Straight, 29 High

You may have noticed that I like to reference things without really referencing them, as with my Link to the Past post.  In this case, I am not hopelessly uneducated about poker.  I am well aware that there is no card with the value of 29 in any typical poker game.  Rather, as promised, I’m about to discuss the recent schedule of the pep band.

In poker, a straight is having five cards in numerical order, such as a seven, eight, nine, ten, and a jack.  In terms of the pep band, straight refers to the five straight days of events we just had, starting last Friday and ending Tuesday, the 29^th of January, hence the “29 high.”

It began last Friday with men’s hockey vs. Yale.  The game stayed close and went into overtime.  Lynah wasn’t packed (especially the rows right in front of the band) but it was pretty crowded, and the Cornell fans wanted to see the team win their first home game in more than a month.  It didn’t happen.

Saturday was even worse.  While the women’s team was away beating Yale and Brown, the men’s team remained at home to be beaten by Yale and Brown.  And while the Yale game was at least close, Cornell was shut out and lost 3-0 to Brown.

On Sunday, the band was scheduled to play at wrestling.  Apparently when this happened last year, the band got to play approximately half a cheer.  We agreed to return to wrestling only with a promise that we would get playing time, so this time the event coordinators gave us ninety seconds between matches and some time midway through the matches.  Although we understood little to nothing about the scoring, it was actually fairly entertaining, and we got to see Cornell’s 3-time national champion wrestler.  Cornell ended up losing to Oregon State in the last match when Cornell’s wrestler, who was wrestling up a weight class, got pinned by having his head sat on (at least that’s what it looked like in the stands).

Monday was rehearsal, and Tuesday there was a women’s hockey game.  Tuesday night . . . they give them the best times in the rink.  Last semester I missed most of their games because they were scheduled for Friday afternoons, at the same time I had lab.

With a 4-0 victory, the women’s hockey team continues to be undefeated in Lynah this season, which is a lot more than the men’s team can say.  Our side of the rink was practically empty, and it was freezing because there were maybe a few hundred other fans in Lynah, total.  (This was still an improvement over the time we played at women’s basketball and the student section contained the band and three fans.  I’m not kidding.  Three.)  But besides the result of the women's hockey game, it was a sad weekend for Cornell sports fans.