ITHACA, N.Y. — The No. 14/15 Cornell Men's Hockey team will play its first road league games this weekend, when it travels to New York's Capital District. Cornell will take on media preseason ECAC Hockey favorite Rensselaer at 7 p.m. Friday, then travel to Schenectady for a matchup against two-time defending league champion Union at 7 p.m. Saturday. The new Ivy League Digital Network subscription service will have audio of both games, featuring play-by-play from Jason Weinstein. His call can also be heard in the Ithaca area on WHCU-AM (870).
 
#14/15 CORNELL at #10/13 RENSSELAER
TIME: 7 p.m.
DATE: Friday, November 8
PLACE: Houston Field House · Troy, N.Y.
RECORDS: Cornell 3-1, 1-1 ECAC Hockey · Rensselaer 5-2-1, 1-1-1 ECAC Hockey
RADIO: WHCU-AM (870)
AUDIO: Ivy League Digital Network
VIDEO: RPI TV
LIVE STATS: www.sidearmstats.com/rpi/mhockey
 
#14/15 CORNELL at UNION
TIME: 7 p.m.
DATE: Saturday, November 9
PLACE: Messa Rink · Schenectady, N.Y.
RECORDS: Cornell 3-1, 1-1 ECAC Hockey · Union 3-2-2, 2-0 ECAC Hockey
RADIO: WHCU-AM (870)
AUDIO: Ivy League Digital Network
VIDEO: Union Athletics
LIVE STATS: www.sidearmstats.com/union/mhockey
 
Cornell game notes (PDF)
Rensselaer game notes (PDF)
Union game notes (PDF)
 
ABOUT THE BIG RED
Cornell split its first league weekend of the season, starting with a 4-2 defeat of Princeton before a 3-0 loss to Quinnipiac. The win against the Tigers was the 350th in the career of head coach Mike Schafer. The Big Red got three goals and four assists from a line consisting of Christian Hilbrich, Joel Lowry and John McCarron against the Tigers, building a 4-0 lead after killing off a pair of two-man disadvantages and a penalty shot. Cornell then came up empty on the first five power plays against Quinnipiac, then the Bobcats countered with two power-play goals. ... The Big Red's power play ranks third in the country with a 29.6 percent conversion rate. ... McCarron (1 goals, 6 assists – 7 points) leads the team in scoring and is tied for fourth in the nation in points per game (1.75). ... Lowry (3-3–6) made a seamless transition to center last weekend and leads the team in goals. He's tied with Brian Ferlin (2-4–6) for second on the team in scoring. ... Senior goaltender Andy Iles (3-1, 2.31 goals-against average, .910 save percentage) has made 74 consecutive starts.
 
ABOUT RENSSELAER
The Engineers are off to a strong 5-2-1 start, including a 1-1-1 record in its first three ECAC Hockey games. After opening with a 3-3 tie at home against Harvard, RPI had a four-game unbeaten streak halted in the rematch in Cambridge, Mass., won by the Crimson, 2-0. The Engineers responded with a 7-1 blowout Saturday at Dartmouth. ... Better than half of RPI's goals so far have been scored by right winger Ryan Haggerty (10-2–12) and senior center Brock Higgs (6-5–11), including seven of the team's eight power-play goals. Higgs had a hat trick against Dartmouth. ... Junior Scott Diebold (4-1-1, 1.58, .946) has taken reins in the crease after sophomore Jason Kasdorf (1-1, 3.49, .786) suffered an injury in a mid-October practice.
 
ABOUT UNION
The Dutchmen were one of two ECAC Hockey teams to start their league slate with a pair of wins last weekend, recording a road sweep of Dartmouth and Harvard. Union scored the first five goals in a 7-2 thumping of the Big Green, then rallied from a two-goal deficit for a 4-2 win against the Crimson. ... Union fell out of the national polls after losing two games at home to Lake Superior State, then skating to a 2-2 tie at Connecticut. ... Two of the team's three leading scorers don't have a goal – senior right winger Kevin Sullivan (0-11–11) and senior defenseman Mat Bodie (0-8–8). The team's goal-scoring lead is shared by senior center Daniel Carr (4-5–9), freshman winger Michael Pontarelli (4-3–7) and senior winger Matt Hatch (4-0–4). All four of Pontarelli's goals have come on the power play. ... Junior Colin Stevens (2-0, 1.90, .900) returned to his role as the starting goaltender last weekend after missing a few weeks due to injury.
 
THE SERIES WITH RENSSELAER
After exacatly 100 meetings, Cornell holds a 60-33-7 lead in the series against the Engineers — including a 11-3-3 mark in the last 17 meetings. The teams split the season series last year, with the home team winning each game. The Big Red never led in a 3-2 loss on Jan. 19 at Houston Field House. Cornell responded with a resounding 4-1 victory on Feb. 22 at Lynah Rink, with Joel Lowry netting the winning goal less than 10 minutes into the game. Mike Schafer is 28-13-5 against Rensselaer in his tenure as the Big Red's head coach, while Engineers head coach Seth Appert is 3-11-3 against the Big Red.
 
