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RPI 2011-12 Part V: Don't Stop Believing

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Re: RPI 2011-12 Part V: Don't Stop Believing

fishcore12 said:
It's everyone for themselves, but we'll get together for a while.
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Hopefully for the last 6 games of the regular season. I keep telling myself-we have a boatload of talent on this team. More than in a lot of years that i have seen. But then i ask myself the question that a lot of us are asking-why do they not put it together better and play like a synchronized team. Players and coaches have about 5 days to get that last stinker out of their minds and come out and play like we know they are capable of. This is a great bunch of boys. They have had some poor efforts this season (but not nearly as many as their record indicates). Several times this year they have deserved a better fate than the scoreboard has shown. I will not give up on this season until we are eliminated from the playoffs.
 
Re: RPI 2011-12 Part V: Don't Stop Believing

FlagDUDE08 said:
Wow, Michael Bay got closer to the point with Pearl Harbor then you got with my post.
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Ah !!!! FD You and Ralph have taught me well....Its never the point ....Its always the minutiau !!!!!!!!!!!!!!...remember the numbers (on the BACKS of the jerseys) never lie.
 
Re: RPI 2011-12 Part V: Don't Stop Believing

rpi82 said:
As for regular season stats, I think they are much more indicative of the balance of power in a league than tournament championships.
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So that's a fair argument I'd be willing to consider, except playoffs are what teams focus on. I don't think any team makes their seasonal goal statement to be only "Regular Season Champions"

rpi82 said:
By that measure, the ECAC has nearly 2x as many different winners in the last 7 years as HE has had in 27. However, if you want to focus on tournaments, the ECAC has also had more different tournament winners in the last 7 years than HE has had in the last 15.
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So, do me a favor. Use the same time frames, and speak i/t/o of percentages of teams. HE for a long while was 8 teams. ECAC has always been 12. Unless you want to pick and choose data to support your arguments. I selected a section of time where ECAC data looked almost like HE.

rpi82 said:
I chuckled at the comment about removing BU and BC and then the balance of power is similar.
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I may be confused, but the argument was balance of HE v. ECAC? Which I disagree with unless you remove the two true powerhouses of the east (BU, BC, not UNH, UMaine, Cornell). That's the real imbalance we should be discussing, associated w/ any recombination of leagues and teams.
 
Re: RPI 2011-12 Part V: Don't Stop Believing

I'll make it simple. Let's just look at HE - a league that has maintained a virtual caste system separating the haves and the have nots. Over its entire 27 year history the same group of 4 teams (BC, BU, Maine and UNH) has produced every regular season winner and 24 out of 27 tournament champions, including every one in the last 15 years. Regardless of how many teams were in the league: 8, 9 or 10, the separation remained. You can run whatever percentages you want - when there's that clear a dividing line among programs that's an incredibly unbalanced league and adding local teams hasn't changed it one bit. Sure there was the occasional outcast that strayed into the upper part of the standings for a year or two, but it was temporary and rarely produced a banner of any kind (Providence in '96 was the last one). Perhaps UML or Merrimack will break through and finally snap the stranglehold this year (I'll be rooting for them), but even if succeed there is very little likelihood that they have the resources to sustain it and join the haves.

The one addition that will change things is ND. The only real question, however, is whether it will make for a 5-team power block or if it will just replace one of the existing leaders (possibly Maine, which hasn't won regular season or tournament honors since '04 and probably can't compete resource-wise with the others).

Quite simply, the ECAC has never had that severe sort of split - much less maintaining it for decades.
 
Re: RPI 2011-12 Part V: Don't Stop Believing

I think another thing to consider is how Hockey East will set their playoff format. Will they keep the current format or will they take all twelve and have a similar set-up to what the ECAC uses. If they stick to the 8 team format you can probably figure that the big four plus Notre Dame will be in on a yearly basis leaving only three other spots for the remaining 7 teams to battle for.

Hopefully we find out soon if were staying or going because Id imagine Hockey East will wanna start to put together a league schedule for 2013-14.
 
Re: RPI 2011-12 Part V: Don't Stop Believing

redhead18 said:
I think another thing to consider is how Hockey East will set their playoff format. Will they keep the current format or will they take all twelve and have a similar set-up to what the ECAC uses. If they stick to the 8 team format you can probably figure that the big four plus Notre Dame will be in on a yearly basis leaving only three other spots for the remaining 7 teams to battle for.

