The playoffs are here. Their arrival? A week too early. It is here nonetheless. Stakes are profoundest. Narratives are as well.

From the contributors of Where Angels Fear to Tread who sprinkle references to pop culture, contemporary music, athletic axiomata, show tunes, classical literature, and historical quotations, this writer provides invocation from an untapped store of framing that fits best the emotions and storylines that will unfold at Lynah Rink on Friday, Saturday, and, possibly, Sunday.

The world of sports entertainment is that reserve. No, I do not mean the real niche that all athletes, commentators (hey, hope you enjoy the show!), and spectators fill. What this contributor means is the only subdivision of athletic entertainment that is honest enough to call this enterprise what it is: World Wrestling Entertainment.

The Streak. It was a glorious thing. The Undertaker would rise at Wrestlemania. Each year, when it mattered most, he would find a way to put down whichever opponent was brazen enough to challenge him or who drew his ire and elicited rebuke. It was the way of the world. That is, until Brock Lesnar stepped into the ring in New Orleans.

There was clawing and gnashing. The signature finishers of each were executed with regularity. Tombstones were laid. F-5s were whirled. Both of these titans of their universe brought every ounce of intimidation, skill, and brutality. When the match ended, it was Brock Lesnar who wrested the Deadman's shoulders to the mat for "the three-second tan."

Just. Like. That. Invincibility disappeared. The vaunted careers of sports-entertainment icons whose celebrities sometimes crossed into the mainstream had been written defeats on 21 consecutive occasions at Wrestlemania. Eyes widened. Jaws hung agape. A truth became false. Lesnar, a champion of several sports, was the better of one of the greatest performers.

There was no more story to tell. All that needed to be decided was settled. It was over, right? Until Battleground 2015.

Brock Lesnar was in the midst of doing what he had done for over a year. His domination was apparent. From music hit to final fall, opponents knew when they faced him, they could not win fairly. The multisport champion was obliterating then-heavyweight champion Seth Rollins. Lesnar was on the verge of his second title reign in less than the year and a half after he broke The Streak. He held the title for 224 of the 469 days between Wrestlemania XXX and Battleground 2015.

When the moment to pin Rollins presented itself, the building's lights cut. The Undertaker stood before Brock Lesnar when the arena regained illumination. 'Taker would prevent Lesnar's third reign and allow Rollins to retain. The story was incomplete.

Everyone assumed that the tale, the rivalry, between these combatants was over at Wrestlemania XXX. They were wrong. Their match-up became the top-billed and main event of Summerslam 2015. There was one chapter left to be told.

​The match at Summerslam ended in controversy and pitched emotion. Lesnar avoided a pin because the in-ring official was out of position to see that the shoulders of The Beast Incarnate, as his manager, Paul Heyman, dubbed him, rested for a three-count. The re-positioned referee did not see that The Undertaker feigned tapping out when in a submission hold moments later. The bell rang. Lesnar relented. The referee never decided that match. The Demon from Death Valley took advantage of the situation with a low blow. A weakened Brock Lesnar was easy prey for the Deadman who held his opponent in his signature submission move. Lesnar collapsed. 'Taker won officially.

The story seemed tired to some. What else was there to decide? There was a fitting split in the high-stakes contests.

Then, the stipulation came. The Beast wanted a rematch. He wanted it with the greatest, most brutal advantage to The Undertaker. The match would be a Hell-in-a-Cell match. Trapped inside a five-ton steel cage on five sides with no disqualifications, this series would be decided one last time. Another false ending led to a most brutal encounter.

​Hell in a Cell, for those who do not know, is known as The Undertaker's match. Its nickname as "the Devil's playground" pays homage to this reality. If there was a match believed to confer a home advantage to The Undertaker, it is this one.

Lesnar entered the cell. He exited with victory. The Beast and Deadman brutalized each other within the only confines rigid and unforgiving enough to confine the id of their current rivalry. Lesnar destroyed the ring in the process. He ripped the canvas from the ring. He exposed the hard wood below it. Willingness to go to these extremes gave Lesnar victory.

It was the last episode in the contemporary Lesnar-Undertaker saga. It followed two false endings. It was utterly decisive.

​Why does this writer bore you readers with familiarizing you with this story in excruciating detail?

One can argue exactly which was the first chapter in the modern story between Cornell and Union. The Big Red and Dutchmen have collided five times in nine postseasons. This will include three series at campus sites by next Monday. The 2010 ECAC Hockey Final and 2014 ECAC Hockey Semifinal round out the remaining meetings.

Currently, the home-standing team loses in campus meetings. Union fell at Messa Rink in 2008. Cornell fell at Lynah Rink in 2015. That trend may be shored up or proven a product of small sample size this weekend.

This contributor's personal preference is to point to the 2010 ECAC Hockey Final as the germ of Cornell-Union's becoming ECAC Hockey's present analog for Lesnar-'Taker. It was the first season that the Dutchmen advanced from their domed home. They defeated St. Lawrence in a thrilling semifinal. Then, the juggernaut of ECAC Hockey brought them back to reality.

Cornell knew it was better at that point. It had proven it. Union went on to win the regular-season title in the 2010-11 season. Rick Bennett took the head coaching position a few weeks later. Bennett led teams that appeared in the Frozen Four and won two Whitelaw Cups. There was one thing that they could not do: beat Cornell. That is, until the 2013-14 season.

​Union defeated the Red by a seven-to-one margin that regular season. Cornell and Union both advanced to Lake Placid in ECAC Hockey's homecoming. They would cross sticks in ECAC Hockey's first playoff game there in 12 years.

These were the playoffs. The regular season did not matter, coaches, players, and the Lynah Faithful told themselves. Cornell wins in the playoffs. The Big Red always was a playoff team. It would be one always, right? This sense of invincibility still pervaded the Lynah Faithful. It was a confidence identical to that associated with The Streak.

No program in ECAC Hockey had won three consecutive Whitelaw Cups except Cornell. It fell to the 2013-14 team to defend the legacy and honor of the Cornell teams that won four consecutive Whitelaw Cups between 1967 and 1970. The 2014 ECAC Hockey Semifinal provided Cornell with the opportunity to preserve its program's distinction. The prologue was dense.

Union gained a two-goal lead in the first period. The Red never could erase it fully. Union won. It was conqueror.

Confidence was shaken. The story was complete. Cornell taught Union dominance in 2010. The Dutchmen demonstrated how well they had learned its lesson on March 21, 2014. Nothing more needed to be known.

Cornell and Union both tumbled to the lower rungs of ECAC Hockey in the 2014-15 season. They were destined to meet again. The 2014 ECAC Hockey Semifinal was a false ending. The next tale was one of redemption and perpetuity.

The challenge of perpetuity laid not with the program of 12 Whitelaw Cups as one might have expected. It rested with the newly minted three-time Eastern champions and national champions. They needed to prove that despite slipping to the lower reaches of ECAC Hockey during the regular season that they still could achieve greatness without a big-game performer like Dan Carr and modern-day legends like Mat Bodie and Shayne Gostisbehere. They needed a great challenge.

Lynah Rink was that challenge.

The Red had hosted 36 playoff series at Lynah Rink. Cornell wins 90% of them. Only four times before last season had East-Hill natives been denied playoff satiation at home in nearly five decades of the building. Union accepted the gauntlet.

