Sportsball [Detroit Pistons]

[March 2019 (another post from spring)]

Once in a while, my research lab decides to do something social beyond eating lunch together at the tables thirty feet from our office and sharing memes. I think this idea started because we were talking about bad sports teams (hi, Revolution) and cheap tickets. In particular, cheap tickets for games when two middling to bad teams that nobody cares about play each other on a weeknight. My coworker mentioned that Detroit Pistons (basketball) tickets would probably be pretty cheap, and when we looked, we found a Thursday night game against the Orlando Magic. Two mediocre teams? Check. Lukewarm fanbases? Check. Weeknight? Check. Cheap tickets ($14)? Check. Time for a lab excursion.

We put out the call on Facebook and ended up with 9 interested parties, a decent fraction of the lab. So after work on the determined day, we set off for Detroit. Traffic was light, street parking was reasonably easy to find, and getting into the stadium took less than five minutes. Our cheap seats were up in the balcony, but basketballs are big enough that you can sit in the back of the balcony and still see the ball and follow the game. Same for soccer, but if you ever go to a baseball or hockey game and want to actually, you know, watch the game, maybe pay a little extra to not sit in row ZZZ of the Skydeck, or whatever it is they’re calling the fourth balcony.

View from our seats

As for the game itself, the Pistons led basically the whole time, which wasn’t super exciting, but my blood pressure can always use a break from the Revolution. And sometimes it is nice to see a comfortable win from the team you’re rooting for. Besides the Revolution, I’ve sat through some rather painful sports games courtesy of Cornell athletics and my high school football team. Though I do kind of wish I could have seen the football game between Columbia and Cornell where they were playing to be the team that didn’t finish Ivy League play 0-8. Cornell won that game 3-0. Yes, this was an American football game.

We didn’t have anyone sitting in the row in front of us, so we had almost unimpeded views, we could see the ball, and the game was decent. They had cheerleaders doing routines during the breaks, which was not the real reason I went to the game. The only thing I regret is not bringing my earplugs, because the speakers were right by our heads blasting the whole time. Other than that, for ease of access, cost, and an overall pleasant experience, I’d go to Little Caesar’s Arena for a basketball game again.

Sports!

To kick off my first weekend back at Cornell, I went to no less (and no more) than four pep band events for a total of more than fourteen hours of sports. As usual, Cornell athletics did not fail to disappoint, and even went undefeated at the events I attended.

During winter, there’s a hockey game pretty much every Friday night. This past weekend, the men’s team was at home, so we started with a game against St. Lawrence University, which is in Canada even further upstate New York than Cornell. Cornell started the game by scoring two goals within the first five minutes. Then St. Lawrence came back with two goals within a couple minutes. To end regulation time, Cornell and St. Lawrence traded goals twice, leaving the score tied at 4-4.

In overtime, Cornell had a penalty shot with half a minute to go. They missed, extending their streak of not scoring on penalty shots to 26 years, 9 months, and 27 days. (Not so fun fact from the game report: Cornell hasn’t scored on a penalty shot since February 27th, 1987.) St. Lawrence and their three fans were thrilled. The other 4,264 Cornell fans in Lynah, not so much. About 20 seconds later, to finish off the game, there was a fight. A St. Lawrence player was put into the penalty box, then taken out to be escorted off the ice by a ref. That, Cornell was happier about.

And then, to truly cap off the night, another fight almost broke out . . . as the teams were shaking hands after the game. Good sportsmanship, guys.

On Saturday, I went to my first women’s basketball game of the year. Their record is slightly above 0.500, but they managed to get their revenge dominate Columbia after a (relatively) close loss the week before. At one point Cornell was winning by 40 points, and the final score was 76-51. After a break to read my fluids textbook in the band room, I went to the second men’s hockey game of the weekend.

That game was against Clarkson, and they brought their band. Any time there’s another band, the general goal is to outplay them by being 1) louder, 2) better, and 3) generally more amazing. We were definitely the better band, as evidenced by the overwhelmingly unbiased opinion of Lynah.

As for the game itself, Cornell began not by scoring two goals, but by letting two goals in. It did not look good, especially when Cornell’s best shots in the first period both hit the post. Then in the second period, they started coming back and tied the game. About fifteen minutes into the second period, Cornell scored again, to make the score 3-2, which is how the game ended.

On Sunday I finished out the pep band weekend by attending wrestling. The first time I saw wrestling last year, I was extremely confused. This time, I was just confused. As it was my third time at wrestling, I did manage to follow along with most of the matches, but the finer points of scoring go under the general category of Sports!. I’m working on it. In the past couple of years, Cornell has seemed to have very strong wrestling teams, and Sunday did not prove the exception, as they beat Rutgers 29-6, winning eight out of the ten matches. It’s interesting to watch how the wrestlers increase in size as the meet goes on. They start out smaller than the coaches and end up looking down at the coaches. The heaviest weight class (285 lbs.) is also more than twice the lightest weight class (125 lbs.).

To conclude, there were some dominant performances from wrestling and women’s basketball. There were a couple crazy normal hockey games in Lynah, including a high-scoring tie and a come from behind victory. It was a good weekend for Cornell athletics. [Well, except maybe for men’s basketball, who are now 1 and 15. But hey, they finally won a game over winter break.]

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.

Are You Gonna Be My Girl?