Hopefully we find out soon if were staying or going because Id imagine Hockey East will wanna start to put together a league schedule for 2013-14.
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They have said that they will willing play with 11 teams for a few years. I suspect that they have such a schedule.
 
Re: RPI 2011-12 Part V: Don't Stop Believing

redhead18 said:
I think another thing to consider is how Hockey East will set their playoff format. Will they keep the current format or will they take all twelve and have a similar set-up to what the ECAC uses. If they stick to the 8 team format you can probably figure that the big four plus Notre Dame will be in on a yearly basis leaving only three other spots for the remaining 7 teams to battle for.

Hopefully we find out soon if were staying or going because Id imagine Hockey East will wanna start to put together a league schedule for 2013-14.
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Given they have 6 go into the playoffs for the women, it wouldn't surprise if they do anything between 8 and 10 teams and model it after the way the ECAC did prior to the Union rule.
 
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Re: RPI 2011-12 Part V: Don't Stop Believing

rpi82 said:
I'll make it simple. Let's just look at HE - a league that has maintained a virtual caste system separating the haves and the have nots. Over its entire 27 year history the same group of 4 teams (BC, BU, Maine and UNH) has produced every regular season winner and 24 out of 27 tournament champions, including every one in the last 15 years. Regardless of how many teams were in the league: 8, 9 or 10, the separation remained. You can run whatever percentages you want - when there's that clear a dividing line among programs that's an incredibly unbalanced league and adding local teams hasn't changed it one bit. Sure there was the occasional outcast that strayed into the upper part of the standings for a year or two, but it was temporary and rarely produced a banner of any kind (Providence in '96 was the last one). Perhaps UML or Merrimack will break through and finally snap the stranglehold this year (I'll be rooting for them), but even if succeed there is very little likelihood that they have the resources to sustain it and join the haves.

The one addition that will change things is ND. The only real question, however, is whether it will make for a 5-team power block or if it will just replace one of the existing leaders (possibly Maine, which hasn't won regular season or tournament honors since '04 and probably can't compete resource-wise with the others).

Quite simply, the ECAC has never had that severe sort of split - much less maintaining it for decades.
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Thanks for the analysis, I agree you can not discount 4 teams similarly in the ECAC history. The ECAC seems prone to 2-3 year runs (RPI, Harvard, SLU, Yale) but not long term dominance. I remain concerned that it's BC, BU and everyone else, I don't think it's a Big 4/Hockey East phenomenon.
 
Re: RPI 2011-12 Part V: Don't Stop Believing

Found on campus today near the DCC:
Ak_dzapCEAA3WCC.jpg
 
Re: RPI 2011-12 Part V: Don't Stop Believing

troyboy said:
Reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw in Boston years back..."God Saves"... "Esposito gets the rebound and Scores" !!!!!!!1
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No no no no no no no! It was Jesus Saves... Esposito scores on the rebound! God doesn't save. He's more of a 4th line goon... God smites. :D
 
Re: RPI 2011-12 Part V: Don't Stop Believing

jmhusker said:
No no no no no no no! It was Jesus Saves... Esposito scores on the rebound! God doesn't save. He's more of a 4th line goon... God smites. :D
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That was how I remembered it in Boston. Even though as a die hard ranger fan i hated everything Bruins in those days (but even as the enemy-you had to admire what Orr was like on the ice)
 
Re: RPI 2011-12 Part V: Don't Stop Believing

In Philadelphia, it used to be "Only the Lord saves more than Bernie Parent."

And that was when he was with the Flyers, who actually had some reasonably competent defensemen in front of him.

I once saw Parent play for the WHA Philadelphia Blazers against the New York Raiders at Madison Square Garden in a game played on New Year's Day. The Raiders poured more than 40 SOG in on him, but he shut them out.

What made it all the more impressive was that Bernie was playing his second game in two nights - 3,000 miles apart. The genius who drew up the WHA schedule had the Blazers playing the LA Sharks in Los Angeles on December 31 and the Raiders in New York on New Year's Day. :eek:
 
Re: RPI 2011-12 Part V: Don't Stop Believing

ServinisScores said:
Thanks for the analysis, I agree you can not discount 4 teams similarly in the ECAC history. The ECAC seems prone to 2-3 year runs (RPI, Harvard, SLU, Yale) but not long term dominance. I remain concerned that it's BC, BU and everyone else, I don't think it's a Big 4/Hockey East phenomenon.
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It's worth keeping an eye on what happens with Notre Dame football as it pertains to Hockey East. The Big Ten factor seems like it will be in effect until such time as they actually join the Big Ten, and if they join in football you can rest assured that every other sport will follow, including hockey.

