Milestones have been common in recent days for the Big Red, with head coach Mike Schafer recording his 300th victory last season, and the program also eclipsing the 1,000-win mark late in the year. Cornell has an opportunity to achieve another unique benchmark on Tuesday, when a victory would be the 500th all-time at the program's fabled venue, 54-year-old Lynah Rink. The Big Red wraps up its three-game home stand with a rare Tuesday night game against Niagara, entering the non-league contest on the program's first four-game winning streak in the regular season since the 2008-09 campaign. Niagara comes to town to play its sixth game at Lynah Rink over the past five seasons. The game can be heard in the Ithaca area on WHCU 870 AM and worldwide through the Cornell Redcast subscription service with Jason Weinstein providing the call.
 
GAME #8: Niagara at #17 Cornell
DATE: Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011
TIME: 7 p.m.
SITE: Lynah Rink — Ithaca, N.Y.
2011 RECORDS: Cornell 5-2, 5-1 ECAC Hockey; Niagara 2-4-3, 1-2-2
SERIES RECORD: Cornell leads, 10-2
LAST MEETING: Cornell won, 3-2 in OT, on Oct. 30, 2009 at Ithaca, N.Y.
RADIO: WHCU 870 AM (Jason Weinstein)
WEBCAST: www.cornellbigred.com/showcase/#liveevents
LIVE STATS: http://livestats.internetconsult.com/cornell/mhockey/

Cornell game notes (PDF)
 
ABOUT THE BIG RED
Cornell has been offensive in the early going this season, but in a good way. The Big Red has scored 29 goals over its first seven games to start out with a 5-2 record, climbing into the polls to the nation's No. 17 spot in the USCHO.com poll. The 4.14 goals per game total ranks third in the country, trailing only top-5 teams Colorado College and Minnesota. The Big Red's four straight wins have come in ECAC Hockey play, starting with road victories at Harvard and Dartmouth, followed by wins in front of sold-out crowds last weekend against Princeton and Quinnipiac. While the Big Red remains among the national leaders in team offense, sophomore goalie Andy Iles is in the spotlight after consecutive shutouts. Junior defenseman Nick D'Agostino leads the nation in points per game among blueliners (1.57), and forward Brian Ferlin has the nation's highest point-per-game mark for freshmen (1.43).
 
ABOUT NIAGARA
The Purple Eagles are 2-4-3, following a 1-1 tie at home with rival Canisius on Tuesday, Nov. 15. Previously, Niagara split a pairs of games with Holy Cross at home and Colgate in a home-and-home series. The first game against the Raiders was a 7-6 Colgate victory, wrapping up a stretch of four consecutive overtime games for the Purple Eagles. Sophomore Scott Arnold leads the team the three major offensive cateogries with four goals and four assists for eight points. He is tied with classmate Ryan Rashid for the goals lead after Rashid scored the squad's lone goal against Canisius. The Purple Eagles' scoring has been balanced in the early going, with 13 players recording at least two points through the first nine games' 21 goals. The team's goaltending situation has started out convoluded, with all of Niagara's four goalies seeing action already. Sophomore Cody Campbell has started six games, but he has split starts with freshman Colby Drost over the last five.
 
THE SERIES WITH NIAGARA
Cornell holds a commanding 10-2 advantage over the Purple Eagles all-time, including eight straight victories. The Big Red secured an exciting 3-2 victory over Niagara in the teams' last meeting, which kicked off Cornell's 2009-10 season at Lynah Rink. Colin Greening and Patrick Kennedy scored power-play goals, then Joe Devin scored in overtime. Niagara's lone wins over Cornell came in the 1999-2000 and 2000-01 seasons at the now-defunct Syracuse Invitational.
 
STREAKING
Junior forward Greg Miller has points in all of the Big Red's seven games to date, racking up a pair of goals and seven assists for nine points. Linemate Brian Ferlin has 10 points over the last six games, tying junior defenseman Nick D'Agostino for the team lead in scoring. D'Agostino's 10 points have come in the form of five goals and five assists.  Forwards Joel Lowry and Dustin Mowrey also have points in each of the last three games.
 
