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Quinnipiac Bobcats 2023-24 Regular Season - Embrace the grind

Schafer and Rand are friends off the ice? Don't think that's true; at all. Cordial maybe, friends no. Rand once accused Cornell's Cole Bardreau of embellishing moments after a Quinnipiac player nearly re-broke Cole's neck, waiving his arms at the ref as Cole lay motionless on the ice. I've posted the article in this thread already and don't think I need to do it again. In any case, that killed any chance of Schafer and Rand ever becoming friends.

It is, though. IIRC that happened to Cole in 2012. It was of course shocking at the time, and Rand absolutely deserved all the scorn and derision that was poured all over him for it, some of it from Q people right here. It was not his finest hour, that's for sure.

As I'm sure Rand recognizes, and has made expiation not just with Cole but also Mike.

We as fans have to realize we see only a tiny fraction of what these guys are to each other, good or bad. And what we see is completely filtered by our fandom, and then is amplified and purified by conversations within our own fan group. Just like with politics, it becomes GroupThink. And it's part of the fun of being a fan. But we all need to realize: it's an extremely limited perspective. We don't and won't and will never know what happened after, because we are looky-lous, we aren't part of the family.

Mike talks about Rand positively and he works with him, and that's the only real empirical evidence we have.
 
It is, though. IIRC that happened to Cole in 2012. It was of course shocking at the time, and Rand absolutely deserved all the scorn and derision that was poured all over him for it, some of it from Q people right here. It was not his finest hour, that's for sure.

As I'm sure Rand recognizes, and has made expiation not just with Cole but also Mike.

We as fans have to realize we see only a tiny fraction of what these guys are to each other, good or bad. And what we see is completely filtered by our fandom, and then is amplified and purified by conversations within our own fan group. Just like with politics, it becomes GroupThink. And it's part of the fun of being a fan. But we all need to realize: it's an extremely limited perspective. We don't and won't and will never know what happened after, because we are looky-lous, we aren't part of the family.

Mike talks about Rand positively and he works with him, and that's the only real empirical evidence we have.
I think that praising Rand’s coaching and working with him at a charity function is very weak empirical evidence of them being friends. By that logic, Schafer is probably friends with half the coaches in D-1 hockey. Schafer IS actually friendly with Don Vaughan/Ted Donato, BTW—I have never seen/heard the same signs that he’s friends with Rand. It’s not just the Bardreau thing (which happened in 2014-15, for what it’s worth). Schafer was also very upset with Rand when Quinnipiac ran up the score on Cornell’s backup goalie in the 2013 playoffs, as one example.

If you follow Quinnipiac recruiting, you’ll see a large number of recruits in the pipeline basically at all times, more than enough who are of age to replace the graduating class. And yet, Rand repeatedly goes to the portal/gets his seniors to stay a grad year, which crowds out a huge number of would-be incoming freshmen. These freshmen are forced to either (a) decommit or (b) matricute, get ~zero playing time, and then transfer out. Cornell and, I would hope, most other programs honor their recruits by letting them come and play as promised.

To be clear, I have nothing against Quinnipiac’s fans. And I acknowledge that Rand has seen amazing success taking Quinnipiac from D-3 to one of the best hockey schools in the country. I fully admit I wouldn’t care at all about Rand’s alleged improprieties if he weren’t so successful. Does that make me jealous? Honestly, no. Even though I would love to win a national championship someday, I wouldn’t trade Schafer and Cornell’s success for Rand and Quinnipiac’s success because I am proud of the way things are done at Cornell. And, sorry, I really don’t think Schafer and Rand are buddies.
 
Hey Andy Bernard Troll! First of all....NO ONE cares if the best coach in cawledge hawkey is friends with mullet master Mike whatever his name is......now go away...back to your squads page here on USCHO fan forum.....oh wait....YOU DONT HAVE ONE. No one here cares about what you think or care about your program.
You trolling on here only demonstrates your jealousy. You're
 
Hey Andy Bernard Troll! First of all....NO ONE cares if the best coach in cawledge hawkey is friends with mullet master Mike whatever his name is......now go away...back to your squads page here on USCHO fan forum.....oh wait....YOU DONT HAVE ONE. No one here cares about what you think or care about your program.
You trolling on here only demonstrates your jealousy. You're
ICECAT has the best running joke on the USCHO forum: make fun of Cornell for not having a USCHO thread even though the reason for this is that Cornell has an entire forum devoted to the hockey team.
 
And Lipkin signs with Arizona.

Five guys left from the title team. Going to need to be a massive amount of work on the roster build for 2024-25.
Transfer portal giveth, transfer portal taketh away. I think Quinnipiac would have much better underclassmen right now if it didn't fill roster spots with transfers and fifth years rather than affording that playing time to its recruits. But on the other hand, I'm sure Quinnipiac will plug most of its holes by taking more players from the portal now. While the program will probably see a bit of a dip next season, just imagine how much worse it could be if you didn't have access to the portal.
 
You know who might have helped Cornell beat Denver and get back to a FF for the first time in 20 years? Jack Malone. A kid who was awarded an 'A' on his new team and who plays a complete game and does all the right things out there on the ice. Maybe it's Cornell who should reevaluate.
 
You know who might have helped Cornell beat Denver and get back to a FF for the first time in 20 years? Jack Malone. A kid who was awarded an 'A' on his new team and who plays a complete game and does all the right things out there on the ice. Maybe it's Cornell who should reevaluate.