Cornell's challenge? Do what it could not the previous season. Stop Union's march to history. The likelihood was small for Union to win a fourth consecutive Whitelaw Cup with the burden of pursuing a playoff title entirely on the road. The odds were no steeper than they were against a non-scholarship athletic program of a small liberal-arts college of 2,300 winning the sport's greatest prize. A fourth consecutive Whitelaw Cup would tie Cornell's unequaled dynastic run.

​There was no sense of invincibility after the debacle at Lake Placid. Union never trailed. 4-2. 7-0. The Dutchmen were better.

It had to be the final chapter. Union in this period was Cornell's superior. The Dutchmen removed the confidence that Cornell hockey is one of absolute playoff dominance and championships from an entire generation of Cornellians. The 2014-15 season ended the earliest of any Cornell season in 22 years. Cornell sat home impotently during the 2015 ECAC Hockey Quarterfinals as Quinnipiac did what the Big Red could not: halt Union's march to a record-tying fourth consecutive title.

It was the end of this chapter in Cornell hockey history. That is what the contributors of Where Angels Fear to Tread believed. The half-decade-long rivalry between Cornell and Union had ended. It was glorious. It was one of few such rivalries during which Cornell found itself on the losing side. It was fitting. It was Union's era. That was until 9:31 pm last Saturday.

A third chapter is to be authored. Now, college hockey may not enjoy the artistic direction of any Levesques or McMahons, but the recluses of one eye seem now no less talented in keeping their audience ignorant. An unexpected chapter lies before the Lynah Faithful in what is becoming one of Cornell hockey's greatest series of all time.

​Reader, do you find yourself asking how this coming chapter is Hell in a Cell for The Undertaker and Brock Lesnar of ECAC Hockey? Yes, this is the Hell-in-a-Cell match. This writer thought last season was that episode. It is yet to be played. The denizens of Lynah Rink this weekend will be in for a treat of true attrition.

​It's time for some honest disclosure. This commentator never roots for Cornell to lose. My blood runs carnelian in more than a literal sense. However, Union was his desired opponent for the 2016 ECAC Hockey First Round. While the Lynah Faithful held their collective breath and hoped for the late-addition Ivy to be the Red's first postseason opponent, this writer wanted an opponent that truly would test the timber of this team early. If it defeats Union, it has the right to advance with confidence.

​This contributor desired Union as an opponent in much the same way that he celebrated Jimmy Vesey's announced return last season. It is out of no sense of diminution to an opponent. It is quite the opposite. When Cornell wins, this member of the Lynah Faithful wants it to mean something. Opponents should provide the sternest tests, not the smoothest road. Union is the only program out of those traveling in the first round that presents that type of challenge. The Dutchmen own as many Whitelaw Cups alone as do the combined totals of the remaining traveling three.

Cornell is a great program. Its opponents on the road to any championship should be great programs. Union is such a program. Consider Harvard's seven-game run to its ninth Whitelaw Cup last season. The Crimson's entire run eliminated programs that accounted for only three Whitelaw Cups through four opponents. Union alone provides that challenge.

The task is great enough. How do the odds compare? Cornell lost the chance offensively to preserve its distinction among programs in ECAC Hockey. What else can remain? In a word, revenge. In another word, defense.

Never mind that Union did not sweep Cornell this season. The Dutchmen twice outplayed and effectively defeated the carnelian and white even if one of the results was a recorded tie. Anthony Angello channels the right sentiment headed into the series against Union, "we definitely owe it to them to get a little revenge." Union seeks history of its own in this meeting.

Union ended Cornell's season in 2014 and 2015. Only five programs in 54 years can say that they ended the Red's playoff runs in consecutive years. The Dutchmen constitute one of only four programs to have won a playoff series at Lynah Rink. Only one program owns more than one playoff series victory on East Hill. Union can tie that total with a win this coming weekend. Union can put itself on a tier of its own. No program ever has eliminated Cornell in three consecutive seasons.

The 2015 ECAC Hockey First Round was Summerslam 2015. There is no doubt that this coming weekend is Hell in a Cell. The series will be physical, its games brutal. They will be exactly what will be required to send either great program on a run that should reach Lake Placid. It will be a series befitting two decorated Harkness programs. Notice a word used throughout?

Rival. Cornell is a rival of Union. Union is a rival of Cornell. Seniors at Cornell University are not fortunate enough to see carnelian's Crimson-clad nemesis as their final opponent at Lynah Rink. Garnet is this era's next best thing. Rejoice, soon-to-be alumni, and see if you get the senior night of which Coach Schafer lamented last season he deprived your peers.

Last season was a false ending to this era's Cornell-Union rivalry. To call the frequency and emotion of playoff confrontations in such a small amount of time by another word would be to abrogate this commentator's duty in writing a rough draft of history. An unexpected chapter is about to be written. The elements of its prose are already known.

​The Dutchmen count 11 of their 15 point talliers and five of their eight goal scorers from last season's playoff series on the roster that will brave Lynah Rink for a second time in as many seasons. Three of Union's goal scorers from that series notched goals against the Big Red already this season. Spencer Foo, Eli Lichtenwald, and Matt Wilkins continued their scoring ways against the most decorated Harkness program into the recently ended regular season.

Cornell returns two-thirds of its unsatisfactory playoff point totals from last season's first round. Matt Buckles and Christian Hilbrich continued their trends of scoring against the Dutchmen that they began last March. Hilbrich likely is the skater to whom to turn against the challengers from the Capital District. The towering forward averages 0.67 playoff goals per game against Union. The Red needs to find other sources of scoring now. There is no tomorrow.

Cornell bested opposing netminders an average of 1.78 times per game from the Florida College Hockey Classic through the regular season's conclusion. The Red was 73.6% more lethal from the season's opening game against Niagara through hosting Clarkson at Lynah Rink. That Cornell team averaged more than three goals per game. That Cornell team could have won a Whitelaw Cup. That team needs to return.

Yes, as many have said, playoff games are not infrequently one-goal affairs. They are just as commonly scoring slugfests. Union can win such slobber knockers. Can whatever team lines up for the carnelian and white?

​One-goal affairs they may be, but who is to say that the rendezvous point is not at 4-3, 5-4, or 6-5? Mitch Gillam can win games 1-0. He cannot win all games 1-0. He will be particularly motivated to establish himself as a Cornell playoff goaltender after last season. His team will need to provide all assistance that it can. This team needs to be able to prove that it can raise the ante and counterpunch with a hopeful six-game event lying before it. Otherwise, it will be another long abbreviated March.

Who owns The Streak? Was it broken in the 2014 ECAC Hockey Semifinal? Is Union its current possessor with consecutive playoff victories? Reservations and inhibitions vanish when these two programs meet again in a grudge match for the ages. What is certain is that when the ice-resurfacer door slams shut before the puck drops, this series will be Hell in a Cell.

It remains to be seen which is Beast.

This season has been a trying one for Cornell women's hockey. Many from the outside spoke about how this team was not going to be what it once was due to sizable departures from a small senior class. This writer contributed a piece in which the plausible scenarios to make the ECAC Hockey playoffs were discussed. There was an "easy" route, an "average" route, and the "hardest" route. The hardest route predicted Cornell attaining 21 regular-season points. This team refused to make it easy. They achieved 22 regular-season points and made the ECAC Hockey Tournament. This team made history, and not in the way that many in the hockey community wished for: They made history how the Lynah Faithful expected. Making the playoffs. Now, the most wonderful time of the year commences.

