Since upstate New York is the one place where hockey players are kind of a big deal, Cornell's men's hockey team kindly offers its star power to a Cornell Senior Prom ad featuring a fully choreographed locker room rendition of N'Sync hit "Bye Bye Bye." Though sadly lacking shower scenes- and I'm still not sure whether that soulpatch is part of the costume or in earnest- there's much lifting of shirts, stroking of abs, and awkward shimmying of shoulders, which is good enough for me.

We know that with finals ruining your vision and will to live, the last thing you want is to read more text. So, in the spirit of illiteracy, we give you an (almost) all-YouTube Monday. Close the Islamic Civ reader, switch the brain to "off," and enjoy the pretty colors ...

After Cornell hockey's titanic victory over Harvard, Crimson fans no doubt accused them of everything from bribery to juicing. Little did they know Cornell's secret is far more inventive: a futuristic ice treadmill. Here's the video, via Deadspin:

After last week's plea for Cornell-related news -- anything whatsoever -- yielded so-so results, we decided to check the place out for ourselves. Our findings, below ...

ITHACA, N.Y. -- We managed to finagle tickets to this weekend's epic Cornell-Harvard hockey Game -- Harvard-Yale football, your uppercase G is now officially revoked. Consult the reliable sources to find out what happened on the ice. But the night's best performances took place in the stands.

Cornell won, but not because they outplayed Harvard (at least not exclusively). We credit Cornell's cruel, incessant, devastatingly well-choreographed taunts, custom-made to tweak Harvard's collective nipple over and over until it's raw and bleeding before yanking its underwear up over its head and kicking it down the stairs.

In Cornell's hands, heckling becomes a mass art form. You can't understand school spirit until you've seen thousands of students wag their fingers in unison at the opposing goalie after Cornell scores a point, chanting, "It's all your fault! It's all your fault!" Then, just as the goalie is about to return to his defensive stance, the crowd destroys his last shred of dignity by exhorting him, in unison, to bend over. And he does.

Other cheers we respect:

• "We're gonna beat the hell out of you!"
• "Fuck em up, fuck em up, go Cornell!"
• "The ref beats his wife! The ref beats his wife!"
• One rowdy, pre-pubescent Harvard weenie: "Hey Cornell, eat my shorts!"

It's been well-documented by now that The Game -- Harvard and Yale's annual gridiron battle -- is hardly worth its title. It's even been suggested that tomorrow's showdown between Princeton and Yale should now be dubbed "The REAL Game."

But only one game is of any real importance this weekend, and that's tonight's Harvard-Cornell hockey matchup -- a rivalry so tough and bitter that it left the insane-screaming-and-body-paint end of the spectrum and re-entered on the side of sappy Richard Gere movies.

This game is actually important -- Harvard just pulled a huge upset over the No. 3 team in the country and Cornell is ranked 11th in the nation. But if the Big Bad, Big Red athletic department gets its way, the best part of this rivalry will disappear: the throwing of dead fish at Harvard hockey players.

The tradition has been in effect since 1973. It started with a Harvard fan throwing a chicken on the ice, which was apparently a crack at the fact that Cornell has an agriculture school (witty!). The Big Red faithful responded by throwing fish, a reference to Boston's love of seafood (wittier!).

But the funniest tradition is the one the Cornell Athletic Department is trying to start: bringing a stuffed animal to the game to give to charity. Haha, getting Ivy Leaguers to give up booze and debauchery for charity. Good one.

With our hockey beat writer busy maintaining a 24-hour vigil outside Columbia's athletic department, we almost missed this bewildering tip from a reader at Cornell. Here is the procedure to get men's ice hockey tickets this season:

"This year, students must preregister for the ticket sale online and then report to the athletic ticket office to pick up a line number. After the preregistration and number pickup, three drawings will be held to determine the three numbers that will start the graduate/professional, the senior, and the general undergraduate lines. Beginning with the number drawn, the next 200 consecutive numbers of the graduate/professional ticket pool, the next 150 consecutive numbers of the senior pool, and the next 1,250 consecutive numbers of the general undergraduate pool will indicate..."

Did you just read that? Neither did we. Something about preregistration and line numbers and the next 150 consecutive somethings and seriously?? For Cornell hockey, maybe the most insane sporting experience in all the Ivy League? They practically hand out Wild Turkey at the door to Lynah Rink. In other words, you need to be super-organized and on top of all these arcane rules -- in order to act like the gentlemen pictured above. Makes sense.