Brandon Thomas of The Ithaca Journal broke last week which numbers each incoming freshman for Cornell chose to wear. Stoick chose the number that Jillson wore for four years previous. Tiitinen did the same with Whitney's number. Roeszler from the Class of 2011 wore Hilbrich's chosen number last. It was the choice of Willcox that should have gained most notice because the most significant player to have worn that number on his sweater was current head coach Mike Schafer.

Schafer's antics while a player are the stuff of legends. We know that the Broad Street Bullies chose Willcox in the 2012 NHL Draft, but does that make him of stern enough stuff to live up to the reputation of Schafer?

Schafer was a player who famously broke a hockey stick emblazoned with "Harvard Sucks" on it over his head before a game against the Crimson in Lynah. A showman who shot a puck at Harvard's Cleary for elements of his sportsmanslike attitude toward the Big Red. A defenseman whose competitiveness and tenacity was so great that the Faithful felt obliged to propel him onward with chants of "kill, Schafer, kill." A leader who donned the captain's C and led his program to its seventh ECAC Championship in program history and in so doing overcoming the doldrums of 13 years without a title. Then, because his role as player was not sufficient somehow in his mind, he returned to his alma mater and resurrected a program that had begun to fall asunder to the cheers of "thank you, Schafer" in Lake Placid as Cornell claimed its first ECAC Championship in a decade.

Schafer is known to make new players learn the histories not only of the Cornell hockey program but the players who wore their chosen numbers before them. Willcox will learn shortly, if he has not already, that he has quite the sweater to fill.

The first metric by which Willcox can be compared to Schafer is through his statistics as a player for Cornell. Schafer amassed 70 points over 107 games during his time as a student-athlete for Cornell. His pace of 0.65 pts/game was earned with 10 goals and 60 assists over his collegiate career. This record might not seem entirely overwhelming in itself but if one compares those statistics to current senior defenseman Nick D'Agostino who is regarded often as an offensively minded defenseman the achievement becomes more apparent. D'Agostino has averaged 0.56 pts/game during his first three years. Schafer might be best remembered for his defense-mindedness, but his offensive contributions as a player were considerable.

It is no surprise that a player memorialized for stick-breaking and tenacity has another statistical claim to fame. Schafer's aggressive play has him occupying two of the top 25 records for penalty minutes served in a season for Cornell. His times served of 91 minutes and 72 minutes from his senior and junior seasons respectively rank seventh and twenty-third. D'Agostino served the greatest number of penalty minutes of any defenseman from last season. His total penalty minutes served during his junior campaign was 26% of the total that Schafer served his senior season and 33% of the time that Schafer occupied the sin bin his junior year. Willcox has much to live up to at both ends of the ice.

Foremost, it must be noted that Willcox has displayed the character already that should make the Lynah Faithful very proud that in a few short weeks he will don the carnelian and white. The Portland Winterhawks of the Canadian major junior Western Hockey League drafted Willcox in 2009. He decided that he would not want to forsake the college hockey route by suiting up for the Winterhawks so he chose to wait for other opportunities. He hoped still that college hockey would be in his future. Such an opportunity arose in the form of being offered a position on the Merritt Centennials of the Junior A BCHL. Willcox joined the Centennials and the rest is the most recent chapter in his hockey career until he takes the ice in Lynah Rink on October 19, 2012.

Willcox had a successful career in Merritt, BC. He played in 105 games in the BCHL. His stat sheet indicates that he scored 10 goals and 27 helpers over his BCHL career which amounts to an average of 0.35 pts/game. His 42 penalty minutes over his BCHL career amounts to 0.40 PIM/game.

Statistically, the comparison between Schafer's Cornell numbers and Willcox's BCHL numbers seems lopsided. Schafer's numbers outpace those of Willcox by 186% for pts/game while Schafer's rate of penalty minutes served per game during his senior year eclipses the time served of Willcox by a margin of  710%. Yes, Schafer's earning of penalty minutes are greater by more than a 7:1 margin to a future Philadelphia Flyer. That is eye-opening for anyone who could not imagine what Schafer was like on the ice as a player. So, the statistics are fairly one-sided. It appears that stastitically that Willcox has much room for improvement to carry the mantle of the number 3 that Schafer wore.

Statistics are not everything. Schafer brought far more than statistical contributions to the Cornell hockey program. This is not to say that Willcox will not meet or surpass the precendence of Schafer during his tenure at Cornell because he has unquestionable upside. However, this leaves far more ways that Willcox will be able to rise to the challege of carrying the mantle now accustomed with wearing number 3 for the Big Red.