Before the puck drops at 3:30 pm in Potsdam, NY, let's look at what the contributors of Where Angels Fear to Tread have taken to calling "The Jess Brown Effect." 

​Senior forward Jess Brown missed the first four games of the regular season as she recovered from surgery for an ACL injury that ended her season last year. There was no doubt about the fact that she would be back. Fans could only wonder when. The first four games of the season were played Lekika-less and resulted in a 0-3-1 stretch that had some wondering if the Red would win again.

Her first game back proved the spark that the Lady Rouge needed. Taylor Woods carried the team and Jess Brown's first game as a senior was the 2015-16 Cornell hockey team's first win. Before she returned, in that winless 0-3-1 stretch, the team only scored four goals. Jess Brown's appearance resulted in a win. Coincidence? Let's delve deeper into the numbers to see how true this is.

Coach Derraugh has not been stagnant with his line combinations throughout the year, but one line remained together for a great deal of the season. Kaitlin Doering centered wings Hanna Bunton and Jess Brown for 19 games this season. An additional two saw Brown and Doering paired without Bunton. The last four saw Bunton and Brown paired while Veerman centered.

How did their performances compare before and after the Cat Lady sauntered back onto the ice?

Hanna Bunton's goal scoring remained about even, but her point scoring more than doubled. Doering similarly maintained her rate of goal scoring but nearly tripled her point scoring when Brown was on the ice.

Is that not enough? Let's delve deeper.

Cornell scored 66 goals this season since number 18 took the ice. Almost half of those goals were while the Cleveland native was on the ice. A third were contributed by her line. That may not convince you, so consider this: Jess Brown is just one of 18 skaters who has played since her return and one of only 11 forwards. If we assume each person contributes roughly their percentage of the team to goals, that gives her a 5.56% rate as a skater. If we restrict this solely to forwards, it is just over 9.00%. If she is only 9.00% of the team but 47.0% of the goals are scored when she is there, is this enough of a statistic to persuade you?

The Cat Lady leads the team in power-play goals this season at three. Her linemate, Kaitlin Doering, leads in shorthanded goals (three). The third musketeer, Hanna Bunton, leads the team in power-play points, tied with freshman Micah Hart, a defenseman who often sees ice time with the line.

Hat tricks are rare in hockey, but not rare for this line. This season, three hat tricks have occurred among these players. Hanna notched one and Jess notched two. All three occurred since the return of Jess Brown.

​During the games that she was able to skate, Jess Brown leads the team in goals and ranks second in points. Hanna Bunton comes in second in goals and leads in points during this time period. Overall in the season, including the games that were missed, Brown ranks second by a single goal. In goals per game, she leads the team followed by Bunton by a mere 0.03 goals per game.

Power-play goals and goals per game are not the only categories that belong to the Cat Lady. Game-winning goals have a Cleveland flair to them as well. Four of the Red's 13 game winners belong to Brown.

The team plays differently when she is in the line-up. When she scores a point, they have been defeated but once. When she scores a goal? They have yet to be defeated. Wins have certainly occurred without a Jess Brown point or goal, but when she rises, the team is lifted with her.

This senior class is a special one. It is typified in the Jess Brown Effect.

The playoffs are upon us. It is the greatest time of year. College hockey moves irreversibly into the most consequential time of year at 2:00 pm tomorrow when the puck drops on three contests in the women's postseason. The bow of the season will crash through the waves of history as it wrestles with the wake of history. That history is too often ignored.

Which programs are the historically dominant forces in college hockey? Tomorrow, which programs can look down at the threads of their sweaters and realize that others before them have known the greatest triumphs donning the same vestments? This inquiry finds ready answers on the men's side. This contributor offers an answer for its feminine counterpart.

Western partisans favor the advent of the NCAA tournament as the beginning of women's hockey. They are wrong. However, it is only natural that interested parties choose those arguments best suited for their aggrandizement. The history of women's hockey is far deeper and far richer. Beginning the story of women's hockey in the 2000-01 season forsakes and diminishes the importance of the pioneering coaches and players who built the foundation and lived a product that earned reluctant NCAA approbation. Those pioneers invigorated traditions. Those pioneers organized tournaments. Those pioneers wrote history.

Many of those authors were Cornellians. The modern era (yes, at Cornell University, women's hockey is so old that, much like its masculine counterpart, there is a modern and older era) in women's hockey at Cornell began in 1972. Always ambitious and never relegated, Cornell women first donned carnelian-and-white tinctures to represent their alma mater five decades before their sport's modern era began. They played hockey 50 years before Title IX. They honed their skills nearly 80 years before the first NCAA tournament. It is these forebears that each member of the Lady Rouge represents on the ice.

Cornell's program may be the oldest. Its modern era, in a period that the West regards as prehistoric, saw the emergence of other women's programs. These programs settled their differences on the ice. Champions would be crowned in the playoffs. The Ivy League, EAIAW, and AWCHA took turns hosting tournaments that crowned recognized national champions long before the NCAA decided to pay any mind to women's hockey. Those champions matter.

Using a raw trophy-case count that ranks programs by absolute number of postseason tournaments a program has won, which program is the best across all eras of women's hockey? It is not Minnesota. It is not Wisconsin. The hosts of the 2016 Frozen Four, the Wildcats of New Hampshire, remain the most dominant postseason force in women's hockey history. New Hampshire has won 13 postseason titles. Minnesota checks in at second with one fewer tournament won. Wisconsin slips to fifth with its nine postseason championships. The once-dominant Minnesota-Duluth is third. Which program ranks fourth?

​The women of East Hill have won the fourth-greatest total of playoff titles of any program in women's hockey. Cornellians have won ten postseason titles. They own just two fewer playoff titles than do the vaunted gilded rodents of the frozen prairie. Cornell predictably leads all ECAC Hockey programs in this category. On cue, Harvard is the second-most dominant program from ECAC Hockey barely trailing Wisconsin's all-time haul. How relevant are these titles?

New Hampshire has the longest drought among the top five. The Wildcats have ended only six seasons without winning a tournament since their last postseason triumph. Minnesota, Minnesota-Duluth, Cornell, and Wisconsin have all won tournament titles more recently. This datum preserves the lasting relevance on the ice of these rich traditions.

Cornell women built women's hockey. Their successors defend their program's legacy as not only winners, but pioneers.

This history is scarcely lost on this particular group of the Lady Rouge. It is aware of Cornell's legacy. Cornell's form has improved over the last few weeks finally allowing results to reflect the grittiness of this team.

​Only nine programs in the nation were hotter in the month of February before the playoffs begin. Only four programs were as red hot as was Cornell during the last two weeks of the regular season. The Rouge was one of only five teams to close out its regular-season slate with an unblemished four-game sprint.

Coach Derraugh complimented this team's defensive and goaltending efforts last weekend. Since February began, the defensive efforts of this team have improved so that Cornell is allowing 11.7% fewer goals per game than it was in the preceding months of the season. Continuing this trend will be essential if these women want to add an 11th and 12th title.

