than 8-7-0 or 1-0-14. While Cornell is 4-2-0 in its last three weekends of play, Yale began the new year with a pair of losses to the feline travel partners and RPI went 0-1-1 against Mercyhurst in Erie. Cornell begins its games at Bright-Landry and Thompson this weekend.

The 4-2-0 record may comfort some, but it was a long Winter break before that. Cornell hasn’t taken the ice in almost four full weeks. Will the team that comes out look more like the team that won the Windjammer Classic or the team that couldn’t manage to win in Lynah in the Fall? That’s right, patient readers. Remember, Cornell failed to win a game in Lynah Rink in the Fall 2015 semester. Cornell went 0-1-2 in conference and 0-3-2 overall at home in Lynah Rink. Cornell’s only wins this season have come on the road (particularly at Hobey Baker Rink, Appleton Arena, the Onondaga War Memorial, Mercyhurst Ice Center, and Gutterson Field House). Cornell plays more of its remaining games in the (typically) friendly confines of Lynah Rink. Eight games are scheduled for Lynah while seven games are scheduled for the road.

If one is to assume that there is some difference between playing at home and playing on the road, one can use Cornell's records discretely to determine the number of expected points in the remainder of the season. Cornell in the first half of the season averaged 1.00 points per game on the road and 0.67 points per game at home. This would give Cornell 3.50 road points and 5.36 home points. That equates to just under 15 points total for the season. Combining that estimate with Cornell's current standings would put the Red in third, but that assumes that everyone between Cornell and current number two Princeton gets fewer points than does Cornell over that time with Harvard getting three or fewer points, Dartmouth getting four or fewer points, Colgate and the North Country getting six or fewer points, and RPI and Yale getting seven or fewer points. That seems to be asking for a bit much in terms of cosmic luck while also taking Cornell’s fate entirely out of its own hands.