THE SERIES WITH UNION
Saturday's game will be the 54th all-time meeting between the Big Red and Dutchmen, with Cornell holding a 32-14-7 lead in the series. The Big Red holds an 9-2-2 advantage over the teams' last 13 meetings, including a victory in the 2010 ECAC Hockey Championship game. More recently, Cornell swept Union in last season's series. In his first game with the Big Red since winning a gold medal with the United States at the IIHF World Junior Championships, Cole Bardreau had a goal and an assist to spark the Big Red to a 3-2 win on Jan. 18 at Messa Rink. Cornell then recorded a 4-2 victory on its Senior Night, Feb. 23 at Lynah Rink. Mike Schafer is 23-10-6 against Union in his tenure as the Big Red's head coach.
 
THE 35th TO 350
Already the winningest coach in program history, Mike Schafer hit 350 victories for his career — all of which have come from behind the Big Red's bench — with a 4-2 win over Princeton on Nov. 1. He became the 35th  coach all-time to rack up 350 victories across all NCAA divisions, with four of them passing the milestone last season (Ferris State's Bob Daniels, Connecticut's Bruce Marshall, Notre Dame's Jeff Jackson and Quinnipiac's Rand Pecknold). Schafer is also just the third coach to pass 350 victories with Ivy League tenure, joining Ned Harkness (Cornell, Union and Rensselaer) and Tim Taylor (Yale).
 
POWERFUL STUFF
Cornell enters this weekend ranked third in the country on the power play, thanks in large part to seven goals on the man advantage in two games Oct. 25-26 at Nebraska Omaha. All four of the Big Red's goals in the final games came on the power play. It marked the first time the Big Red has scored four power-play goals in a game since Nov. 6, 2009 against Dartmouth (a 5-1 victory). The Big Red was also very successful on the man advantage in its opening two-game series last season, when all five of its goals came on the power play in a sweep of visiting Colorado College.
 
THE PUCK STOPS HERE
With 65 saves in two games at Nebraska Omaha, senior goaltender Andy Iles moved up to third on the program's all-time list. Just four games into his final season on East Hill, Iles has now accumulated 2,323 saves over his collegiate career. He trails only Ben Scrivens (2,873) and Jason Elliott (2,462) on the all-time list. He also ranks third in consecutive starts, consecutive appearances and ties (see chart downpage).
 
NOW THAT'S A STREAK
It has been 1,519 games since the Big Red has been shutout in back-to-back contests — a streak that could come to an end Friday if Rensselaer holds Cornell scoreless. The streak dates back December 1963 with games vs. Clarkson and St. Lawrence.
 
IRON MAN
Andy Iles has started 74 consecutive games in goal for the Big Red, spanning all of the last two seasons and the final game of his freshman campaign. His 74 consecutive starts rank eighth in NCAA Division I history, leaving him 30 games a familiar leader. Cornell's Ben Scrivens holds the current record of 104 consecutive starts from 2006-10. Iles was one of just two goalies to be used exclusively by his team in 2011-12, with Minnesota's Kent Patterson being the other. By starting and finishing all of the Big Red's games that season, Iles became the first goalie at Cornell to accomplish that feat since Darren Eliot in 1982-83, and the first Cornell sophomore to do so since Laing Kennedy in 1960-61 — when the season was just 19 games long.
 
FEEL THE DRAFT?
Cornell has seven players on the roster who have been selected in the NHL Entry Draft, including one pick from last June. Freshman forward Matt Buckles became the first Cornellian to be selected by the Florida Panthers, when the NHL's southern-most team nabbed the Toronto native in the fourth round with the 98th overall selection. Other NHL draft picks on the team include defensemen Reece Willcox (Philadelphia Flyers), Joakim Ryan (San Jose Sharks) and Kirill Gotovets (Tampa Bay Lightning; has since been traded to the Chicago Blackhawks) and forwards John McCarron (Edmonton Oilers), Brian Ferlin (Boston Bruins) and Joel Lowry (Los Angeles Kings).
 
FIVE-ON-THREE PROWESS
There are few situations in hockey more dire than when a team is facing a two-man disadvantage, but the Big Red has made a habit of rising to the occasion in those scenarios. Cornell is a perfect 12-for-12 killing off a two-man disadvantage over last season and the beginning of this season, spanning a total of 11 minutes, 39 seconds. The last time Cornell surrendered a five-on-three goal was against Yale on Feb. 11, 2012.
 
POLLS PROSE
With the home split against Princeton and Quinnipiac last weekend, the Big Red moved up one spot to 14th in the  USA Hockey/USA Today poll and moved down one spot to 15th in the USCHO.com poll this week. Even though Cornell was out of both the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine and USCHO.com polls to start this season, it still appeared in the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine poll a league-high 14 weeks during the 2012-13 regular season. Cornell held an 8-8-1 mark in games against teams in the Top 20 at the time of the games.
 