​This stratagem needs to be in place against Clarkson. When the Golden Knights lose, they do so because they have been stifled offensively in low-scoring affairs. Clarkson produces 1.63 goals per game in contests that it has not won. This may seem a truism. It is a warning that if this series devolves into a high-scoring affair, it is the team wearing the colors of the building that likely will win. Clarkson is held to just two goals per game in its losses.

Cornell has allowed just over two goals per game in the month of February. Over the closing weeks of the regular season, Cornell has allowed half a goal less than Clarkson tallies in its losses. Now, Clarkson is more formidable than Brown, Dartmouth, and Yale. However, this team found a way to win even when caught in a one-goal grudge match against Dartmouth. It found a way to put three goals on one of the nation's best goaltenders on senior night. It finds a way.

Cornell's record against hosts of ECAC Hockey's quarterfinals imbues little confidence. The Big Red's regular-season winning rate against the four hosts is half of its in-conference winning rate. This statistic issues a challenge. Hard work and grit are the things that can close the regular-season gap between Cornell and these opponents. The playoffs are a new season.

This program, as evidenced by its ten playoff titles, and this senior class in particular are capable of extraordinary things. These seniors have brought East Hill two ECAC Hockey championships already. They have won 11 playoff games.

Jess Brown, Stefanie Moak, Cassandra Poudrier, Morgan Richardson, Taylor Woods, and Anna Zorn inspire and propel the unexpected. Over one-fourth of the playoff games that this senior class has won have been as the underdog. They are gritty. They are hard-working. They are Cornellians who make fellow alumni and students proud.

The playoff runs of these six seniors include five postseason wins, nearly half of all of their already earned playoff wins, against teams that these players went 0.500 or worse against in the associated regular seasons before the Rouge claimed decisive postseason victories. The most emotional of upsets likely was the 2014 ECAC Hockey Semifinal.

Cornell upset Harvard at Cheel Arena. That game currently stands as the legacy episode of this senior class. Will it remain? More than half of the senior class' skaters tallied a point in that game. Poudrier assisted on Cornell's opening goal. Taylor Woods contributed two points including an assist on the winner. It was Jess Brown who put the Crimson away for good.

That game is both microcosm and template. The game was full of ebbs and flows. Ups and downs taunted the Lynah Faithful in Cheel Arena and watching in their homes. The self-proclaimed underdogs delivered the result for their Cornell family. What was the Lady Rouge's regular-season record against Harvard during the 2013-14 season? 0-1-1. Sound familiar?

​Like no class before it and driving a team about which the same may be said in a few weeks, this team plays like Cornellians. Cornellians love the playoffs because nothing is more essentially Cornellian than the playoffs. Cornellians like the stakes high, odds steep, and tasks great. The meaning of a season can be written or erased in a grand moment or bad bounce.

The playoffs are Cornell's time of year, not just because of the ten playoff titles that it has won or even the two titles that these six seniors have given Cornell already, but because they reflect our University's values to deliver when one is called. This senior class has phenomenal reception. We know not when or where this season will end.

The contributors at Where Angels Fear to Tread do know that this team will be worth following on every step of this journey. This team will honor the legacy of one of the best programs in women's hockey, and make its University and alumni proud.

The last week of the regular season peeks just above the horizon. Trends over February's first three weeks begin to take their hold. These trends begin to introduce probability to the great hopes of every program vying for real home ice or the right to put off using their gas cards for another week. Mathematically, a great many permutations exist for how the East's postseason will begin. The lessons of the last three weeks sober the optimism of the most hopeful fanbases.

Immutable facts are that Quinnipiac and Yale will play at home in the second weekend while Brown, Colgate, and Princeton are heading on the road for the first weekend of the 2016 ECAC Hockey tournament. There are few certainties beyond that despite the obvious likelihoods that one may dare glean. This gives many ECAC Hockey fanbases false hope.

Stability, not volatility, has been the hallmark of February in ECAC Hockey. The thermometer ratings across these last three weeks indicate that there is little movement within the standings. There is no reason for the hopeful to believe that the last weekend will be any different. Standing changes per week are tabulated in this metric.

Across three weeks of standing changes for a combined 36 teams, 19 teams have remained positioned exactly on the same rung at the close of the weekend as they began the weekend. A team has better odds of winning a coin toss than moving in ECAC Hockey's standings this month of Valentine's Day, it appears. Only seven teams have moved up one position over the course of a weekend. Only once has a team jockeyed better than one position in the right direction. That team was St. Lawrence in the first weekend of February. A quarter of all teams have fallen one place in a month's span.

The average movement within a weekend's time is in fact remaining in place. Flatlining is what this model predicts. So, when getting your hopes up about home ice of the real or inflated variety, remember that your program is most likely to end the weekend exactly in the same place where it began it.

With little fluidity within the standing's hierarchy over the last month, what solace do these heating-and-chilling ratings offer coaches, players, and fans whose teams will find themselves beginning the playoffs in just over a week? Four of the hottest teams through three weeks of February likely will need to win on the road to reach Lake Placid. Those teams will be sent to a subset of hosts that in all likelihood will include at least two teams that have chilled in February relative to their performances in the first three months of the season. This presages two weeks out from the quarterfinals that upsets are coming.

What fanbase does not like a good road upset? How common are they? If one turns the page to ECAC Hockey's playoff annals, one-quarter of all teams that have made the East's championship weekend played in the first weekend since that weekend's advent. Fans whose teams are relegated to playing in the first round, don't make plans for March 18 and 19.

One last thing is deserving of note from this week's thermometers. Is Brown really the hottest team in ECAC Hockey? Brown got its first win of the month last weekend. The Bears are still earning less than one conference point per game (0.800, for those curious), but their February performance is 172% that of their November-through-January performances.

Brown is heating. Should their first-round and maybe even quarterfinal opponents be put on upset notice already? This weekend will tell if the Bears can gets wins or points out of Quinnipiac and Princeton. It is worth noting that Brown is the most common team to make it to championship weekend from the first round. Beware the Bears whoever meets them first.

At the end of the week, there will be more movement than this model predicts because ties will need to be broken at that time when they have not needed to be previously. Six teams are vying for real home ice. Five games played among those teams largely will determine which programs earn a postseason siesta. The way things stand presently is likely how they will end.

​The dust will settle Saturday night at around 10:00 pm. The field for the beginning of the season's most exciting time will be sodded. The next installment of this series will predict which teams may be discourteous guests in the first round of the East's great tournament as first strides on the the road to Lake Placid are anticipated.

This contributor almost did not put fingers to keyboard this week. Thumper's rule seemed to dictate that this platform refrain from comment after a showing like the one that Cornell offered last weekend. The Lynah Faithful are smart enough to know how last weekend went. The Big Red at Lynah Rink became just the second team in the second semester to render unto the Bears of Brown any conference points. It seems that the spirit of Harvard Week warranted at least brief comment.

Facially, the carnelian and white enter Bright-Landry Hockey Center on Friday evening looking for a morsel of redemption. An East-Hill humbling should leave a sour taste in the mouths of those who have the privilege of representing Cornell University in this historic series. The Red additionally will find itself in its new-normal role.

Cornell can try to act as spoiler to Harvard's Ivy League-title hopes. A victory for the Crimson doubles as giving Harvard this season's Ivy-League title and the outright lead in terms of all-time Ivy-League titles. Cornell and Harvard are tied currently with 21 recognized times claiming the Hobey Baker Trophy for the Ivy League Championship.

