Lake Placid report
By Gary Braham 3-19-2000
Yes, the tournament gods were cruel, yet merciful... Colgate met RPI in the first round. The Red Raiders had won the two regular season games over RPI, but none over a healthy Laing. Colgate just started off slow. They had a poor transition game, and could not maintain an attack. After all the hype, it was hard to sit there and watch this one. RPI probally played their best game of the season. Colgate's ECAC title dreams faded as the game winded down. One of the lowlights was a Colgate cheap shot after the final RPI goal.
Now here's where the mercy came in. We were to face the loser of the Cornell- SLU game the next day. That was the late game, and to top it off, it went to overtime. Top that off again with Cornell losing. And top it all off with the fact that they were in the prelim game the day before, meaning they have played about 75 more minutes of hockey that Colgate. Shep has also made it clear that he hates Cornell, and everyone knows he's at his best when he's pissed off.
The game itself was pretty forgetable, Cornell didn't put up much of a fight and put in a lot of next years players. The Raider's stuck it to them, and really did a number on the big Red, all the problems from the RPI game were gone, and Colgate was playing well. Shep was amazing as well. The final score was a 4-0 shutout, it was Shep's second 4-0 shutout over Cornell this year, as well as Colgate's 3rd straight win over the Red.
There was more fun between the fans and bands. The Cornell bear actually came over to shake our hands before the game started. Both sections chanted back and forth, of course in my extremly unbiased opinion, I would say we came up with the better cheers, such as..."Three games...two goals" "Just like last time, and the time before!" "Cornell student!!"-to the guy in the contest between periods who could not locate a bucket that was right at his feet, and using some of their own tricks on them and chanting "Section 16 sucks" Cornell could only counter by calling Shep a sieve, us SUNY rejects, and saying they want Weder.
The RPI band decided to help them out too, even though it wasn't there game. Ironically, the bullying only put the Colgate fans more behind us than they have ever been. Cornell and RPI tried to play "Swanne" right above Colgate's fan's, and they responded by cheering everytime the Colgate band drowned them out. RPI got there's for their share of that too, they got shutout in the next game by SLU, who would go on to take the ECAC title.
Lake Placid itself was nice, the whole town was tuned to hockey. Of course, your pretty far away from anything. SLU and Clarkson are fairly close. Maybe 2 hours for RPI, pretty far away for Colgate and Cornell. Since your stuck in town, the prices for everything were fairly high. Let's just put it this way, we ate at a joint called "The Thirsty Moose" and found out it was so thirsty because most drinks came in tiny glasses with no free refills. Lake Placid might be in jeopardy of lossing the ECAC tournament.
The weekend ended on a positive note. As the team was driving home, they pulled over to a small restaurant to watch the NCAA tournament selection show. In a pretty big surprise, Colgate got to stay in the East and was given the #4 seed. The opponent, the 5th seeded Michigan. Colgate would be playing just two hours from home, after gaining some confidence on the big ice.