Schafer's greatest contribution to the program was a change in outlook and attitude. Schafer inspired faith in a program both as its captain in his senior year of 1986 and as a coach from 1996 until the present. This attitudinal shift that Schafer inculcated is for what the Lynah Faithful should be most grateful to the coach. It is in this respect that Willcox can and has shown the propensity to be Schaferian.

Willcox did not serve in any formal leadership role on the Merritt Centennials, but he did play on Team Canada West and assisted in their attainment of a gold medal in the 2011 Junior A World Challenge. Furthermore, his choice to turn down a path in major junior hockey for the dual rigors of hockey and education on East Hill can scarcely be overstated as a barometer of character. It is this strength of character and resolution that shows his potential to become a great leader like the most famous Cornellian to wear 3 in carnelian and white.

Willcox will have one season to develop, but his development arc may be required to be steeper than those of previous defensemen. Cornell graduated two key defensemen last season in captain Keir Ross and workhorse defenseman Sean Whitney. They will leave a void undoubtedly that will need to be filled and that will be difficult to fill on a defenseive core that now has a high representation of youth. The exodus of defensive talent was exacerbated when a less-played defenseman chose to depart from Central New York early to pursue his fortunes in professional hockey.

The younger defensemen, including Willcox, will be able to rely upon the skills of seasoned and reliable veterans in the defensive core like Ryan, Gotovets, Birch, and D'Agostino. However, the quick loss of Birch and D'Agostino after the 2012-13 campagin will require freshmen like Willcox to occupy leadership roles and it is in this respect that the character and intellect that Willcox has shown through his accolades (winning the Merritt Centennial's Academic Scholar Award) and choices that he can prove that he is more than worthy to wear the number of Schafer. Expectations on the program this coming season are exceedingly high and new talent, like Willcox, can give the Faithful more reason to believe.

Schafer is a figure who will continue to rise in the esteem of those who follow the program. He is the ninth-ranked active coach in college hockey in terms of number of wins and the seventh-ranked active coach in college hockey in terms of winning percentage. He is the winningest coach in terms of total wins in Cornell hockey history. He has meant so much more to Cornell hockey and the Cornell University community than any numbers can capture. His sweater will likely someday hang from the rafters alongside Dryden's number 1 and Nieuwendyk's number 25. It deserves to be there.

Willcox can carve out a niche within the history of the number-3 sweater at Cornell. He can prove that with his leadership and skills, both of which seem ample, that he deserves to be respected as a historic wearer of number 3 in his own right someday. We hope that Willcox's tangible, statistical, and intangible contributions to Cornell hockey become so great that Cornell hockey is left with the same dilemma that plagues other programs, that revere their history no less than does Cornell hockey its own, when an integral figure to a program and a noteworthy player wore the same number while playing for that program.

Willcox has given himself a large sweater to fill. It does not mean that he will not achieve that goal. His past indicates that he likes challenges and often rises to meet them. There is no reason to doubt that he will do the same this time.

If Willcox finds the opportunities and the ability to make the Cornell hockey community believe in itself and its greatness even more than it does currently, he will prove that he is more deserving to wear Schafer's number than any statistical comparison ever could bear out. We wish him much luck in the pursuit of such proof.

The prospect that the ECAC announcement that was rumored to occur on Tuesday would be streamed or televised were fairly bleak considering the league's inability to secure a network to broadcast the league's marquee event. However, around midnight last night (12:00 am Tuesday), the ECAC page added a splash image as its intro to the men's ice hockey page. The image, for those who are unfamiliar with the Lake Placid facilities, is that of the outside of the Olympic Center facility that is attached to the much more famous Herb Brooks Arena.

The formal ECAC announcement came at around 11:10 am on Tuesday. The ECAC formalized that the league had come to a three-year agreement with Lake Placid under which the ECAC would crown its champions for the 2014, 2015, and 2016 seasons in Herb Brooks Arena. ECAC Commmissioner Steve Hagwell sung the praises of the bond between the ECAC and Lake Placid, and stated that "Lake Placid has a special bond with ECAC Hockey."