Superficiality in the forms of hollow talk and coddling is too common for this Cornell team. No player on this team should care foremost about redemption or spoils. They should be focused on representing Cornell University, its students and alumni, well on the ice of competition. They have failed in that task miserably over the last three games.

Cornellians approach things in a certain way. They celebrate harder. They work harder. They care more. Their historical consciousness is broader. They work together. They are humbler. Has this team played in accord with these values?

No. That is why generations of Lynah Faithful, recently indoctrinated and still devoted, find this team difficult to watch. It is not because of their losses or unsettling ties. It is because of the undeserved haughtiness, entitled self-interest, and lethargic execution that creeps into the Big Red's game. These rot away the once-good foundations of this team.

To appease the contributors of Where Angels Fear to Tread and avoid criticism, the task for Cornell teams has been always the same: "play[] [Cornell's] impassioned pastime in a way that brings honor to their University." This team lately fails more often than it succeeds in this modest proposition.

Wait. Stop the ranting, right? This is a hockey site. What's the point? The writers here view college hockey as the pinnacle of its sport precisely because its competitors are student-athletes. These players must be Cornellians first. There seems to be an inversion as of late because they rarely embody in their play some of the traits of true Cornellians.

Want proof beyond anecdote in hockey? Penalty killing is what Cornell does. Knowing that the Red can kill penalties is as essential to the Cornell experience, whether one is killing the penalty on the ice or cheering penalty killers onward from the bleachers, as proudly recognizing that New York's land-grant university is the most rigorous in the world. Well, the latter has not changed. The same cannot be said of the former.

As this team became more fixated on talk and individual accolades over the last four weeks, Cornell has endured a 25% reduction in its penalty-killing efficiency. The Red carried into its first weekend with The Game a penalty-kill efficiency of nearly 0.900. Cornell brings with it to Lynah East a kill rate that has been less than 0.700 since the rivals's first meeting this season. Were the Big Red's penalty-killing efficiency since then the result on a standardized test, this team would fail.

Discipline has evaporated. Ill-advised penalties surrendered precious points in several contests. Each player is playing for himself as though the pro career that many covet after his career is over is more important than giving back to the University community that has welcomed them warmly and supports them loyally. That loyalty erodes reciprocally.

Greats of Cornell hockey from Dick Bertrand to Nick D'Agostino viewed themselves as Cornellians first. This writer seriously in doubts if these players do. It is their play that begs that question. They play a self-centered brand of hockey. They play in the way that Cornellians and Lynah Faithful previously ridiculed as befitting the denizens of the venue they visit Friday.

Only 221 nm separate the wavelengths of carnelian and crimson. A precious distance, it is. This team traverses that chasm.

Harvard was the team of individual efforts and hollow talk. It would be their players, not those of Cornell, whose leaders described games liberally as "must wins" and then did not deliver. Arrogance was the vice of Cambridge. Hard work was the virtu of Ithaca. Now, Cornell and Harvard meet, not on the ice, but philosophically in a way that they should not.

It is the Crimson who is victor then because it plays not against its natural state. 10,000 men of Harvard and the approximately 800 whom the Lynah Faithful will spare a seat at Lynah East will rejoice on Friday if this Cornell team insists on playing with the egoism of Harvard. There are great tasks before this Cornell team.

Those tasks go far beyond the national spectacle of The Game at Bright-Landry Hockey Center.

As promised, this contributor delivers the explanation behind February's now-weekly temperature ratings of ECAC Hockey programs. There is no better time than the midpoint of February's conference games to explain this metric. There was no better time to begin its application than during the final month of the regular season.

The inducement for this model is anecdotal. Teams that play their "best hockey" at the right time of the season are the ones expected to win when games have the steepest stakes. Games played in October through February are the appetizers for the main courses that constitute March and April. So, who's dishing hot and who's dishing cold?

​The model is simple. Games played in February directly abut those played in the playoffs. Teams that find their form in the final weeks of the regular season are those that logically seem best positioned to continue their tears or upset host teams that are cooling. The latter implies why using this model in conjunction with real standings provides the most accurate picture of ECAC Hockey when the puck drops on the East's postseason.

Very poor performances early in a season can trap a team in the lower rungs of conference standings no matter how hot it becomes. A team very hot in February still can be relied upon to go on a run in March even if stuck as the last seed. The starkest example of this is Colgate in the 2011 ECAC Hockey tournament. Those 12th-seeded Raiders earned no conference wins before February. In the year's second month, Colgate earned a 0.563 winning percentage. This drastic improvement foretold the road upsets that Colgate unleashed in March against fifth-seeded RPI and first-seeded Union. The Raiders made ECAC Hockey's biggest weekend after earning only four regular-season conference wins. The opposite can be true.

Tremendous performances early may so bury the needle and solidify a team's status that defects remain masked. The most recent example of this is Quinnipiac in 2013. The Bobcats that season took two-thirds of their conference ties and all of their conference losses in February. In the playoffs, ninth-seeded Cornell took Quinnipiac to double overtime and but for three calls favorable to the home team, the Big Red might have upset the Bobcats in extra time on their own ice. Rand Pecknold's team ran out of luck in Atlantic City as the Bears of Brown exacted a humiliating four-goal shutout. February's performance for those Bobcats predicted that the Mount-Carmel natives would not appear in their second Eastern title game.

These anecdotes invite the application of February performances in predicting postseason outcomes and viability. However, one needs to reduce subjective performance into an objective metric for comparison. The simplest metric, the one that this writer uses to measure heating and chilling, is the ratio of February to November-through-January performances.

One must calculate a team's in-conference rate of earning conference points per game or winning percentage, the two are proportionate, for the first three months of the regular season. Then, one calculates the same rate for a given team in February. The latter is then divided by the former. If the result is greater than one, the team is "heating up" as it is earning more conference points per game in February than it was in the three previous regular-season months. If the result is less than one, the team is "chilling" as its results are less favorable than they were during the first three months of conference play.

This writer scaled all changes to a percent by multiplying all ratios by 100. Those teams that have the highest percent are heating the most and are arranged in order descending to those that have the smallest percent. For example, at the midpoint of February, the hottest team is Yale and the coolest team is Princeton. The Bulldogs are earning points at 165% the rate that they were before February. The Tigers are earning points at 0.00% the rate that they were in November through January.

For those curious, the North Country is almost identically as hot as Yale. St. Lawrence is winning at 164% and Clarkson is winning at 162% of their pre-February forms. Quinnipiac's chilling may be overwrought because but for sweeps it is nearly impossible to keep pace with its incredible rate of earning 1.79 conference points per game before February. Colgate's heating may be exaggerated as they are still earning less than one conference point per game even in February.

The final addendum to the thermometer readings is one of clarity. If a team is earning conference points in February at the exact same rate that it was earning points in November through January, a ratio equivalent to 100% results. This value is the threshold between "heating" and "chilling." It is represented clearly on the above thermometers with the bold black line. Fans, readers, and Lynah Faithful can use that line to determine how much warmer or cooler a team's performance in February has been from what one would have expected relying on previous months's performances.

Where Angels Fear to Tread will continue measuring the temperatures of each program in the conference over the second half of the East's penultimate month with brief discussion each week.

