The Big Red will look to stay atop the Ivy League standings with a road trip this weekend to Yale and Brown. Live video of both games will be available on the new Ivy League Digital Network subscription service. Jason Weinstein will also handle the play-by-play for both games, which can be heard in the Ithaca area on WHCU-AM (870) or worldwide via the Ivy League Digital Network.
 
#11/11 CORNELL at #13/13 YALE
TIME: 7 p.m.
DATE: Friday, January 31
PLACE: Ingalls Rink · New Haven, Conn.
RECORDS: Cornell 10-4-5, 6-3-4 ECAC Hockey · Yale 10-5-4, 5-4-3 ECAC Hockey
LIVE VIDEO: www.ivyleaguedigitalnetwork.com/cornell/schedule?date=2014-02-02
AUDIO: www.ivyleaguedigitalnetwork.com/cornell/schedule?date=2014-02-02
RADIO: WHCU-AM (870)
LIVE STATS: http://livestats/prestosports.com/yale
 
#11/11 CORNELL at BROWN
TIME: 7 p.m.
DATE: Saturday, February 1
PLACE: Meehan Auditorium · Providence, R.I.
RECORDS: Cornell 10-4-5, 6-3-4 ECAC Hockey · Brown 8-8-3, 5-6-1 ECAC Hockey
LIVE VIDEO: www.ivyleaguedigitalnetwork.com/cornell/schedule?date=2014-02-02
AUDIO: www.ivyleaguedigitalnetwork.com/cornell/schedule?date=2014-02-02
RADIO: WHCU-AM (870)
LIVE STATS: www.brownbears.com/links/n8an0m
 
Cornell game notes (PDF)
Yale game notes (PDF)
Brown game notes (coming soon)
 
ABOUT THE BIG RED
Cornell is riding a seven-game unbeaten streak (tied for fourth-longest in the country) and has lost just once in its last 12 games (7-1-4). Most recently, the Big Red enjoyed a three-point showing last weekend against St. Lawrence and Clarkson at Lynah Rink. Senior Dustin Mowrey factored into all of the Big Red's goals in Friday's 4-4 tie with the Saints, then Cornell rallied from a two-goal deficit to top Clarkson, 3-2, on Saturday. Christian Hilbrich provided the winner in that game with his fifth goal in the last five games. ... The Big Red has the sixth-most effective power play in the nation with a 22.4 percent conversion rate, but the team is 0-for-13 on the man advantage over the last five games. Meanwhile, the penalty kill is 25 for its last 27 (92.6 percent) in December and January. ... Junior forward Brian Ferlin (9 goals-11 assists–20 points; 5 PPGs) leads the team in goals and points. Ferlin and linemate Mowrey (5-14–19) are riding six-game scoring streaks, and Hilbrich (8-5–13) is now second on the team in goals after scoring five times in the last five games. ... Junior defenseman Joakim Ryan (5-13–18) is third in the nation in points per game for blueliners (0.95). ... Junior captain John McCarron (4-13–17) is tied for fourth in scoring with classmate and linemate Joel Lowry (6-11–17). ... Senior Andy Iles (9-4-5, 2.23 goals-against average, .918 save percentage) is in his third season as the Big Red's undisputed starting goaltender. Since the semester break, he is 3-0-3 with a 1.92 GAA and .934 save percentage.
 
ABOUT YALE
The Bulldogs are quietly plodding along in the middle of the ECAC Hockey pack, splitting their last two weekends. Yale suffered a 3-1 loss last Friday at Brown before coming back with a resounding 6-0 victory in Saturday's rematch at Ingalls Rink. ... All three of the team's leading scorers are seniors, including forwards Kenny Agostino (10-9–19) and Jesse Root (7-12–19), and defenseman Gus Young (4-8–12). Junior defenseman Tommy Fallen (4-7–11) has all of his points in league games. ... Freshman Alex Lyon (7-5-4, 2.18, .923) has established himself as the starting goaltender.
 
ABOUT BROWN
The Bears continue to threaten to break through, posting a 5-2-2 record over their last nine games. The team has played a road-heavy schedule to date, but enters the weekend 3-1-2 at home – including a tie with No. 2 Boston College and last weekend's win against Yale. ... Brown may have the best line in the league, consisting of leading scorers Mark Naclerio (11-14–25), Nick Lappin (8-15–23) and Matt Lorito (8-13–21). Defenseman Dennis Robertson (5-8–13) has a team-high four goals on the power play. ... Freshman Tyler Steel (6-3-3, 2.82, .906) has started the last five games in goal, though he was pulled after allowing three goals on seven shots in last Saturday's blowout loss at Yale.
 
THE SERIES WITH YALE
Friday's game will be the 144th all-time meeting between the Bulldogs and Big Red, with Cornell holding a 80-58-5 advantage since the teams first met during the 1902-03 season. Cornell won the teams' first game this season, 2-1, on Nov. 23 at Lynah Rink. Brian Ferlin scored a power-play goal after Dustin Mowrey won a faceoff in the offensive zone in the first period, then Joel Lowry provided the winner just 67 seconds into the second. Andy Iles made 30 saves for the victory. The Bulldogs won both games in the 2012-13 season. Mike Schafer is 20-17-4 against Yale in his tenure as Cornell's head coach.
 
