April 27, 2011
Closing argument
Devin, Cornell fall one win short of league title, trip to NCAAs
by Adam Wodon/Web Editor
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- Like no other school in the East, Cornell is known for its traditions: its tradition of winning, its tradition of packing its home games with boisterous fans and inventive chants, its fish-tossing tradition, and the tradition of producing high-end goaltending.
Another more under-the-radar tradition is the landing of twins as recruits. In recent years alone there was Matt and Mark McRae, then Cam and Chris Abbott. Last year's team featured three sets of brothers, including two non-twin pairs.
And, in 2007, Mike and Joe Devin came to Cornell.
There was something non-traditional about the Devins that stood out when recruited -- their Massachusetts background. That isn't far-fetched in college hockey, but it is for Cornell, which rarely strays into New England to find players.
Yet, in the end, it was those fundamental traditions of winning and fan support that drove the Devins to Cornell.
"Most kids from my area, they don't even bother looking elsewhere," Joe Devin said. "They want to play at (Boston College) or (Boston University); they want to play in the Beanpot."
Being from Scituate, Mass., a Boston suburb, the Devins grew up watching Chris Drury and Shawn Bates play for BU, dreaming of one day being in their place. Boston is an area Cornell usually leaves for others to recruit in. But Schafer and his coaching staff received a recommendation on the Devins, and went to see them play at a summer tournament in Walpole, Mass.
"We were in our senior year at Catholic Memorial (High School) and we came for a visit. We saw the opening weekend against Michigan State (in October 2005)," Joe Devin said. "Then Coach contacted us that February and said he wanted to commit to us.
“It was a no-brainer. It's a great program, a great atmosphere and an Ivy League education. It was between Northeastern and Cornell. With no scholarships (at Cornell), it was a tough decision, but we're very happy with what we did."
The Devins saw their Cornell careers wrap up last month, one win short of another trip to the NCAA tournament. After finishing fourth in ECAC Hockey, the Big Red (16-15-3) advanced to the league championship game before falling to Yale, 6-0.
It capped a four-year span that was appreciated by both players and coach.
Said Cornell coach Mike Schafer, "I remember the day we committed to (Joe Devin); we had just had a bunch of other guys say they wanted to come here and then went back on their commitment. So I said to Joe, 'You have my word we want you,' and he said, 'You have my word I'm coming.' And we were so frustrated at that time, that we were just so happy to have him."
Cornell first sent the brothers to a more traditional Big Red grooming environment -- Nanaimo of the British Columbia Hockey League, a place that has regularly churned out players. It was a culture shock for the brothers, but a needed one.
"We played 25 games in high school, then our year in Nanaimo, we ended up with something like 92 after playoffs," Joe Devin said.
The brothers then came to Ithaca and started contributing right away.
There's some twist of fate, of course, in a BU fan coming to Cornell. As Cornell players tend to do, Devin studied up on Cornell history and, once you do that, you know that those two schools were once bitter rivals.
"Our freshman year, we played BU at Madison Square Garden," Devin said. "It was unbelievable. We grew up watching guys like Chris Drury and Shawn Bates play for BU, then to actually be playing against (BU). … It was a dream to play college hockey there."
While Cornell struggled to score as a whole this season, Devin actually led all ECAC Hockey players in goals during league games with 17. Fourteen of those came in the second half of the season, when Cornell charged from 11th to fourth place, and all the way to the league championship game.
"We lost a lot of key players from last year's team. We were juggling lines," Devin said. "After about two months, things started to turn around. Coach put me with Greg Miller and Tyler Roeszler and right off the bat we had great chemistry.”
Devin's 17 goals this season are a career high, which is something expected of a senior. But Schafer always believed Devin was headed in this direction.
"When we first saw him play, he was definitely a guy who scored goals," Schafer said. "But ever since he's been here, he was a secondary scorer. He scored eight goals his (sophomore) year, and that's pretty good for not playing on the first line or power play. He's worked his way through.
"He works so hard on it all the time. He's always working around the net; he's the first one out there at practice. He's been doing it since he was a freshman. There's maturity in his game, too; he's scored
in all different fashions, 2-on-1s, tips, deflections, rebounds ..."
Venturing into New England was also important for Cornell to not fall too far behind in the recruiting battles.
In recent years, the "Big Three" Ivies of Princeton, Harvard and Yale -- utilizing their large endowments -- began to offer free tuition to any student whose families fell below a certain income threshold. This clearly benefited athletics, since it could now offer, in effect, athletic scholarships. It also left the remaining ECAC Hockey Ivies -- Cornell, Dartmouth and Brown -- behind.
Recently, a change to Ivy League rules has evened the playing field again for everyone. The conference approved a rule that allows schools to match any Princeton/Harvard/Yale gift to a student.
"It's hard to sustain it over a long period of time. Yale's been there for a few years now," Schafer said. "I'm very proud of our program. Our class and players, we run things first class with integrity. Over the course of time, that's what's kept us an elite program, and that's what makes me very proud to be a Cornellian, and very proud of our athletic department and the support we get from our administration to be an elite program. And we'll continue to battle to be there."
So expect that tradition to keep drawing the likes of Joe and Mike Devin to Ithaca.
Adam Wodon can be reached at awodon@nyhockeyjournal.com.