Will we see a repeat of Colgate '11, Quinnipiac '13, or even Cornell '80? Will Yale keep up appearances of invincibility? Who will need to be put on upset alert? This writer will give predictions with this model as best as possible.

Where Angels Fear to Tread decided that what ECAC Hockey and the Lynah Faithful need is a metric that easily captures which teams are improving by the greatest margin during the penultimate stage of the season. The four conference weekends in February decide the conditions under which each of ECAC Hockey's 12 programs will pursue the coveted Whitelaw Cup. Using temperature as a proxy, Where Angels Fear to Tread will show you after each week before the playoffs which teams are heating up and which teams are chilling. The metric's basis will be expounded upon with the second week's set of thermometers.

This week, this writer instead uses Cornell's temperature after February's first weekend for comparative ends.

Make no mistake, reader, Cornell's tie against Quinnipiac was a quality tie if there ever was one. Two defensively sound teams exchanged blows. The Big Red had the superior netminder. Cornell controlled play not infrequently against one of the nation's best teams. Yes, it would have been better to exact revenge for Cornell's implosion at Lynah Rink that allowed the Bobcats to steal two points from the Big Red's home ice. The Nutmeggers were not the only thieves on the ice.

No, this writer refers not to Cornell's opponent on either night of last weekend for the Red is the equal of any team in college hockey if it resists the temptations of flash and plays a simple game. The reference is directed entirely at this Cornell team. This team robbed its fans of the satisfaction of reveling in a hard-fought, pride-inducing tie among two great teams.

A larceny had befallen the Lynah Faithful. Fans and alumni who expect much of their team scarcely could revel in a result that but extended Cornell's winless skid. A winless skid that Where Angels Fear to Tread called on at the opening of last weekend in the above blocked quote. Cornell momentarily stopped that skid a night later. The schneid totaled seven games.

Had the Big Red returned from the semester break as promised, no such seven-game winless slide would have plagued Cornell. Cornell went over two calendar months without a conference win. Had Cornell performed as hoped, the Big Red would be in contention for the first seed in the ECAC Hockey tournament. Had Cornell continued winning at its first-semester rate and not gone through January without a conference win, it would be in all-but-guaranteed possession of real home ice.

Life is nothing without its drama and intrigues, right? It is no coincidence that contributors of Where Angels Fear to Tread direct our readers's attentions to the 2012-13 season. That season had a winless streak equal in length to the one that ended for this team on Saturday. What did that team do next? It produced a 5-1-0 record to close the regular season.

What is more noteworthy is that the 2012-13 season was the last season in which Cornell had a bona fide playoff run. Cornell stumbled during the 2014 ECAC Hockey tournament, not because it lost to eventual national champion Union, but because it could not close out Clarkson at home in two games. One was left wondering what an extra day's rest may have meant for a program that still held a slight psychological edge over the emergent Dutchmen. Cornell might as well have deferred its berth to the 2015 ECAC Hockey tournament for all its performance was worth.

The 2012-13 season was a playoff run worthy of remembrance. Cornell swept a Princeton team on the road that bested the Red twice in the regular season. The Big Red then pushed the 2013 NCAA tournament's first seed and eventual national runner-up Quinnipiac to the brink on the Bobcats's home ice. Cornell was one goal away from appearing in a sixth consecutive championship weekend. Three playoff victories. Battling to the end. Can this team promise better?

When the 2012-13 team first converted its winless run into a winning streak, where exactly did it stand in ECAC Hockey's standing? Cornell sat in 11th place. The skaters of New York's land-grant university had but four wins in 16 in-conference tries. Real home ice was well out of reach before that team found its game. How does this season's team compare?

Having played an identical 16 games in ECAC Hockey at this point, this season's team sits in seventh place. More importantly, a mere one point separates the Big Red's rung from that of the omni-important top four seeds to ECAC Hockey's tournament. The 2015-16 team has seven in-conference victories, nearly double what the 2012-13 team had at this stage.

The carnelian-and-white skaters of the 2012-13 team battled to play again at Lynah Rink. They fell short of that goal but it was not for want of trying. The team had an 0.833 winning percentage over the last three weeks of the regular season. Earning real home ice for that team was an impossibility. It is not yet so for this team.

​Cornell has three weeks of regular-season play in ECAC Hockey remaining. The Red will play four of the six teams that rest above it in the standings. This is terrain that begs to be traversed for an Ithacan first-round bye. There is no more efficient way for a team to climb the standings than to hold teams that stand above it still by besting them in tête-à-tête affairs.

Cornell has that opportunity. If Cornell can show the character to put together a run after breaking a seven-game drought of winning like the one that the 2012-13 team did, the juggernaut of the East almost certainly will be a sleeping giant during the first phase of the East's historic tournament.

Will this team equal that predecessor's total of playoff victories? Imagine where three post-season victories would carry a team that enjoyed a week's rest. It would be a return to a stage that has not know carnelian thespians since 2011. Could this team deliver just one more win and make thousands of alumni joyous?

The season is far from resolved. Cornell may be one of the teams whose opening February performance shows that it is heating up. Yale, an opponent for this weekend, is heating up faster and Brown held a potent Cornell attack to one goal in November. The only offense Brown takes from Cornell best not be from tired tropes of the toilet and Yale is in need of chilling. Cornell's first-semester performance afforded it the ability to take off an entire month of regular-season play in the second semester without losing the whole season. Resting needs to be over if the Big Red seeks to climb the standings.
​
Opportunity becomes readily the seed of sorrow. Lest we not look back on this season as another stolen.

Another weekend came. No points were earned again. Cornell would not benefit from real home ice if the playoffs were to begin this weekend. The Big Red precariously holds onto one of the last two "home-ice" spots on the back of an impressive, but proven inflated, first-half performance. Brown and Cornell are tied as the worst earners of points in ECAC Hockey since winter break ended. Each earns 0.17 points per game.

Rather than explicate ad nauseam again exactly how far Cornell has fallen off its pace that gave it so much bravado headed into the second half or how it has beaten no quality opponents since December, this piece will take a different tone. No, it will not focus on the Red's reversion back to its dreadful offensive play of last season (remember when the Lynah Faithful were promised that would not return?) that has it averaging a whopping 1.70 goals per game (Michigan's Tyler Motte produces more than 80% of that total per contest). Those things are glaringly obvious to anyone who has suffered a contest in this half.

Instead, reader, consider that Cornell is one game against a team that is undefeated in conference play away from tying the winless skid that doomed the heavily talented 2012-13 edition of the carnelian and white. Yeah, there it is, remember how bad that slide felt from January 19, 2013 through February 9, 2013? If you joined the fray more recently than that, well evidently Schafer and his team felt you needed to be initiated. From January 15, 2016 through February 6, 2016 (hey, this team has flapped this writer's faith, it can prove him wrong), a nearly identical window on the calendar, Cornell has gone winless.

Is this writer being too negative? No. This outlook gives the performances of this team in the "second season" its due.

Man, this season disappoints consistently, doesn't it? Well, that made this contributor think, when was the last time that the prognosis for the Big Red seemed so bleak for so long? The go-to argument for well-seasoned Lynah Faithful, perhaps the cohort most deserving of the honorific "faithful," is that at least this is not the McCutcheon Era. Well, for Lynah Faithful who are neither old enough to have lived through that period nor fortunate enough to have been raised in Cornell hockey's fandom, exactly how does Mike Schafer's current trajectory compare to Brian McCutcheon's tenure?

