Cornell Plays Dartmouth in Semifinals with NCAA Hopes on Line
The following article appeared in the March 18 issue of the Cornell Daily Sun.
BY EVAN RICH
In 2010 the men’s hockey team entered the final weekend of the ECAC playoffs knowing that an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament was still a possibility if it was unable to win the conference title. Friday night, when the Red travels to Atlantic City, N.J. for a semifinal matchup with Dartmouth at 7:30 p.m., it recognizes that two wins over the weekend is likely the only path to earning a bid on Selection Sunday. Interestingly, head coach Mike Schafer ’86 feels that his team has no pressure this weekend since it has been questioned as a contender all season long.
“One advantage we have going into this tournament is that from our standpoint no one expected us to be here,” he said. “There will be a lot of pressure on Dartmouth to win … There’s absolutely no pressure [on us] and I’ve had teams go into the [ECAC] tournament with no pressure on them and we’ve played awesome. They’re big games, but there’s not that burden that you have to win the game.”
The Red entered the season with relatively low expectations after the departure of captain Colin Greening ’10, his assistants, Blake Gallagher ’10 and Riley Nash, and goaltender Ben Scrivens ’10; however, the clutch goals of senior right wing and co-captain Joe Devin paired with the emergence of sophomore center Greg Miller and strong forecheck of senior left-winger Tyler Roeslzer has led Cornell to another final weekend of the ECAC playoffs. The trio that forms the Red’s top line accounted for four of the team’s five goals in the best-of-three series against Quinnipiac.
