The Mystery of the Penalty Box Door and the Case of the Empty Net

For the pep band, winter is our busiest season because on top of weekly rehearsals, we play at men’s and women’s basketball and men’s and women’s hockey. This leads to stretches where we have games three days in a row, or, like last weekend, four games in five days. [Let’s face it; this is a good thing because otherwise I’d have no good reason for leaving my dorm room.] There was a rare Monday night basketball game against Radford, which exactly no one in the pep band had heard of. Turns out Radford really is a college in Virginia. For whatever reason they were in the area to play Binghamton and Cornell.

As for the game itself, let’s just say it’s not a good thing when you’re glad your team only lost by 15 points. Cornell looked okay right up until anyone had to shoot, at which point they would drop the ball, throw the ball in the general direction of the hoop, or just flat out miss. Let’s hope this was a Monday night anomaly.

The other three games were all men’s hockey games. The first two were typical ECAC games on a Friday and Saturday night. Friday night Cornell played Brown and at first it did not look like things were going to end well. A few minutes into first period, Cornell had a penalty shot called against them. I saw exactly none last year; this is already at least the second of the season. Brown scored. Cornell managed to tie the game before the end of first period, then picked up two more goals in the second period. And then things got crazy.

With less than ten minutes to go, play stops. The refs and players are focused on our penalty box, which usually means that someone’s gotten a penalty. To see if that’s the case, we wait and see if our penalty box door opens, except that the penalty box door is missing completely. As it turns out, it’s not really missing. It’s just shattered into a million pieces all over the ice. After the glass was cleaned up, play continued. Near the end of the game, Brown pulled their goalie so they could have an extra attacking player on the ice. Cornell scored an empty net goal, and then just to cap off the night, scored one more goal shortly after to make the final score 5-1.

Cornell vs. Yale

The next night, Cornell played Yale, who happen to be last year’s NCAA champions. As it turns out, that didn't matter, because we beat them 2-1 in a game in which Cornell’s only penalty was “too many men on the ice.” Which brings us to the last hockey game.

Following the rare Monday night basketball game was an even rarer Tuesday night hockey game. Not only was the game penalty heavy but there were also some lesser heard penalties called. Including “unsportsmanlike conduct” against a Cornell player for boarding a Niagara player way after the play had been whistled dead. Well, if that’s what they want to call it. Then there was “diving” at least twice, something about “contact to the head,” and “playing with a broken stick.” The last is a penalty because broken sticks can be dangerous, so hockey players are supposed to drop their sticks as soon as they break. In the case of the Cornell player whose stick broke, not only did he not drop his stick, but he then also tried to play the puck with his broken stick. Two minutes in the penalty box, no questions about it.

At that point the score was 3-2, so it was close. Cornell had a two goal lead earlier, but they blew that and were only ahead thanks to a late second period goal. Anyway, they managed to kill off the penalty and make it to the final minutes of the game when Niagara pulled their goalie. The normal frenzy ensued, and the puck bounced around awhile before being saved by our goalie, who, by the way, was not our normal goaltender but a freshman making his first start. (Cornell’s usual goalie had played Friday and Saturday and should be playing again on Saturday, plus the game against Niagara wasn't a league game so I guess the coach was giving the freshman some experience.)

So our goalie drops the puck, lines up a shot, and shoots straight through all the players to score an empty net goal. This is only the third time in NCAA history that a goalie has scored. [Here’s the video. It’s kind of blurry, but you can hear the pep band in the background.] All in a day’s night’s work at Lynah.