The Worst Seasons in the Past 25 Years Part 19: Cornell
Welcome to the Worst Season in the Past 25 Years, a series in which r/CollegeHockey reviews the worst season for all 60 Division I teams over the summer to alleviate the crushing boredom known as the off-season and take a horrific tour down memory lane.
If you are interested in writing an entry for your team, please let me know via PM. I’ll be posting entries on weekdays at approximately at 6 pm Eastern time and will be going in alphabetical order. If an entry is not posted at that time, assume that “real life” has gotten in the way and that I am not able to post. If I am aware in advance that I will not post at 6 pm on a particular day, I will announce it in prior posts as a heads up.
And now.../r/CollegeHockey presents the Cornell Big Red! As a part of the Lynah Faithful (the name for fervent supporters of the Cornell hockey program), I have dreaded writing this up. But it must be done. Fortunately, Cornell starts with the letter “C” and alphabetically speaking, is in the top third of college hockey programs. That means that I can get it down relatively quickly.
I think that in order to understand the reason why the (spoilers ahead) worst season in Cornell’s history is 1992-1993, a bit of history must be presented. (Also, this is partially why the timeframe of the series is 25 years. A lot can change in a quarter of a century.) Cornell’s ice hockey team started in 1901, playing games on Beebe Lake (a small lake on campus by North Campus, where the freshmen live). The program had gone through some troubles including but limited to: the fact that Ithaca, NY is far, far away from the East Coast, where the majority of hockey games took place; lack of suitable opponents related to the first issue; issues with administration; and uncooperative weather. The team did take a few breaks because of these issues. The program eventually got an indoor rink (Lynah Rink) in 1957 and the modern Cornell Big Red ice hockey team began.
Fast forward to 1992. A bunch of Canadians, a handful of Ivy League and ECAC titles, a couple of natties, and an undefeated, untied season later, the Big Red found themselves in a position that they were unfamiliar with: a slow decline followed by a dive into the abyss. Brian McCutcheon, who was previously a captain of the Big Red, was in his sixth season leading the team. Beforehand, the program under McCutcheon seemed fine when he was hired, a decent ECAC record (18-6) in his premier season. Then the cracks started to show: a series loss to Clarkson in 1989 in the tournament, eleven straight regular season losses to Harvard, a regular season title challenge collapse in 1991, the departure of Goalie™ Parris Duffus at the end of 1991-1992 season, and overall lackluster recruiting to replace the departed Big Red skaters (including Duffus; this led to an unusual point in the team: a lack of a bona fide starting Goalie™). According to the book Cornell University Hockey, a visual history of the program, the Big Red team had reached its nadir.
This was the record for the Big Red in this season, along with the list of wins, ties and losses:
Wins: Tigger, @Number 2, @Cougar, Plane People, Wooden Spooners, Cougar
Tie: @Golden Shites
Losses: Fail, @RAS Syndrome, Deep Fryers, @Sucks, Bowling Bowl*, anOSU*, @Keggy, Toothpaste, Polly Pocket, @Toothpaste, @Fail, @Tigger, Golden Shites, RAS Syndrome, Sucks, Number 2, @Polly Pocket, @Wooden Spooners, Keggy
*Cleveland Hockey Classic
This led to a 6-1-19 record, the worst in the modern history of the Big Red program. But the thing is: Cornell finished ahead of Union in the final season standings (suck it, Dutchmen!) and managed to complete the double over Vermont (suck it, Catamounts!). To me, it’s mind boggling how these two things occurred in the same season. Since Cornell joined the ECAC, the Big Red have NEVER been wooden spooners. I guess that makes sense, but to be honest, I would have expected it to happen this season, since ~2/3rds of the seasons I have reviewed have featured a wooden spooner.
Now that unexpected shock is out of the way, let’s look at the team, shall we? As mentioned before, Goalie™ Parris Duffus left at the end of the previous season for a professional career and the above-average senior class graduated. And who was the next person to continue the tradition of Cornell Goalkeeping™? Step in Andrew Bandurski. The best thing about Bandurski, probably, was the fact that his name has “Band” in it. And the Big Red Pep Band probably (I don’t know, I was not born yet!) appreciated this fact, if it were not for his sub-par stats: a save percentage of .885 and a GAA of 3.90. Moving on, who was supposed to maintain the scoring mantle? Brad Chartrand had the most goals, 10. The good thing? Chartrand was a piker (historic slang for freshma/en), so this can be seen as a bright spot I suppose. In terms of assists, Geoff Bumstead (ironic, ain’t it?) and Ryan Hughes (le captain) had 14 apiece. Unfortunately, both were upperclassmen and were not expected to stay for long.
Looking at the rest of the team, most of them stopped playing hockey after graduating from Cornell. Hell, some of the players on that roster stopped playing hockey after one or two seasons with the Big Red. Only a handful of people had a professional career in hockey and Chartrand was the only one who eventually landed in the NHL, retiring with the Los Angeles Kings. I know, that was to be expected from shoddy recruiting finally catching up to the Big Red. But it does not help. I would have been repulsed by the performance of these skaters.
Usually, the ice hockey team makes up for the dumpster fire known as the football team. Ironically enough, the football team were on a seven game winning streak by the time conference play began (Cornell football lost to Columbia that weekend). I am not blaming the football team, but merely surprised. Football has not been good enough while hockey has in the 21st century. Most people would say that Cornell can be called a hockey school. It looks like that the football team sucked up all of the success from Lynah Rink and transplanted it to Schoellkopf Field during this time period. Coincidentally, two of the three Ivy football titles came during McCutcheon’s time as head coach (1988 and 1990). Of course, this is a silly thing to mention and I like to the coincidence enough that I like to say the hockey team’s success is inversely proportional to that of the football team [I might eventually write a post illustrating this].
After this season, McCutcheon’s record would improve but not that much. In his final season, 1994-95, the Big Red managed to get 11 wins. However, it was decided that enough was enough and former defenseman and captain Mike Schafer was hired. Immediately, Schafer set the goals of Big Red hockey to beat Harvard, get home ice for the ECAC tournament and pack Lynah. It seemed to go well, winning the ECAC tournament and punching tickets to the Ice Dance. A short drought appeared before winning the regular season title in the 2000-01 season. The following year, the Big Red went to the Frozen Four (damn you, New Hampshire). A few more Ice Dance appearances and ECAC titles would pepper the rest of the decade. Overall, things under Schafer have been a lot better than the dark days of Cornell hockey.
For Week 4 of this series, we will look at the worst seasons in recent memory for the following school: Dartmouth. Once again, if you are interested in doing the entry for your favorite school, shoot me a PM. Your school, name, and date will be added at the end of each post to serve as a reminder. So far, the following people have inquired about a spot:
| School | Username | Tentative Date |
|---|---|---|
| LSSU | u/binkelman | 7/10 |
| UML | u/LantisEscudo | 7/13 |
| Northeastern | u/therevengeance | 8/2 |
| Penn State | u/saucysalesman | 8/8 |
| RPI | u/Nicholas1227 | 8/16 |
| Union | u/azurearmor | 8/22 |
| Vermont | u/LocksTheFox | 8/23 |
Finally, a shoutout to u/saucysalesman who inspired the idea of this series for doing one for football over at r/cfb. Additionally, thanks to r/CollegeBasketball for the idea of the sub-par MS Paint logos for each school.
Previous Entries in the Worst Seasons Series:
Posted Jun 29, 2017, 10:02 PM UTC · edited