As the Cornell men's hockey team takes to the road to face North Dakota, fans can follow along the journey with team through the blog on www.CornellBigRed.com....
November 26, 2008
12:30 p.m. - Greetings from somewhere along Route 96 northwest of Ithaca. We're about an hour or so into the trip, and, after a quick stop to drop off some late-semester homework projects, we've quietly settled into watching the movie "Leatherheads." The team practiced this morning before loading up the bus, and we've got quite the convoluted trip ahead of us. We're currently bound for Hamilton, Ontario, to catch a flight to Winnipeg, Manitoba, before bussing south into North Dakota.
With crossing the USA-Canada border twice on each leg of the trip, the biggest item on each player's checklist - besides their gear, of course - was their identification papers (passport, I-20, etc.). Nobody wants to be the guy who gets us held up at the border on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.
Sue Detzer, the hockey administrative assistant, got a handful of passports in yesterday as players had them shipped in from home.
A lot of players' parents are reportedly making the trip to North Dakota, and rumor has it we'll have a run-in with a former Cornell player or two along the trip.
2:30 pm - And we're into Canada via the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls. Crossing the river above the gorge found half the guys seated on the right side of the bus standing up and getting a glimpse of the falls out the left side. Customs turned out to be a quick stop, and we're back on the road to Hamilton.
5:15 pm - About a half hour before our flight to Winnipeg, and we're settled in here at the airport. Some of the guys are playing cards, others listening to music, still others taking advantage of the downtime to grab a quick nap.
Blake Gallagher broke out a deck of cards and amazed a handful of players and the coaching staff with a card trick he learned from his grandfather.
Additionally, we made friends with the airport staff here in Hamilton with our supply of cookies. The Frey family, with Jeff and Paige Frey and son Taylor, supply the team with several varieties of cookies on each road trip. Well, the remainder of the cookies that the team couldn't finish by the time we reached Hamilton was offered up to the friendly staff at the airport for their efficient manner with which they processed the multitude of bags needed to haul all of our gear.
Oh, and before I forget, one of the more amusing discussions during our first border stop came when the Customs official inquired if everyone was either an American or Canadian citizen. And when you think of the roster, the one possible exception to that was
Justin Krueger, whose hometown is officially Duesseldorf, Germany. Still, I asked Justin at the airport in Hamilton about that, and it turns out that both of his parents, Ralph and Glenda, are Canadian citizens, giving Justin dual citizenship with Canada and Germany. Justin, therefore, simply uses his Canadian passport when traveling in North America. Krueger will also have one of the more sizeable entourages of family and friends in attendance, as he still has a lot of family in Winnipeg that will be driving down to catch the Big Red in action.
8:00 p.m. CDT - We're on the ground in Winnipeg, and we had our first alumni sighting of the trip meeting us at the Winnipeg Airport.
Raymond Sawada '08. Sawada's currently playing in Winnipeg with the Manitoba Moose of the AHL and is one of the top prospects for the Dallas Stars. Dallas doesn't have an
AHL affiliate of its own, so Ray's playing with a bunch of top prospects of the Vancouver Canucks. One of his teammates is longtime NHL veteran Mike Keane, who happens to wear the same number 12 that Sawada wore during his days on East Hill. Sawada, who currently wears number 29 for the Moose, has seven assists in 17 games and a +4 rating on the season.
I spoke briefly with Ray, and he mentioned the biggest adjustment he's had to make is not having classes to attend every day, but other than that, he appears to be doing extremely well.
A brief stop for dinner, and it'll be back to the States.... Google Maps says it'll be about two and a half hours, and everyone knows Google Maps doesn't lie...
November 27, 2008
9:30 a.m. CDT - It's Thanksgiving morning here in Grand Forks, and we've got a pretty low-key day in store. The team will head over to Ralph Engelstad Arena this afternoon for practice this afternoon, but other than that, there's not much on the itinerary.
We got in late last night and swung by The Ralph to drop off our gear, and massive doesn't even begin to describe the place, prompting a few jokes of, "yeah, this is just like Lynah!" I definitely didn't get the impression that anyone was in awe of the place, which, given that we'd just played in Madison Square Garden last year, is pretty much understandable.
Locke Jillson mentioned he'd been there before, playing a Midget tournament there about a week before he officially committed to Cornell. Locke even remarked that he went to Ithaca a week or so later, and remembered that it was somewhere in the -15 to -20 range in Grand Forks and a balmy 15 or so in Ithaca and thought, "this is warm!" I never thought I'd ever hear an Ithaca winter described as warm, and especially from a kid from Texas.
2:15 p.m. CDT - We're back to the rink, where the team has a short practice session scheduled for this afternoon. It's business as usual for most everyone, preparing sticks and getting ready to head out on the ice. Some guys have headed into the stands, per their usual routine, and it looks great to see the smattering of red among the 11,000 or so green seats. I can't wait to see what it looks like tomorrow night when there's a great deal more red with Cornell fans and parents in the stands.
This place is truly a magnificent facility. Those fans who are making the trip out here will find out for themselves in due time, but it's really first-class in every minute detail.
Not much else to report from the morning. A few players entertained themselves with the ping-pong table at the hotel in the morning, but mostly, it's just been a day spent recovering from yesterday's trip.
One other item that I've been saving:
Jordan Berk, who's typically had one of the longer haircuts on the team (and you can see for yourself with his
official bio headshot), is sporting a new closely shorn look - so much so that when I saw him during the team's weekly media session on Tuesday, I almost didn't recognize him. Turns out he was trying to give it a little bit of a trim when a prank by
Jared Seminoff turned into a bare spot on the back of his head. Given the choice of having an embarrassing bare spot or taking a brutal razor job to it, well, Jordan did what most people would do. It's going to take a little time to get used to.