Huh? Jack wanted to stay at Cornell for a fifth year and Cornell wanted to him back. Ivy League rules forbid graduate students from playing. Jack being on BC is the result of terrible Ivy League rules only.
 
Huh? Jack wanted to stay at Cornell for a fifth year and Cornell wanted to him back. Ivy League rules forbid graduate students from playing. Jack being on BC is the result of terrible Ivy League rules only.

OK so Ivy League rules need to be reevaluated and not Cornell specifically. But my point is I thought you were railing on QU for having 5th year guys and all this when what is the harm in Cornell keeping Jack Malone for another year.
 
OK so Ivy League rules need to be reevaluated and not Cornell specifically. But my point is I thought you were railing on QU for having 5th year guys and all this when what is the harm in Cornell keeping Jack Malone for another year.
I complain about the Ivy ban on grad students all the time (and so does Mike Schafer, for the record). My issue with QU is more that they take a lot of transfers and get their seniors to come back for a fifth year at the expense of their pipeline of recruits, who end up getting no playing time and then transferring out. I'm not trying to claim QU is the only one doing this and certainly they aren't the only team with fifth years. I'm looking forward to this madness going away when the fifth year of COVID eligibility finally expires after next season.
 
Hey Andy Bernard Troll! First of all....NO ONE cares if the best coach in cawledge hawkey is friends with mullet master Mike whatever his name is......now go away...back to your squads page here on USCHO fan forum.....oh wait....YOU DONT HAVE ONE. No one here cares about what you think or care about your program.
You trolling on here only demonstrates your jealousy. You're

Try reading the ELynah forum once in a while. 80% of the time they're talking about Quinnipiac. Q this, Q that. Rand this, Rand that. It's like an obsession!

I'm not complaining or anything. I mean if QU is constantly on their minds, more power to them, I guess.
 
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As much as I will miss the guys that left, I am looking forward to a bunch of fresh new faces and watching them grow. I agree we will need to fill up to maybe 5 players from the portal. We have been real lucky to get quality players from the portal.
 
Transfer portal giveth, transfer portal taketh away. I think Quinnipiac would have much better underclassmen right now if it didn't fill roster spots with transfers and fifth years rather than affording that playing time to its recruits. But on the other hand, I'm sure Quinnipiac will plug most of its holes by taking more players from the portal now. While the program will probably see a bit of a dip next season, just imagine how much worse it could be if you didn't have access to the portal.

When you are a non-blueblood program like Quinnipiac, you need to find different ways to be successful. We recruit very well, and we also recruit out of the portal well. I wouldn't trade the 2023 national championship for fewer players leaving -- in fact, the reason most of these players are on the NHL radar is because of the national title last year. That is a tradeoff every program in the country makes.

We'll reload because we always reload. I'm not terribly worried, and I trust that this coaching staff will put a great team on the ice again next year. I would imagine many of these moves were expected.
 
Ahh the postseason. Two things are tried and true about the postseason, Cornell fans complaining about Rand/how he runs the program and burner accounts on twitter smearing Rand when a player leaves. Good to be back.

I still don’t really get the Christophe’s leaving but maybe Rand said time to go to Fillion so Tellier followed. That would suggest Rand reads CornellFan13 and has had enough!

I love Graf going to the Sharks. Never really made sense to me for him to go to the Rangers or another contender. He needs ice time now in the NHL and a team who needs a player badly. I hope he has a long and successful career, but he needs to make the most of every moment or he could easily be in the AHL for a long stretch.

Lipkin is an interesting one. Still don’t think he’s NHL ready but I also kind of feel like he needs a year of a ton of games in a pro hockey setting (AHL) before being ready to play in the NHL. Remember he was a 7th round pick who burst onto the scene last year, his development is an unbelievable story in a long list of great developments Rand and the staff have made. I always worry though. Rand seems to get the best out of most of these guy and they just don’t have enough trajectory once they leave to make it. Toews is really the only outlier to that thinking. Clifton I’m not sure has gotten way better since leaving but he’s probably second. Everyone else has just been mediocre since Quinnipiac.

All that to say, this staff does an incredible job developing kids and these 3 signings are all fantastic stories to add to the sales pitch going forward. From relatively unknown transfer after freshman year to most coveted college FA who also has a national championship two years later. Late round draft pick who 2 years later is asked to leave school to sign. Undrafted kid who came in, worked his tail off and got a lot better to leave school after 3 years with a degree and sign a contract.

Next year appears to be a softer year but that just means battle for the Cleary, try to win another damn Whitelaw, and get to the NCAA tournament. Again, first world problems. We will always be in the hunt in the ECAC so I’m excited to see who takes a massive step next year outside of Marcellus and Cerbone.
 
As much as I will miss the guys that left, I am looking forward to a bunch of fresh new faces and watching them grow. I agree we will need to fill up to maybe 5 players from the portal. We have been real lucky to get quality players from the portal.

Not sure it’s going to be 5 from the portal. They got one in Ricketts so far. They won’t need any goalie from the portal. If I’m Rand, I am rolling with pretty much the young forwards coming in and filling some defensive holes in the portal to cover up for some possible early season growing pains.
 
With graduation, early departures and transfers we're losing 55% of our point production and 51% of our goals from this season. Those are pretty big holes to fill.

Anyone brought in as a recruit or a transfer will need to contribute almost instantly and the returning guys will all need to up their games.

Not impossible but certainly a tall task.
 
There are only two guys left who played for the team in the Frozen 4 a year ago - with the portal, higher turnover is the new normal.
 
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