At that point... the powers that be in Hockey East may feel the need to make an NCHC type power play of their own - which would leave the rest of the league in a WCHA-like lurch.
 
Re: RPI 2011-12 Part V: Don't Stop Believing

So, a bit late to the party, but adding my two cents on the weekend anyway...

I didn't listen to/watch more than the first 10 minutes of the Cornell game, so was thrilled to hear we'd battled back from being down 2-0, and was VERY happy with a tie against the Faux Red. Coming back from being down 2-0 two games in a row showed some promise for our team.

So, when we gave up the first two goals on Saturday (which game I was at in person), I wasn't happy, but figured we could put our new-found willpower to use and come back-and we started to with Leboeuf's goal. Then we got shell-shocked and fell apart. I didn't see the switch to Diebold, but when they announced it it immediately brought back my first Freakout!, the one that didn't happen, two years ago. Re-watching the first goal against Diebold, it really wasn't his fault, the puck took a nasty bounce off the boards before it got anywhere near him.

In about the last 10 minutes of the game, we remembered that we didn't want to roll over and take it, and the team's play impressed me then. Schroeder's goal was a beauty, and good job by Paddy Cullen getting us to finally score on a 5x3-he looked exhausted, and they barely even celebrated it-understandable at that point.

There was definitely more team play on Saturday than in early October/November-I remember commenting several times this fall on the fact that there were five individual skaters on the ice, not a team. But I thought we'd fixed that of late.

Not really any specific things to point to as to what went wrong, just seemed to be a combination of a talented opposing forward, individual breakdowns, and perhaps being mentally overwhelmed by the atmosphere. I enjoy Freakout!, Black Friday, the hype of Union and Clarkson games, etc., but if the trade-off is too much pressure on the team for them to play well, or perhaps ill after-effects at the next game from a bad loss in a "big" game (remains to be seen, of course), I'd rather get rid of them. Besides, people started leaving in droves, especially after the second period. Which was disheartening as a fan, I can only imagine how much that doesn't help the team's play.

Good (marginally) points: Well, at least we helped out the ECAC's only Hobey Baker candidate. And Robbie Bourdon didn't get a hat trick-I'm still upset with him for the end of last season.

Hopefully the team can forget all about Saturday (except the goal scoring part-that was good) and focus on the other three games before that, which had lots of good points even if they ended 1-1-1.
 
Re: RPI 2011-12 Part V: Don't Stop Believing

REDaero91 said:
... perhaps being mentally overwhelmed by the atmosphere. I enjoy Freakout!, Black Friday, the hype of Union and Clarkson games, etc., but if the trade-off is too much pressure on the team for them to play well, or perhaps ill after-effects at the next game from a bad loss in a "big" game (remains to be seen, of course), I'd rather get rid of them.
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um, don't we WANT to be playing in pressure-packed games??? I believe that colloquially they are known as "playoffs"? You have to play in pressure-packed games to learn how to play in pressure-packed games!
 
Re: RPI 2011-12 Part V: Don't Stop Believing

Wicked Slappaahs said:
After an 8-3 loss, I'd be worried if he WASN'T throwing them back...
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I figure it is best to throw a few back-win, lose or tie.:) Not to make light of the situation though. This was our worst BRF performance in several respects-we have never given up 8 goals in that game before. We used to own that evening. I know coach SA feels it is just another game but our performance that night during his tenure so far shows exactly that. Since the game is played so late in the season- If for no reason other than to energize our team-the BRF can be used as an injection of confidence for the very important remainder of the season. As everyone who posts here knows-i am old fashioned about RPI hockey. For many years there have been things that just seemed to symbolize RPI hockey and could be used at times to add a certain impetus. I always felt hositng and winning the Invitation Tournament was one of those points. I also thought that winning at the BRF did likewise. And more recently, Black Friday was an additional spark to start the league season. Obviously there seems to be a lot of things not going right for this team this year-I have been thinking that some of it could be blamed on an attitude change as some of it. Count me as one who believes that some of the RPI hockey tradition has been lost and could be playing some sort of part in all of this. As usual just my 2¢
 
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