RPI 2021-22: Picking Up Where We Left Off

[DrDemento]

Army has a pretty good hockey team this year. They will not be easy.
Does anyone know what the situation is with Walsh?
We are a better team with him in the lineup.

Agree - and also when Mahshie gets in the line up and gets considerable ice time. He is a big force up front and uses his size deep in the offensive zone and up against the boards. Army is always tough, especially playing at home. years ago, and I assume it is true today, you always felt they were in peak physical condition and came after you for a full 60 minutes. i can recall several games (even ones we won by a fair margin) where the third period we had a lot of trouble keeping up with them. They can be a very physical team and keep that tempo going throughout the entire game.

[engineerhockeyfan]

Army has a pretty good hockey team this year. They will not be easy.
Does anyone know what the situation is with Walsh?
We are a better team with him in the lineup.

[rpi82]

Since Army announced this afternoon that they've added a Saturday game against Penn State it's pretty clear they are committed to having hockey at West Point this weekend. As of now I have 3 going. Anyone else planning to attend?

[Waite21]

The good news is, RPI athletics resumed this evening with the men's basketball team playing Oswego State.

The bad news is, they had to play without two of their most reliable starters, Dom Black and Patrick Mahoney. The previously-unbeaten Engineers managed only 46 points and were defeated, 59-46.

I've heard no official word about why those guys didn't play, but have to suspect that a virus reared its ugly head.

Hope the hockey team is in good health for their trip to Burlington.

[DavidNardolillo]

UVM posted its pre-game press conferences: Of note, the interview with Coach Woodcroft discusses how UVM was without 5 defensemen for the first matchup with RPI and had to use forwards to cover shifts; I was not previously aware of this. Otherwise, RPI not discussed in depth, as reporters focus on UVM players at World Juniors and Woodcroft's involvement with Swedish Olympic team. Coach Woodcroft thanks Coach Smith and RPI for working to move the game to UVM, otherwise it wouldn't have been played. RPI only briefly comes up in Babichuk interview. In response to a reporter question, he notes that the RPI rematch is personally important to him, but doesn't go further and there are no follow-up questions on it.

Coach Woodcroft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Ni4qTPOuQ

Cory Babichuk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz8D_nK7L84

[DavidNardolillo]

Was this ever posted here, and if so, how did I miss it?

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries...ary?id=5083332

Don Birkmayer's passing was announced in the USCHO forum by Ralph in a prior thread: https://fanforum.uscho.com/forum/col...26#post3622133

[DrDemento]

Red Army mid-season review
https://twitter.com/RPI_RedArmy/stat...509167617?s=20

Sez: Thanks for the posting and all the work involved. Agree with about 95% of everything said (which is more than I agree with anything ever). The boys are individually doing very well and they are about the most exciting to watch on the ice in many years. My only hope is that they play as a team a bit better. All the aspects of team play could use a little improvement from simple passing, to keeping the puck in the offensive zone at the points to gaining a bit better control on and after face offs. Right now, as i see it, they have better than average ECAC talent but are playing as a team at a mid ECAC level. There is really no one place to critique just the overall team play. I had expected by mid season most of those things would have worked out a tad better but I forget how many new faces there really are on this squad. We have an excellent coach who sees all of this and I am sure will address it the best he can.

[DrDemento]

I am no doctor, nor to I pretend to be, but if those numbers are true, can we be working our way to herd immunity?

EHF - interesting thought. Many in other countries (England, South Africa are starting to think that Omicron will be replacing most other mutation strains currently being seen because it is simply extremely contagious (due to it infecting ares higher up in the respiratory passage and far easier spread by nasal discharge). Students of medical history know that many viral pandemics and epidemics end with the emergence of a very contagious but almost non lethal form of a virus that can offer immunity against the previous mutations (already being reported by Oxford). This indeed could induce the appearance of rapid herd immunity (far faster than any vaccinations offered). Thus for all intents ending the COVID crisis. But before we jump up and down with joy. the so-called Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918-1920 did something rather similar and the first wave of deaths and morbidity was not all that severe and seemed to be ending. Then a second wave appeared most likely due to a new more infectious AND more lethal mutation and the majority of the deaths from this misnamed Spanish Flu (probably started here in Kansas) came from this second wave and even a third and fourth wave to follow. It remains to be seen how this pans out but I mentioned much earlier how Omicron might be mother nature's vaccination and that might end up being true. But will that mean the beginning of the end for COVID? Or will it simply be the end of the beginning?