THE SERIES WITH BROWN
The Big Red has a commanding lead in the all-time series, 71-43-5, and Mike Schafer is a dominating 29-7-3 against the Bears during his 19 seasons as the Big Red's head coach. Cornell won the first meeting of the season, a 5-1 affair Nov. 22 at Lynah Rink. Cole Bardreau had the winning goal and two assists, and freshman Eric Freschi scored his first two collegiate goals. The teams split last season's meetings, with the road team emerging victorious in each contest. In Cornell's visit to Meehan last season, Christian Hilbrich scored his first collegiate goal.
 
POWERFUL STUFF
How good was the Cornell power play in the first half of the season? The Big Red hasn't scored on the man advantage in its last six games, and it still ranks sixth in the nation with a 22.4 percent conversion rate. The Big Red scored seven goals on the power play in two games Oct. 25-26 at Nebraska Omaha. All four of the Big Red's goals in the second game came against the Mavericks 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).
 
NOT JUST A DEFENSEMAN
As of Monday, junior blueliner Joakim Ryan is third in the nation in points per game for defensemen (0.95). Just six games into the season, Ryan had already equaled his goal total from all of last year with three. Two of his strikes came in a 3-3 tie Nov. 8 at Rensselaer. He 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 for the San Jose Sharks draft pick, who set a program record for goals by a freshman defenseman in 2011-12 with seven.
 
POLLS PROSE
The Big Red moved up one spot to 11th in both the USCHO.com and USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine polls this week, marking a news season high for Cornell in both polls. More importantly, the Big Red has moved up to 10th in the PairWise Rankings, which are used to help determine which teams qualify for the NCAA tournament. That would place Cornell as a third seed in one of the four regionals, if the season ended today.
 
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 season 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. The Big Red is still seeking its first shutout of this season.
 
THE PUCK STOPS HERE
With 30 saves in a Nov. 23 victory over Yale, senior goaltender Andy Iles moved up to second on the program's all-time list in saves. Just 13 games into his final season on East Hill, Iles has now accumulated 2,669 saves over his collegiate career. He passed Jason Elliott (2,462) for second on the all-time list, and now trails only current Los Angeles Kings starting goalie Ben Scrivens (2,873) (see chart on opposite page). For his 55-save effort over two games against Brown and Yale from Nov. 22-23, Iles was named the ECAC Hockey Goaltender of the Week.
 
NOW THAT'S A STREAK
It has been 1,534 games since the Big Red has been shutout in back-to-back contests. The streak dates back December 1963 with games vs. Clarkson and St. Lawrence.
 
IRON MAN
Andy Iles started 80 consecutive games in goal for the Big Red, spanning all of the last two seasons and the final game of his freshman campaign, before the streak came to an end Nov. 26 with Mitch Gillam getting the nod against Niagara. Iles' 80 consecutive starts are tied for fifth in NCAA Division I history, leaving him 24 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).
 
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.
 
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 14-for-14 killing off a two-man disadvantage over last season and the beginning of this season, spanning a total of 12 minutes, 4 seconds. The last time Cornell surrendered a five-on-three goal was against Yale on Feb. 11, 2012.
 
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).
 
CLASS-Y GUY
Andy Iles is one of 20 national candidates for the Senior CLASS Award, which is presented annually to an NCAA Division I senior that has notable achievements in four areas of excellence — community, classroom, character and competition. Iles is continuing the program's tradition of highly decorated goaltenders, having been named the ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Year (2011) and an All-Ivy League First Team selection (2012). Outside of the rink, he has been involved in a service trip with the Portal De Belen Foundation to Don Juan, Dominican Republic, and is the organizer and planner of the Cornell Hockey Teddy Bear Toss, which donates proceeds to Cancer Resource Center of the Finger Lakes and the Franziska Racker Centers. He is also a five-time member of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences' Dean's List and carries a 3.78 cumulative grade point average.
 
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).
 
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. Junior 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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
EXHIBITIONS IN NAME ONLY
Cornell is now 18-1-3 in exhibitions since 2000, including a 6-0 thrashing of the Russian Red Stars on Jan. 3. It was Cornell's first midseason exhibition since a 4-0 victory over the U.S. National Team Development Program on Dec. 8, 2002, and the Big Red used the game to give ice time to four players who haven't yet appeared in regular-season play. Freshman Matt Buckles scored twice, and freshman Jeff Kubiak and senior Craig Esposito also scored goals in the rout.
 
UP NEXT
The Big Red's stretch of seven of nine games wraps up with a Saturday, Feb. 8 visit to regional rival Colgate's Starr Rink in Hamilton. Cornell then returns home for four of its final six games of the regular season, starting Feb. 14 against Union and Feb. 15 vs. Rensselaer. The following weekend will feature a trip to Quinnipiac and Princeton.