NO FREEBIES
The Big Red went the entire 2012-13 season without surrendering a shorthanded goal, with the last shorty against coming Jan. 28, 2012 by Colgate's Austin Smith. The last time Cornell went an entire season without yielding a shorthanded goal was the 2001-02 campaign, when it advanced all the way to the Frozen Four.
 
FOR THE RECORD
With three consecutive shutouts in November 2011, Andy Iles recorded the second-longest shutout streak in program history, spanning 213 minutes, 35 seconds over a five-game span. The only Cornell shutout streak that went longer was posted by Los Angeles Kings goalie Ben Scrivens, who held the opposition scoreless for 267:11 during the 2010 playoffs. But Iles wasn't done there — he posted back-to-back shutouts against St. Lawrence and Clarkson on Dec. 2 and Dec. 3, respectively, spurring a other lengthy shutout streak of 152:36 that ranks ninth all-time in Big Red history. His success has stretched into the postseason, as evidenced by a career-high 46 saves in a March 9 double-overtime victory against Dartmouth. Iles was third in the nation with six shutouts and 10th in goal-against average (2.12). He also set a record for longest streak in ECAC Hockey play of 286:54 from November 2011 to January 2012.
 
BLANK YOU VERY MUCH
Cornell has recorded at least one shutout in each of the last 18 seasons. The last time the Big Red 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 current head coach Mike Schafer, and his clubs have never gone a full year without recording a shutout.
 
GOLDEN AGAIN
Junior forward Cole Bardreau won a gold medal while serving as an assistant captain for the United States at the 2013 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship in Ufa, Russia. He then scored a goal and added an assist in his first game back with the Big Red last weekend against Union. It wasn't the first time Bardreau's earned gold with the U.S. either — he also wore an "A" while capturing gold at the IIHF Under-18 World Championship in April 2011. Sophomore defenseman Joakim Ryan was also among the 45 players who started in camp for the United States before the roster was trimmed in advance of the World Junior championships.
 
NOT JUST A DEFENSEMAN
Junior blueliner Joakim Ryan led the team with 20 assists last season and was tied for third in points with 23. He was also on the ice for 41 of the team's 83 goals, which ranked second on the team to only leading scorer Greg Miller (43). The production was nothing new to Ryan, who set a program record for goals by a freshman defenseman in 2011-12 with seven. He then started off this season with three points in his first two games, including a power-play goal in the Oct. 25 opener at Nebraska Omaha.
 
GLOBAL INFLUENCE
The Big Red has 13 players on the roster born in the United States. Cornell also now has players native to seven different countries on its squad. Aside from the bulk of its roster hailing from the United States and Canada, Cornell also has a player from Belarus (Kirill Gotovets), Denmark (Christian Hilbrich), Finland (Teemu Tiitinen), Singapore (Dustin Mowrey) and South Africa (Armand de Swardt).
 
CLOSER TO HOME
Hometown fans of the Big Red got a rare treat when goalie Andy Iles became the first Ithaca native to play for the team since Mike Tallman in 1988-89. Forward Kevin Cole then made his collegiate debut in 2011, marking 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. Yet another Ithaca area connection came on board last season when the Big Red added 6-foot-4 defenseman Craig Esposito, who is also from Lansing and also competes on Cornell's men's golf team.
 
COLLECTING HARDWARE
While forward Cole Bardreau became the first Cornell player to earn gold with the U.S. at the IIHF World Junior Championships, goalie Andy Iles was the first to earn a medal with Team USA. Iles claimed bronze at the 2011 tournament in Buffalo, N.Y., with the only player before him to compete with the United States being goaltender Jean-Marc Pelletier in 1998.
 
INTERNATIONAL EXPOSURE
Junior Kirill Gotovets got a taste of the big time when he was selected to represent his native Belarus in the 2010 IIHF World Championships — not an age group World Championships (though he did play for Belarus at the U20 World Championship as well) — playing against some of the best players the world has to offer. He played in three of Belarus' eight games at the World Championships.
 
LET'S GET IT STARTED
Cornell has an all-time record of 57-34-6 in season openers, claim its third straight win in a season debut with a 5-3 victory Friday at Nebraska Omaha. Last season, Cornell secured a 2-0 victory against visiting Colorado College behind a 19-save shutout from Andy Iles. Both of the Big Red's goals were scored on the power play by John Esposito, who has since graduated and now plays professionally in Austria. Under current head coach Mike Schafer, the Big Red is 12-6-1 in season openers.
 
UP NEXT
The Big Red plays its final two true road games of the fall semester next weekend in the North Country. After visiting Clarkson on Friday, Nov. 15, Cornell will make the 10-minute trek to the west to take on St. Lawrence on Saturday, Nov. 16. The Big Red then returns to Ithaca, N.Y. for games against Brown (Nov. 22), defending national champion Yale (Nov. 23) and 2013 NCAA tournament qualifier Niagara (Nov. 26).