Men's Hockey 2017-18 Schedule
 
ITHACA, N.Y. — The Cornell men's hockey team announced today its schedule for the upcoming season, including seven home games before the Thanksgiving holiday and the highly anticipated resumption of the Red Hot Hockey series against Boston University on Nov. 25 at famed Madison Square Garden in New York.
 
After being the last NCAA Division I team to play its first home game last season, the Big Red will open with seven of its first nine games at Lynah Rink this season. The campaign starts with a two-game non-league series Oct. 27-28 against Alabama-Huntsville before Cornell opens the ECAC Hockey schedule on the road Nov. 3 at Quinnipiac and Nov. 4 at Princeton. A five-game home stand then follows, starting with a visit from Dartmouth on Nov. 10 and Harvard on Nov. 11. It marks the earliest visit from those Ivy League rivals since the 2009-10 season.
 
The following weekend features games against St. Lawrence and Clarkson before Cornell heads back to non-league play for five straight. The team's lone weekday game comes on Tuesday, Nov. 21 against visiting Niagara. The last time the Purple Eagles visited Lynah was memorable — also a Tuesday before Thanksgiving in 2012, when goaltender Mitch Gillam '17 scored an empty-net goal.
 
All eyes then shift to the Big Apple for the sixth rendition of Red Hot Hockey. The game against Boston University is the second of Cornell's five games against fellow NCAA tournament qualifiers from last season, and it gives the Big Red another chance at its first victory in the series at The World's Most Famous Arena against the Terriers.
 
Cornell then makes its first-ever trek to Oxford, Ohio, where it will play two games Dec. 1-2 at Miami (Ohio) to reciprocate the RedHawks' visit on the same weekend last year. The Big Red won both of those games by one goal as par of a six-game winning streak. The non-league schedule then concludes Saturday, Dec. 30 with a home game against Canisius. It marks the first time since 1999 that the Big Red has not participated in the Florida College Hockey Classic — which is not being contested at all this year — and it will be Cornell's first home game in late December since 1979.
 
The next 16 games fall within ECAC Hockey play, where the Big Red is looking to improve upon last year's third-place finish in the regular-season standings and second-place finish in the ECAC Hockey Championships. The annual series against Colgate will be contested as a home-and-home, first on Friday, Jan. 19 at Lynah Rink before shifting the next day to Class of 1965 Arena in Hamilton. Cornell will once again play both sets of games against both Union and Rensselaer in February, but with the venues reversed this year — the Capital District teams visit Ithaca Feb. 2-3 before the Big Red closes out the regular season against those teams on the road Feb. 23-24. Cornell's Senior Night will be at 7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 17 against Yale.
 
As usual, the Big Red will tune up with a pair of exhibitions against Canadian universities before the start of the regular season. Guelph visits at 7 p.m. on Oct. 14 before a rare Sunday contest at 5 p.m. against Ottawa. A Red/White Scrimmage may be added at a later date.