Considering the news, I thought that it was befitting to take a more extended look at where the ECAC will host its championships and where Cornell will seek additional ECAC Championships in the near future. I feel that the pros and cons, and hopes and fears have been discussed extensively. If you missed WAFT's take, it's here. Thank You Terry, a blog that focuses upon Penn State hockey and one of the best blogs dedicated to college hockey (TYT is a blog that college hockey fans should read if they are not already), mentioned and complimented WAFT's analysis in a much-appreciated shoutout to this new blog in his Three Stars. Adam Wodon offered similarly extensive analysis back in April. Needless to say, Wodon and WAFT are solidly in the pro-Lake Placid camp. That is firmly established. So, this post continues with the different angle of looking at what members of the Faithful can look forward to when Cornell seeks its fourteenth ECAC title in 2014 (wishful thinking, I know).

The most striking element in the above pictures is the intimacy of the Arena. I'm very much of the opinion that what distinguishes college hockey from professional-level hockey is the physical and personal connection between the fans, teams, and the players. That is why even sold-out college hockey events at NHL arenas strike me as somewhat off. They do not feel like college hockey events. Red Hot Hockey is a superb event that I hope continues into the future and I plan to attend the clash between the Wolverines and Big Red in November, but the ill-defined sterility of pro arenas remove certain elements of the college hockey experience. I leave each of those great events lacking the sense of belonging that games at college hockey barns provide even though ~14,000 Cornell fans reliably make The Garden much louder than any Rangers game. Admittedly, the connection to the building between fans is lost at any neutral site, but the aesthetic feel and the size of Herb Brooks Arena makes the viewing experience more akin to the experience offered at other college hockey rinks and Lynah than the experience afforded fans if the event were held in an NHL arena. I think this is an often overlooked aspect of college hockey that the Herb Brooks Arena does not sacrifice while TD Garden, Joe Louis Arena, and Xcel Energy Center do.

An odd fixation of some is the desire that the host of their league championship repaints the ice to commemorate the championship series. Albany did no such thing in 2010. Atlantic City, in its characteristic and respectable devotion to promoting the ECAC Championships in AC, did. The primary issue with AC was not what laid beneath the ice, but the ice itself. The scheduling of events at Boardwalk Hall forced AC to produce and maintain ice at the beautiful facility far too late to have hockey-worthy ice. Lake Placid will present no such challenges with a figure skating- and hockey-devoted arena. The benefit with Lake Placid and Herb Brooks Arena is that I think that if the above insignia appears instead of the ECAC logo, few fans would be irked because Lake Placid is as much of or, perhaps, more of a marketable brand than what the ECAC is currently.

The ECAC appeared not to make any revelatory statements about the main concerns of many fans including television coverage or hotel policies in Lake Placid according to early reports from the conference. WAFT will keep you appraised of any information as it arises. Adam Wodon asked the questions that matter most to fans. In summary, his article has Commissioner Hagwell stating that "more and more networks say, '[y]ou produce the games and we'll air it.' So I don't see any obstacles in terms of production, because we can hire a crew." Director of Events at the Olympic Center Jim Goff added that several production companies are based in Lake Placid and have experience producing broadcasts that are syndicated internationally.

The league made it clear that the 2013 ECAC Championships is the last that will be held in Atlantic City in the near future and that 2014 will mark the return of the ECAC Championships to Lake Placid. WAFT is excited about this announcement, its potential to help the league, and looks forward to joining members of the Lynah Faithful in the most historic arena in United States hockey history. Let's hope that Lake Placid has a few miracles in store for the ECAC and Cornell this time around.

Cornell hockey is an institution like few others in sports. It is a program that is dedicated as much to the celebration of its past as it is to continuation of the greatness born during previous eras. It may have neither the national championships of Michigan nor the pro-scale arena of North Dakota, but stands apart from many of its celebrated peers in the unbroken connection that exists between those players who don the carnelian and white at Lynah Rink, all those who did the same before them, and generations of fans who have supported the history and culture of hockey at Cornell University. This unbroken connection and continued zeal is why Cornell is recognized as having the most zealous fanbase in all of college hockey. Ned Harkness, former Cornell hockey coach and the winningest coach in college hockey in terms of winning percentage, upon arriving at Cornell from RPI, a fellow member program of the ECAC, quipped memorably that he wanted the intimidation and the home ice advantage at Lynah Rink to be so severe that Lynah would become "a place where angels fear to tread." It is from this quote (and a few heated rivalries) that the Lynah Faithful sprang. This blog hopes to add to the great culture that the Lynah Faithful have created and add yet another forum to the sizable electronic presence that exists already for the most storied program in the ECAC.