Casey Jones..A Champion Again

Clarkson may have been eliminated in the first round of the ECAC Hockey playoffs this season, but there was a person with Golden Knight connections who was part of this year's championship Cornell squad.

Casey Jones, who worked as an assistant at Clarkson in the early 1990's is now an assistant coach at Cornell and earned his first ECAC Championship ring since 1993 when the Big Red beat Union 3-0 Saturday night at the Times Union Center in Albany.

Here is a brief conversation with Jones:

Times: This is your first ECAC title since back in 1993 with Clarkson.

Jones: It's been good stuff. It was a nice transition here. It's been a long haul with these guys. We came up short last year and this year has been a great experience.

Times: I know you were in a different league (at Ohio State), but what's it like to go this long without being part of this kind of celebration?

Jones: I was able to do a playoff championship at my last job there in the CCHA. But there's nothing better than winning a playoff championship. You work so hard all year and it comes. It's nice. It has a sweet feeling. I'm really proud of the seniors because they wanted to come through. They got it here in their final crack as seniors here.

Times: What's it been like to be back in this league?

Jones: When I was here back in the day, I thought there were some teams that weren't competitive, and that's the reality of it. Maybe that stigma still is attached to the league, for some reason. But the 12 teams in the league are competitive. It's really deep. Sometimes I think that affects us more than anything nationally because we beat up on each other a little bit. It's tough to really run the whole league. I'm really proud of the competition and it's been a great transition.

Times: When you were back at Clarkson you probably never imagine Union being in a championship game?

Jones: You watch Brown and he's done a great job with them this year. You take Clarkson, for example, when they are healthy they can knock anyone off. We played them down in our barn there with the amount of injuries they had and their D core was depleted. But when they have their full roster, you saw what they did to St. Lawrence come playoff time. It was good fighting down the stretch for them. There's nobody you can take for granted on any night of the season.

Times: Did you find it kind of odd when you came back to Clarkson last year how many people are still around from when you worked there?

Jones: I'm a people person, so being able to see people you recognize...George (Roll), I worked with my two years there and with Greg (Drechsel) and J.F. (Houle) was a player there. From the staff that was there was awesome and then Scott (Smalling) and the people who work at the rink and around the campus and the fans, it's always nice. That's a traditional program so you have people who stay. It's the same thing at Cornell. The great programs have that and you are talking about two of the great programs.