Lots of things end with a bang, something very finite — lasting — where you feel the reverberations even when it is over.
Graduation is a lot like that. All your friends and family convene to celebrate. You buy an expensive white dress and wear a peculiar hat and robe. You walk across a stage and are handed a slip of paper worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Confetti, streamers, champagne; all the stops.
My graduation happened on March 27. It was none of those things.
It took place in Loveland, Colorado, in front of a couple thousand people. In a hockey arena, too — considering I’ve spent the majority of my college experience in rinks across the country, that part felt fitting, a poetic ode to the last four years of my life.
There was no celebrating, no regalia, no parents or family or friends. Just me, my laptop, some media folk I had made small talk with in the press box, and the big bold letters flashing on the scoreboard.
Denver 5, Cornell 0.
And that was it. That was the end.
I graduate from Cornell University on May 23, but I’ve already gotten my degree from The Cornell Daily Sun University. Every other thought in my mind over the last four years has had to do with covering Cornell men’s hockey for The Sun — story ideas, people to interview, film to analyze, tweets to send, stats to decode. This paper, and this role, was my whole entire life.
Sitting in the press box in Colorado, it did not feel like something so momentous was finally ending. Part of it felt like routine, because I’d experienced games like this many times before. But this, I knew, was different. Never had I been so belligerently dumbfounded staring at my blank Google Doc. Because how do you spell the end of everything that has made you who you are?
I’m at a similar crossroads right now. For this graduation column, I could preach the tiresome advice of a college graduate. It is probably best if you don’t listen to me. I’m taking my expensive, prestigious Cornell degree and, instead of becoming a doctor or a lawyer or a banker, I am becoming a sports journalist. I’m not exactly the Ivy League’s poster child.
I have nothing profound to say. Just gratitude, which I want to express in my final piece of writing for The Sun, over 250 bylines later. Yeesh. What’s a few more words?
I point you toward Cornell University’s primary fight song, “Give My Regards to Davy,” played after every goal and a tune I’ve probably heard over a thousand times — hell, I heard it 10 times in one single game.
According to Wikipedia, the song tells the tale of “a fictional encounter between an anonymous student, David Fletcher ‘Davy’ Hoy, the registrar and secretary for the committee on student conduct, and Thomas Frederick ‘Tee Fee’ Crane, the Professor of Languages and the first Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences revolving around the student's expulsion for binge drinking.”
I won’t be giving my regards to Davy, nor will I be grabbing drinks at Theodore Zinck’s when I get back next fall. Because, for me, there is no next fall, nor is there still the existence of Theodore Zinck’s.
Instead, give my regards to 139 W State St., the place where I spent many evenings with watering eyes, clicking through errors on Adobe InDesign. Give my regards to Thai Basil for fueling these late nights.
Give my regards to those who came before me at The Sun, sports editors and reporters alike, especially Aaron Snyder ’23 — for pushing me to run for sports editor when I was a sophomore, but even before that, for taking a shot in the dark on a soft-spoken freshman who missed all of The Sun’s information sessions that fall and sent a feeble email asking to cover men’s hockey.
Give my regards to Lynah Rink, old and rickety and the best barn in college hockey. Give my regards to the waft of fishiness at the Harvard game and the melting ice. Give my regards to the Lynah press box, so narrow that the entire row would have to file out to let anyone in.
In fact, give my regards to press boxes everywhere — may they be filled with more and more women with each coming game. Give my regards to all the women carving out a path in men’s sports: Never stop taking up space. And give my regards to the great sport of hockey, which for every 50 positive experiences also deals me a negative one, from an angry emailer to someone questioning my credentials or stopping me before the team locker room. I will never stop being proud to be a woman covering men’s ice hockey.
Give my regards to the coaches, Casey Jones ’90 and Mike Schafer ’86, for opening your arms and giving unrivaled access to a student journalist. For all I learned through our lighthearted conversations outside the locker room, I learned so much more from the harder conversations we had after losses or sweeping roster changes. They treated me like a professional, not a student, and they are some of the people I will miss the most. To the players, too, for always taking the time after skating miles during games to answer my questions. There is no story to write and no role for me without them.
Give my regards to The Cornell Daily Sun, where I arrived as someone who simply liked to write and left as a writer. Where I learned everything I now know. Where I wrote some not-so-great stories, but some pretty great ones, too.
Where I had the best job in the world. I’ll never stop talking about it, I can assure you that.
Jane McNally is a senior editor on the 143rd editorial board and was the sports editor on the 142nd editorial board. She is a member of the Class of 2026 in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. You can follow her on X @JaneMcNally_ and reach her at jmcnally@cornellsun.com.