[sezenack]

Red Army mid-season review
https://twitter.com/RPI_RedArmy/stat...509167617?s=20

[rpi82]

I think that it was mentioned on the RPI_Sports mailing list. Also the former statistician at the HFH Dave Messer passed away about the same time.

For long time fans of not just RPI, but college hockey in general, Don Birkmayer was a legend. It was difficult to even get information on our own league beyond the standings board at the FH. Modern fans will probably find it quaint, but I'd look forward to every issue of the Intercollegiate Hockey Newsletter on its distinctive yellow paper arriving in my mailbox to learn what was going on in leagues across the country. I subscribed for years................

[Ralph Baer]

Was this ever posted here, and if so, how did I miss it?

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries...ary?id=5083332

I think that it was mentioned on the RPI_Sports mailing list. Also the former statistician at the HFH Dave Messer passed away about the same time.

[jericho]

Was this ever posted here, and if so, how did I miss it?

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries...ary?id=5083332

[rpi82]

I quickly checked a few sites: Cornell's states in a 12/27 update they were requiring proof of vax for all attendees. Harvard does not appear to allow you to select or purchase tickets for any events. Dartmouth updated its policy to ban public attendance at least until Jan. 18th. CCT and SLU appear to be open for business for the 1/14-15 RPI tilts...which I plan on attending.

That's definitely a recent change for Harvard. I was considering going to that game and as recently as a week or so ago they were selling individual game tickets and the only non-student section that was completely sold out was in the RPI block.

[Wicked Slappaahs]

Actually, probably more than ours. There have been several ideas about why the numbers of positive cases and deaths are what they have reported. I know two physicians who practice there (after training here) and they are as befuddled as I am. The vaccination rate there is lower and the medical care in many areas can best be described as inadequate (and that is stretching it). We are seeing this in other places that had rather severe spikes in the past like Brazil. Because the numbers in this country are most definite skewed by weekends and holidays (when less people present for testing) you have to take averages (weekly or even monthly). Nothing from the study of past infectious diseases seems to hold here. Here in NJ today I believe we dropped to roughly 9000 positive tests (roughly half of the number we had seen the last few days) but even at that level, it is more than the entire country totals for one day for those places that have had some of the highest totals overall. Just very odd and even if it somehow makes mathematical sense, it is not striking me as making medical sense.

I sure hope that this next game against Vermont is not the last that we shall see this season. We have mostly ECAC games against Ivy teams and in the past they were the first to shut down.

I quickly checked a few sites: Cornell's states in a 12/27 update they were requiring proof of vax for all attendees. Harvard does not appear to allow you to select or purchase tickets for any events. Dartmouth updated its policy to ban public attendance at least until Jan. 18th. CCT and SLU appear to be open for business for the 1/14-15 RPI tilts...which I plan on attending.

[engineerhockeyfan]

A few days ago I read an article indicating that the University of Washington biostats team (which has been lauded for accuracy and blasted for inaccuracy at varying points during the pandemic) was forecasting a stunning 140M new domestic cases in the next 3 months due to Omicron's highly contagious nature with an equally amazing 90% of them being asymptomatic. Could we be seeing that pattern? With the increased travel and the holidays being upon us there has been a great rise in testing, regardless of whether the test candidate believes they may have it. Is that driving our numbers with many asymptomatic cases that might otherwise never have been tested now being uncovered? Has anyone seen recent measured data on the asymptomatic percentage?

I am no doctor, nor to I pretend to be, but if those numbers are true, can we be working our way to herd immunity?