Mere mention of McCutcheon's time behind the bench undeservedly induces quaking among some alumni. Firstly, one must dispel a myth. Cornell did have a winning record under McCutcheon. It was barely winning (0.506), but winning nonetheless. McCutcheon's stint as leader of the carnelian and white lasted eight seasons.

How do Schafer's last eight seasons including the current season compare to the eight seasons of McCutcheon?

​Coach Schafer's winning percentage over the last eight seasons is greater than the Big Red's winning rate under the sophomore phenom of Cornell's most recent perfects. However, is winning just 15% more often than teams did during what is widely panned as Cornell hockey's worst era since the construction of Lynah Rink a real accomplishment? The winning percentage for Schafer's last eight teams is just 0.076 greater than that of McCutcheon's eight teams.

Considering this season is not complete, one must forecast how it may end to compare properly the performances of McCutcheon and Schafer-coached teams over seasons in question. McCutcheon had intermixed in an era regarded as underperforming 18- and 19-win seasons. Schafer has not hit that total in four seasons. McCutcheon's last season of that many wins was four seasons before his replacement. Grounds for such were found in those years. The four seasons of player's careers and this make comparing the last four seasons of McCutcheon and Schafer a reasonable comparative lens.

If Cornell continues its current losing ways, its four-season winning percentage will be 0.488. Schafer needs to motivate his charges to avoid this fate unless he wishes to find his winning percentage over the last four seasons to be depressed from that of Brian McCutcheon's career by approximately four percent. If current momentum dictates fate, this team of Coach Schafer is positioned to give Schafer a winning percentage of just 0.088 better than the last four seasons of McCutcheon.

The foregoing treats all wins as equal. As a program that cares far more about its 15 playoff championships than its 29 regular-season accolades, particular attention must be given to post-season success. Hardware matters.

This is the metric by which Schafer bests McCutcheon most decisively. Everyone knows that Brian McCutcheon never led the Big Red to a Whitelaw Cup as coach. Everyone knows that Mike Schafer has brought five Whitelaw Cups to East Hill. McCutcheon had less than half as long to deliver similar results. So, using the eight season-to-eight season comparison, how does Schafer's legacy compare to that of McCutcheon comparing twilight years and what may be twilight years?

Mike Schafer's fifth and latest Whitelaw Cup squeaks into the eight-year window. In just two seasons, it will not. Presently, Cornell's victory over Union at Albany still gives Coach Schafer one playoff tournament win in eight seasons. Brian McCutcheon won no tournaments. Well, there, in the undisputed most important metric, Schafer edges McCutcheon. But, by how much does the bench success of Ithaca's smooth-skating forward pale relative to East Hill's fiery defenseman?

A birthright was Cornell's earning a berth to ECAC Hockey's championship weekend. It was true during the Harkness and Bertrand Eras. Coach Schafer made it true throughout most of the 2000s. It is not so now. Brian McCutcheon's loathed stint saw the Big Red reach the East's most important weekend four times. Cornell positioned itself to play for its seventh Whitelaw Cup but once in the eight seasons of McCutcheon. Cornell fell to St. Lawrence in the 1992 ECAC Hockey Final.

Half of the time, McCutcheon-led teams reached championship weekend. Schafer's teams have earned just one more bid to ECAC Hockey semifinal contests over the same time. This includes the assumption that Cornell does not make Lake Placid this season. An assumption that seems more shored in reality with each passing weekend in which the Red seeds seeding. Schafer is decidedly better than McCutcheon in one regard. Cornell advanced to play for the Whitelaw Cup 60% of the time that it played in a semifinal contest in the last eight seasons. McCutcheon's teams advanced only 25% of the time.

Okay, Coach Schafer has been better in one facet. This was assumed. Admittedly, one more appearance in championship weekend is a frail achievement on which to stake one's career. However, a Whitelaw Cup, more than Brown, Dartmouth, or Quinnipiac have and the same number that Colgate has, in the last eight years is not an achievement to discount entirely.

Now, it is time to destroy Schafer's most ridiculous defense of why it is "harder" to win now than it once was. Readers, this writer bets that many of you think that comparing 1987-95 ECAC Hockey to 2008-16 ECAC Hockey is to compare apples to oranges. Schafer says it. The conference is just too hard to win in the way that the Lynah Faithful expect.

Well, knowing that this will not be the last time that this contributor brings this up, Coach Schafer's argument is...a lie.

​Brian McCutcheon took the helm of Cornell hockey in the Fall of 1987. The season before, Harvard had completed a repeat appearance in the Frozen Four. The year before that, coinciding with the 1985 Frozen Four, RPI took home the sport's top prize. Yeah, but, those were the 1980s when ECAC Hockey was good. McCutcheon coached in the 1990s when ECAC Hockey was rebranded as "EZAC," right?

Harvard won its modern national title in 1989. Colgate and St. Lawrence played for the national championship. Clarkson and Harvard enjoyed other runs to the Frozen Four. Brian McCutcheon coached in a league that during his eight years produced five Frozen Four appearances and three title-game appearances. ECAC Hockey's current run is not as dominant no matter how much Mike Schafer may distort it as such.

ECAC Hockey over the compared eight seasons has earned one less berth to the Frozen Four and put the same number of programs in the national-tile game. McCutcheon's task was made more difficult by the fact that four, not just three, programs carried themselves into the Frozen Four during his eight seasons broadening the élite cohort of programs that he needed to defeat for points in seeding and playoff glory. If the competition being "too good" was no life preserver for McCutcheon, should it be for the more celebrated Schafer?
​
In the last eight seasons, Schafer once brought a Whitelaw Cup to East Hill in 2010. However, after six years and what will be three graduating classes who graduate without winning a playoff title, what's the difference? If one normalizes the winning percentages of Schafer's last eight seasons (using Cornell's current winning percentage, a figure that likely will fall) to a 29-game regular season and does the same for McCutcheon's winning percentage over his eight seasons, how many wins does Schafer net per season? Two wins. Yes, two wins. Times are not as different as people want to believe.

The conclusion is bifurcated: either the McCutcheon Era was not as bad as remembered or Cornell is in another dark age.

One stubborn fact endures. An entire senior class is on the brink of ending its career with a record below 0.500 in carnelian-and-white sweaters. The Classes of 2014, 2015, and 2016 will have ended their careers without living up to the expectations that generations of Lynah Faithful have had for their program: winning an Eastern title. Find this premature?

Trust me, the contributors at Where Angels Fear to Tread as always will not "go back into the woodwork." However, the lack of leadership on this team, whether one places the blame at the office facing Campus Road or the senior class, has the Lynah Faithful visibly shrugging and audibly saying, "well, maybe next year." Coach Schafer's removal of both road letter-wearing captains from the line-up last Saturday may tab the deficiency to the senior class.

The hopes for the weekend say it all. Quinnipiac has not lost an in-conference game. The Lynah Faithful hope that their team blemishes that record as a modicum of revenge, not because they think it will mark a return to winning. That is to what the great Cornell hockey program has been reduced: the status of spoiler.

The trip was a business one, not of the hackneyed hashtagged variety on social media, but one the sort that yielded real results. It was not for hockey alone. It was for personal growth, not of this author, but of someone else. Enough on that topic.