As strange and unlikely as it may sound, I get asked this question every few weeks. Sometimes twice in a week. My top answers are “Only Time Will Tell,” “Call Me,” and “Hold On, I’m Comin’.” If you’re thinking that my capitalization needs work, good catch. All of the above, including “Are You Gonna Be My Girl?” are songs in our pep band folder. I have never been asked “Are you gonna be my girl?” in real life because I do not live in a bad 80s sitcom, contrary to what my pep band folder may indicate.

Though I would take bad 80s sitcom over most of what’s on TV today, notable exceptions being Jeopardy!, Sherlock, The Legend of Korra, anything involving the Revolution, and the Spanish channel. Just for fun, last year I calculated the average release date for most of the songs in our pep band folder and it came out to be around 1978. The oldest song we have, not including the Alma Mater and “Anchors Aweigh” (which we play when Army comes to Cornell), is “Basin Street Blues,” from 1926. The newest that I found was “Some Nights,” released in 2012 by Fun.

So hockey season is in full swing, meaning that the band will be busy pretty much every weekend from now until post-winter (known in more southern climates as “spring”). This past weekend we had two women’s hockey games and the men’s basketball home opener.

The women’s hockey team beat RPI 3-1 and Union 8-1. I discovered I can put my pep band shirt on over my fleece jacket, which is nice because it’s cold in Lynah when we’re not surrounded by 4000 other people. The crowds were decent for the games, but for women’s hockey the band stands on the opposite side of the rink from the main crowd. The point is, it’s cold.

The RPI game was either a little lacking in offense or the teams were evenly matched, because the score was pretty low as far as women’s hockey goes. The Union game, on the other hand, was a fairly high-scoring affair for Cornell. One of the most exciting goals from the weekend came in the first period of the RPI game. Cornell had a 1-0 lead and as the clock was counting down, one of the Cornell players took a shot. The puck hit the net just as the buzzer sounded. This was closer than the time Cornell scored with one second left in a playoff match to win the game.

By this point, the band had already played Davy (the fight song) and the teams were leaving the ice. The goal, which had been up on the scoreboard, was taken down and the referees went to review the play. Well, then, did the band play Davy for the end of the period or for the goal? Both. Because as it turned out, the puck crossed the line with one tenth of a second left on the clock. We knew it was a goal the whole time. Really.

Women's hockey vs. Northeastern a few weeks ago

Sunday afternoon we went to the men’s basketball home opener against Loyola, and other people actually showed up, unlike that one women’s basketball game. . . .  The team started out well, but throughout the game the score stayed close. Cornell actually went into the final minute of the game down by several points. They made a basket, bringing them within two points. In Cornell’s last play of the game, one of the Cornell players goes up to shoot, and misses . . . but gets fouled. Two free throws. Newman Arena is getting excited. The player makes the first shot, then makes the second. Loyola has time for one desperation shot, which they miss, sending the game into overtime.

Basketball overtime rarely happens, due to the nature of the game, but it happened on Sunday. Cornell stayed with Loyola until the final minute, but in the end, they missed a couple shots, didn't block a couple others, and lost 89-93. Definitely ranks as one of the craziest finishes to a game I've seen. Between basketball overtime, a couple slam dunks, and hockey, it was an exciting weekend for the band.

And I did this to my clarinet mouthpiece:

Fortunately I have a spare.

(If you don't know what a clarinet mouthpiece is supposed to look like, here's my spare.  Specifically, look along the top edge of the mouthpiece. That v-shaped dent in the top picture? That’s where it chipped off completely.)

19:59, Third Period

The referee dropped the puck onto the ice.  It was slapped backward to a Cornell player.  The rink was still buzzing with excitement from the tying goal we had just scored in the last minute of the third period.  Then before anyone knew what was happening, we saw a shot fly toward the goal, past the goalie’s arm, and hit the back of the net.  Amidst the yelling and cheers, we looked up at the clock and read 1.0.  With exactly one second left in the game, Cornell had scored the winning goal.

To say that the women’s quarterfinal playoff games against Colgate were exciting is a slight understatement.  On Friday, Cornell had to come from a goal down three times to force the game into overtime.  After thirty-nine seconds of overtime, we came away with a 5-4 win.  On Saturday, the team went into the third period trailing 2-0.  A minute into the third period, they scored a goal.  At that point, the band started hoping they could at least push it into overtime so that it wouldn't go to a third game that we would have to play at on Sunday.

With less than a minute left, Cornell scored the tying goal.  The band started hoping we could win in overtime, again, so we wouldn't have to come back on Sunday.  I guess the team didn't want a third game either, because they scored within the next forty seconds.

We encountered a similar situation a few weeks ago at women’s basketball.  We were playing Brown, and we were up by eight or ten points at halftime, but the team hadn't been playing too well after the first few minutes.  Brown continued to eat away at Cornell’s lead throughout the second half until they were leading.  Somehow, Cornell managed to stay in the game until the very last minute.  With about half a minute left, we were down a point, and we had possession.  After some ridiculous number of timeouts, a Cornell player took the ball to the basket and went up for the shot.

This was a shot we had to make, and the entire gym was watching as the basketball fell through the hoop.  With the additional foul shot, we had a two point lead.  Possession went to Brown, and they immediately sprinted down the court.  They took one shot that bounced off the rim, but they caught the rebound.  With seconds left, they took one final shot that once again, everyone was watching, this time hoping for a very different result.  When the ball crashed off the rim and to the ground, the crowd went about as crazy as I've ever seen at a women’s basketball game.

Apparently our teams have a flair for the dramatic.