EYES ON ILES
With consecutive shutouts last weekend, sophomore goalie Andy Iles hasn't allowed a goal in 142 minutes, 28 seconds over three games. The shutout streak ranks eighth in program history, with the opportunity to climb as high as third on Tuesday. Iles still has a long way to go to catch Ben Scrivens' all-time mark of 267:11, set in the 2010 playoffs.
 
A RARE TUESDAY TILT
The Big Red is playing its lone Tuesday night game of the season after having none in the 2010-11 campaign. There were three Tuesday games the previous year (in which Cornell went 2-1), but those were the first Cornell games on the week's third day since the 2005-06 season.
 
DANGEROUS D'AGOSTINO
Junior defenseman Nick D'Agostino earned ECAC Hockey Player of the Week honors Nov. 14 after a gaudy four-goal weekend in victories at Harvard and Dartmouth. D'Agostino scored his first three collegiate power-play goals over the weekend, including a pair of goals on the man advantage just 56 seconds apart against the Crimson. D'Agostino then led the team with three points Nov. 18-19 against Princeton and Quinnipiac, scoring the winning goal against the Bobcats.
 
FERLIN'S FURIOUS START
Freshman forward Brian Ferlin leads the ECAC Hockey scoring race after posting 10 points in the Big Red's first five conference games. Teams around the league have taken notice, tabbing the Boston Bruins draft pick as the Rookie of the Week on consecutive weeks of Nov. 7 and Nov. 14. Teammate Joakim Ryan earned the honor on Oct. 31, meaning the Big Red had ECAC Hockey's top newcomer for the first three weeks of its season.
 
RYAN OFF AND RUNNING
Freshman defenseman Joakim Ryan got his season off to a flying start with two goals and an assist in the opening 5-4 loss to Mercyhurst on Oct. 29. For his efforts, Ryan was awarded as the ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Week. It was actually the second straight year that a freshman potted two goals in his debut for the Big Red — Dustin Mowrey did it on Oct. 29, 2010 against New Hampshire. But it was the first time a Big Red freshman has scored three points in the opener since Byron Bitz also had two goals and an assist against Western Michigan on Oct. 31, 2003.
 
NEW SUPPORT STAFF
Mike Schafer returns for his 17th season as the Cornell head coach, but he has three new assistants this year. While the new assistant coaches will be new faces in their position behind the bench, their faces will still be familiar. Ben Syer joins the Big Red after eight seasons as an assistant coach for ECAC Hockey opponent Quinnipiac, and Topher Scott returns to East Hill just 3½ years since he last competed for the Big Red as a senior co-captain who eclipsed 100 career points. Volunteer assistant coach Kris Mayotte is also familiar with ECAC Hockey, having tended goal for Union from 2002-06.
 
CLIMBING THE CHARTS
Cornell head coach Mike Schafer is quickly moving up the ranks of the coaching fraternity in his win totals. Now in his 17th season, Schafer has 318 career victories, ranking him third in ECAC Hockey, but with the shortest tenure of the two ahead of him in the rankings. Schafer trails only Quinnipiac's Rand Pecknold (320) and St. Lawrence's Joe Marsh (472). Schafer is tops among Ivy League coaches, with Dartmouth's Bob Gaudet recently reaching his 303rd career win.
 
CLASS-Y KEIR
Captain Keir Ross is one of 20 national candidates for the Lowe's Senior CLASS Award. To be eligible for the award, a student-athlete must be classified as an NCAA Division I senior and have notable achievements in four areas of excellence — community, classroom, character and competition. Ross posted a plus-12 rating last season, good for second on the team, and was penalized the least of any defenseman despite frequently being matched up against some of the opposition's best forward combinations. Outside of the rink, Ross is a two-time selection to the ECAC Hockey Academic All-League team and was the Big Red's Hockey Scholar Athlete last season. He was also named to the College of Human Ecology Dean's List in 2010, carrying a 3.57 grade point average in Human Biology, Health and Society.
 
PROSE ABOUT PROS
All seven players who graduated after playing with the Big Red last season have played professionally this season. The group includes forwards Joe Devin (AHL's San Antonio Rampage), Tyler Roeszler (Sweden's Vita Hästen), Patrick Kennedy (ECHL's Trenton Titans) Jordan Kary (CHL's Texas Brahmas), Dan Nicholls (CHL's Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees and SHL's Fayetteville FireAntz), defenseman Mike Devin (ECHL's Elmira Jackals) and goalie Mike Garman (ECHL's Colorado Eagles).
 