​For the first time, the contributors of Where Angels Fear to Tread had the privilege of visiting St. Lawrence University; a privilege it was. The campus and community welcomed us regardless of our wearing carnelian-tinted gear throughout the weekend. The Saints on their sacred ground were every bit as confidently humble and outgoing as they were in Lake Placid nearly a year prior. St. Lawrence University was living up to its reputation and representation. There was only one more thing to do. The day would culminate with a trip to Appleton Arena.

The souls of institutions are so often found in the heart of their athletic facilities. Universities become communities in these gathering places and the mythology of students's tenures are drafted first there. Needless to say, with expectations very raised and a mindset approaching that of a romantic poet, this writer entered Appleton Arena.

The modernity of the building is what strikes an entrant first. A building whose antiquity is so often emphasized is not expected to bear such a modern entrance. Amenities are not lacking. This is not a rink review, however.

​The seamless melding of modern foyer and concourses with the historical gem of the grand bowl reflects the grafting that Coach Carvel has implemented on the ice. Carvel's teams are constructed from equal parts tradition and evolution. The sweaters that his teams now wear weave that narrative up and down the ice with characteristic speed.

As modern as systems and recruiting may be that bring success to the standard bearers of this great barn, history's weight was felt. Five of the Saints' six Whitelaw Cups are on display for respecters of playoff dependability, like the Lynah Faithful, to revere. Portraits of each team, playoff-immortalized and not, snake down the hallway beside the trophy case.

Astute observers from East Hill pause at a few of the photographs. Four of the six successful playoff runs of St. Lawrence included postseason eliminations of the Red of New York's land-grant university. Half of those meetings occurred in the East's ultimate game. Joe Marsh won his fifth Whitelaw Cup in 2001 in what staved Cornell's earning its tenth Cup. The beaming grins of Greg Carvel and Chris Wells, so bright that they harshen the frame's glare, leave little doubt as to the other meeting.

The 1992 ECAC Hockey Final encapsulates in many ways the deep connection between Cornell and St. Lawrence, and the profound roles that both have played in Eastern hockey. That Final marked the last time that the Whitelaw Cup would be awarded in Boston. Cornell, the dominant force of ECAC Hockey as winner of seven Eastern championships, seemed a suited winner of the last playoff trophy of the East's historic league awarded at Boston Garden. St. Lawrence, winner of the first true Eastern championship and inspired by a Massachusetts-born legend, was a deserving rival.

The two met on March 14, 1992. It was the Saints who marched off with the last Whitelaw Cup hoisted at Boston Garden. The East, especially New York hockey, belonged to Cornell and St. Lawrence long before that. The Big Red played the Saints in what was their second season of existence. Cornell shares its 11th-oldest active series with St. Lawrence. Of the programs of the Empire State with which Cornell shares active series, that with St. Lawrence is fifth oldest. Cornell is the second-oldest foe of the Saints.

The carnelian and white spearheaded the informal development of a de facto New York-based conference after Cornell was expelled from the Intercollegiate Hockey Association. The Red was an instigator and preserver of many of New York's oldest hockey programs, not the least of all was the program of St. Lawrence, with its extension of overlapping scheduling. However, the task fell to the Saints to carry the mantle of New York hockey when a true conference of the East, merging the hockey cultures of New England and New York, was formed.

Cornell reeled still in the early 1960s from the cancellation and resurrection of its hockey program. The veritable founder of New York hockey relied on the Saints to defend a shared legacy. George Menard and his charges stormed to an all-New York final in the inaugural ECAC Hockey tournament. New York was home to six of ECAC Hockey's first ten champions. The first belongs forever to the Saints. The quiet confidence of that playoff victory never left the program.

​Carnelian and scarlet may clash, but in the concourses and at the concessions of Eastern hockey's historic venues, there is little tension. Lynah Faithful through their mere presence too often elicit the worst in other fanbases. Yes, sometimes directed ire is earned. Other times, it seems as though it is a directed jealousy at a program whose devotees not only expect greatness, but demand it, and have a right to because of history. The Saints are not plagued by the sin of envy.

Respect is exchanged between fans from Ithaca to Canton to Lake Placid. Neither the success of St. Lawrence intimidates Cornell nor does the success of Cornell intimidate St. Lawrence. As a member of the Lynah Faithful, this writer can attest that they are the most amicable fanbase when donning a carnelian-and-white sweater. Their quiet confidence knows history.

History need not be ancient to be recalled among Laurentians. Exhilaration was the contest as Cornell gained an early one-goal lead. The second period passed without incident despite much action. The North Country natives knew to whom their team would turn. Indelible images conjured in the minds of the contributors of Where Angels Fear to Tread of the howitzer that blasted the Saints into overtime in a 2015 ECAC Hockey Semifinal in Lake Placid. These contributors turned to their guest and informed him of the truth that all knew within the oaken quonset. Gavin Bayreuther would score.

Score, Bayreuther did. His legend already writ but three years into his career was murmured after the junior made the lacquered pews of Appleton Arena undulate in the choreographed celebrations of the University's students. Bayreuther's play and the play of his fellow Skating Saints was what was discussed in this gorgeous barn. Nary a word celebrating the skaters of the NHL was heard even in passing.

​In Canton, their heroes are rightly known by the names of Carey, Carvel (reader, you will get back to him), Flanagan, Laperriere, Lappin, Peverley, and many more. They played for and won Whitelaw Cups, not Stanley Cups, while donning the oft-invoked scarlet and brown. Their accomplishments are no less grand or important to Appleton Arena's spectators during Upstate New York's months of winters. Hockey matters at St. Lawrence University.

Memories and ritual of the enclosed frozen pond are passed on as heirlooms in this picturesque community. Hockey is a coming of age in Canton and at St. Lawrence University. Echoes of the Saints's mildly profane cheer celebrating the home team's gaining a man advantage escort a youthful wave of giggles. Children raised in the tradition of their University wait eagerly for when they will voice such taboos to motivate their peers. A game's energy animates not only hopeful Laurentians.

Appleton Arena ceased to be an edifice mere seconds into overtime. Joe Sullivan elevated the vulcanized rubber disk beyond the Red's battling Mitch Gillam. Lynah Rink is louder. No building is more alive than Appleton when the Saints score.

From adorned rafter to pew to hallowed ice, the home of the Saints resonates with the passions of Laurentians. The clang of the victory bell told of the home team's victory as this contributor departed the historic rink and headed for his car. It was the buzzing in his ears from the overtime winner that purged memories of disappointment from a week past.

Appleton Arena is special. Greg Carvel intimated as much as he looked up to this writer's section and gave a seemingly knowing gesture of ecstatic approval to this contributor's guest. A grin. A thumbs up. St. Lawrence University is special.

Appleton Arena and Lynah Rink, homes of New York's most decorated college hockey programs, are sacred places. Their programs share a sacred bond. Both revere and live history. Last week proved that a purity remains in the North Country.

St. Lawrence is a place where tickets are not gouged no matter the opponent. Passion is real, not some tired form of self-legitimation. This writer needed to be reminded that such senses of community and altruism existed after a Harvard Week that made the contributors of Where Angels Fear to Tread far more disappointed with attendants of a game than its result.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder and proximity may breed contempt, but it is nice to know that nestled on the outskirts of the Adirondacks, the pulse of ECAC Hockey beats purely in a sylvan breast.