8:45 p.m. CDT - One of the most commonly asked questions I'd heard in the days leading up to the trip was whether or not we'd have a Thanksgiving dinner. Well, the answer is yes, we had a typical Thanksgiving dinner, complete with turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, corn, squash, cranberry sauce and of course, pumpkin pie. Junior co-captain
Colin Greening even led the team in a Thanksgiving blessing.
About the first snag on the trip came as we were leaving practice this afternoon as our bus wouldn't start up down in the bowels of the arena. Greg, our driver (who bears a slight resemblance to Colgate coach Don Vaughan) stuck around with the bus while we hoofed it back to the hotel - about a mile walk - while cracking jokes that someone from the North Dakota team had sabotaged the bus.
Not much else to report. The guys are in good spirits, the atmosphere is light, and you get the sense that the team is just ready to get out there tomorrow night.
November 28, 2008
11:15 a.m. CDT - First and foremost, our replacement bus is here. A good thing, too, because it just seemed colder out this morning.
Morning skate is over, and the typical business-like atmosphere that normally surrounds the team on game day is back.
The players' families have begun to arrive, as the Kennedy, Nash and Scrivens families were all at the rink to take in the morning skate. I took the morning to head around and take some photos of the facility and the team on the ice, which I'll post when we get back to the hotel.
In the meantime, there's quite a buzz around this weekend's series. Below are links a couple of previews of the weekend.
Ithaca Journal
Grand Forks Herald
Cornell Daily Sun
Happy reading!
1 p.m. CDT - Here's some images of the rink and this morning's pre-game skate....
North Dakota Photo Gallery
7:00 p.m. CDT - We're about a half hour before game time, and the place is slowly filling up. Reports have the arena about 1,000 short of its 11,634 capacity, but, when you're talking that many, what's a thousand here or there? It appears as though the Cornell section is up in the corner opposite the press area, as there's a few faces that I recognize up in that direction. I'll try to head over there at some point in the game and post some photos.
11:30 p.m. CDT - Obviously, that wasn't the result the team was hoping for. It seemed like every bounce went North Dakota's way, which is going to happen over the course of the season.
The best thing that can be said is that unlike last year's loss to Boston University at Madison Square Garden, we'll get another crack at North Dakota tomorrow night.
November 29, 2008
12:45 p.m. CDT - Things are quiet this morning. The team went back to the arena for a short practice this morning, but other than that, it's again getting ready for tonight's game.
I've spent the morning working on a short note update for the game, and researched some items of interest. Friday night's game included two very rare occurrences against the Big Red - you can take a look at that
here.
Other than that, not much to report....
5:45 p.m. CDT - Back at the arena getting set up for tonight's game. One noteworthy item is that freshman
Sean Whitney will be making his collegiate debut on the blue line. Whitney is the final newcomer to the roster this season to make his Cornell debut. Whitney's been listed on the NHL Central Scouting watch list for next year's draft, so it'll be good to see him out there and see what he can do.
If you're wondering, watching a game at the Ralph Engelstad Arena is obviously different from a game at Lynah. There's no band, but instead a pretty intense sound system. The crowd can get loud, but I think the extra space in the building helps to keep the overall noise level below that of at Lynah Rink. I wouldn't say that it's a better or worse environment to watch a game than at Lynah, but it's just different. I think it's fair to say it has more of a professional hockey feel to it than a college environment. Still, I'm sure that games against Minnesota, North Dakota's chief rival, are just as intense as a Cornell-Harvard game would be. Additionally, school's out for the Thanksgiving holiday, of course, so the student presence isn't what it normally would be, either.
Back to finishing up my pre-game stuff. Here's to hoping for a better result tonight....
8:35 p.m. CDT - There's a lot of benefits to playing hockey for Cornell - playing at one of the top programs in the country, playing in front of one of the best venues in college hockey, getting a top-flight education at an Ivy League institution. Well, add to that list having some well-placed connections.
Raymond Sawada '08, who met the team at the airport in Winnipeg on Wednesday night, is in attendance at tonight's game in Grand Forks as a result of one of those connections. Sawada's team, the Manitoba Moose, is playing tonight in Winnipeg, but Sawada, being an injured player with a leg bruise, was able to make the trip down to Grand Forks after Joe Nieuwendyk, currently working in the front office of the Toronto Maple Leafs, called in a favor to allow Ray to see his former teammates play.
Ray's sitting up in section 311 along with the rest of the Cornell fans who have made the trip. It's a pretty decent sized group of fans and parents, and they've been far more vocal tonight than last night. Several cheers of "Let's Go Red" have begun, with the Sioux fans eventually drowning it out with chants of "Let's Go Sioux!".
Been a fun two periods. Let's see what happens in the third.
10:45 p.m. CDT - Well, that was more like it... a good game, a good finish. The final goal was initially credited to
Evan Barlow, but after a review of the tape, it was determined that the shot went off the arm of
Colin Greening, which forced the change of direction that put the puck into the goal.
We've had to make a quick exit from Grand Forks in an effort to get to the U.S.-Canada border before midnight. Not that we're anticipating any problems, but word reached us that if there were any, we'd be stuck at the border until morning, which could jeopardize making our flight back to Hamilton.
I hope you've enjoyed the inside look at the team's trip to North Dakota. Definitely looking forward to closing out the fall portion of the season next weekend against Clarkson and St. Lawrence at Lynah. For the fans and parents traveling back home, I wish you safe travels.
LET'S GO RED!!!
Kevin Zeise, Cornell Assistant Director of Athletic Communications, is traveling with the Cornell men's hockey team on its journey to play a pair of games at North Dakota over Thanksgiving weekend, and will be updating this blog with stories and photos throughout the course of the trip.