THE OFFENSIVE DEFENSE
The Big Red scored four short-handed goals last season after going without a goal on the penalty kill since Dec. 28, 2008. Senior forward Sean Collins had two of those short-handed goals, becoming the first Cornell player with multiple shorties since both Cam Abbott and Mark McCutcheon had a pair of them in the 2005-06 season. The trend has continued early this season, with Joakim Ryan scored a short-handed goal in the team's third game of the season at Brown.
 
FEEL THE DRAFT?
Cornell has six players on the roster who have been selected in the NHL Entry Draft, including picks in the fourth and fifth rounds last June. Freshmen Brian Ferlin (Boston Bruins) and Joel Lowry (Los Angeles Kings) were selected in a span of 20 picks, giving the 2011-12 Big Red the program's highest number of draft picks on a single team since 2006-07. Other players whose NHL rights are already owned are senior Sean Collins (Columbus Blue Jackets), juniors Braden Birch (Chicago Blackhawks) and Nick D'Agostino (Pittsburgh Penguins) and sophomore Kirill Gotovets (Tampa Bay Lightning).
 
COLLECTING HARDWARE
Andy Iles became the first Cornell hockey player to earn a medal for the United States at the IIHF World Junior Championships when he was part of Team USA that claimed bronze at this year's tournament in Buffalo, N.Y. Iles is just the second Cornell player to be a member of the United States team, joining Jean-Marc Pelletier in 1998. The last Cornell player to earn a medal for any nation at the IIHF World Junior Championships was Sasha Pokulok, who claimed gold with Canada in 2006. The bronze medal won by Iles is the first bronze of the seven medals claimed by Cornellians at the world's most prestigious junior hockey tournament. Iles had an outstanding evaluation camp with the team this summer, setting himself up to compete again in the 2012 event.
 
INTERNATIONAL EXPOSURE
Andy Iles isn't the only Cornell player to experience international competition recently. Freshmen forward Brian Ferlin and defenseman Joakim Ryan were also at the Junior Evaluation Camp from Aug. 6-13 in Lake Placid, N.Y. Ferlin had a goal and three assists in five games with the United States and Ryan trolled the blue line for Sweden.
 
SOUTHERN FLAIR
None of the other 57 schools in Division I men's hockey have as many players that call states bordering the Gulf of Mexico home as Cornell. The Big Red has four players that fit into that category — Florida native Brian Ferlin and the three Texans, Locke Jillson, Keir Ross and Armand de Swardt. Northern Michigan is the only other team in the country that has three players born in Texas.
 
AMERICAN INFLUENCE
Seven of this season's nine freshmen were born in the United States, giving the Big Red a more American feel than its seen in quite a while. Cornell has 12 players who were born in the United States, which is the most on a Mike Schafer-coached team at Cornell. The previous high was 10, which came in 1997-98.

CLOSER TO HOME
Hometown fans of the Big Red got a rare treat last season when goalie Andy Iles became the first Ithaca native to play for the team since Mark McCutcheon in 2006-07. But when freshman Kevin Cole makes his collegiate debut, it will be the first time in at least 50 years — and perhaps the first time in program history — that two Ithaca natives have played for the Big Red in the same season. Cole was born in Ithaca and raised in nearby Lansing before heading off to junior programs in Syracuse and Cornwall, Ontario. His father, Dave, lettered for the Big Red in the 1981-82 season. Cornell also entered the season having sons of former players suit up for the team in each of the last eight seasons.
 
BLANK YOU VERY MUCH
Sophomore goalie Andy Iles made 15 saves for his first collegiate shutout on Nov. 18 in a 4-0 victory over Princeton. With that result, the Big Red has extended its streak of seasons with at least one shutout to 17. The last time Cornell went a full schedule without posting a shutout came during the 1994-95 season under former coach Brian McCutcheon, as Cornell finished that year 11-15-4. The following year marked the first season for head coach Mike Schafer, and his clubs have never gone a full year without recording a shutout.
 
UP NEXT
Cornell concludes its two-game hiatus from ECAC Hockey play with its third showdown Boston University on Saturday, Nov. 26 at Madison Square Garden in New York. The Big Red then returns home for league games against St. Lawrence and Clarkson before the four-week intersession break.