Big Night For Cornell Hockey: Shuts Out National Champion Denver 2-0 In NCAA Regional Semifinal

[Update: 3/25/23 – It was painful to watch Cornell lose 2-1 to Boston University in the regional final. Completely different team than the one that beat Denver. They played a poor game: defense gave up the puck many times in their own end, including the one that led to first goal and both defensemen made poor decisions that led to the second. Gave up a half ice breakaway on an error. At least 20 unforced errors. Many bad judgments. Not well timed breakouts. Scattered positional play. Tentative in first period. Poor passing. Lost challenges on the boards and in the corners. No forecheck at all and little offensive zone possession.They gave away way too much ice and failed to put a body on #20, a slightly built but slick stick-handling freshman defenseman.  Undisciplined penalties. Cornell scored with 28 seconds left by shooting the puck and crashing the net, something they didn’t do all game. Amazingly, they had an open net shot with 5 seconds left and the shot went 5 feet wide. ~~~ end]

After watching a lackluster performance in the ECAC semi-final 1-0 OT loss to Harvard, I was pleasantly surprised that Cornell even got an NCAA tournament bid.

Given that their NCAA first round regional opponent was defending national champion Denver, frankly, I was just hoping that they were competitive and didn’t get blown out.

(there’s some history with Cornell and Denver – and my HS hockey coach played at Denver with Keith Magnuson).

After an absolutely flawless game – and I mean flawless by every player! – the Big Red dominated and won in a 2-0 shutout.

They looked like a completely different team – not the conservative defensive oriented Mike Schafer coached team I’ve been frustrated by for almost 40 years.

They dominated the first period. They took chances and took the play to Denver. Forwards went in deep, forechecked hard, established control in the offensive zone, and the defensemen pinched. The forwards back checked relentlessly and were never caught out of position.

Cornell won at least 90% of challenges along the boards and in the corners, and were bigger, stronger, and faster than Denver.

The defensemen showed poise in clearing the puck, controlling the corners and behind the net, and moving it out of the zone. The breakouts were almost perfect with flawless passing and they never once gave up the puck.

And they got great goaltending from sophomore Ian Shane:

Ironically, the only dimension of Cornell’s game that was not firing on all cylinders was the power play, the 4th best on the country.

Saturday’s regional final will be a classic against rival Boston University.

Here we are after the game in the desert outside Bouse, Arizona! That Cornell Big Red hat I’m wearing is 40 years old!