After a stretch with seven of nine games away from home, the men's hockey team returns to Lynah Rink to play host to two-time defending league champion and current league leader Union at 7 p.m. Friday, then caps the weekend at 7 p.m. Saturday with a matchup against resurgent Rensselaer.
 
#3/3 UNION at #10/11 CORNELL
TIME: 7 p.m.
DATE: Friday, February 14
PLACE: Lynah Rink · Ithaca, N.Y.
RECORDS: Cornell 12-5-5, 8-4-4 ECAC Hockey · Union 19-6-3, 13-3 ECAC Hockey
LIVE VIDEO: www.ivyleaguedigitalnetwork.com/cornell/schedule?date=2014-02-16
AUDIO: www.ivyleaguedigitalnetwork.com/cornell/schedule?date=2014-02-16
RADIO: WHCU-AM (870)
LIVE STATS: www.sidearmstats.com/cornell/mhockey
 
RENSSELAER at #10/11 CORNELL
TIME: 7 p.m.
DATE: Saturday, February 15
PLACE: Lynah Rink · Ithaca, N.Y.
RECORDS: Cornell 12-5-5, 8-4-4 ECAC Hockey · Rensselaer 12-12-4, 6-7-3 ECAC Hockey
LIVE VIDEO: www.ivyleaguedigitalnetwork.com/cornell/schedule?date=2014-02-16
AUDIO: www.ivyleaguedigitalnetwork.com/cornell/schedule?date=2014-02-16
RADIO: WHCU-AM (870)
LIVE STATS: www.sidearmstats.com/cornell/mhockey
 
Cornell game notes (PDF)
Union game notes (PDF)
Rensselaer game notes (PDF)
 
ABOUT THE BIG RED
Cornell had the second-longest unbeaten streak in the country snapped with a 6-1 loss last Saturday at Colgate. The Raiders were aided by eight power plays, which yielded three goals. Freshman Patrick McCarron scored to pull the Big Red to within one early in the third period before Colgate scored four unanswered goals to hand Cornell its first loss since Nov. 30 (a 3-2 loss vs. Boston University). It was a rare off night for the Big Red penalty kill, which entered the game killing off 31 of its opponents' previous 33 power-play opportunities (93.9 percent). ... Junior Brian Ferlin (10 goals-12 assists–22 points; 5 PPGs) leads the team in goals and points. Linemate Dustin Mowrey (5-14–19) had a six-game scoring streak in January, and Christian Hilbrich (8-5–13) is now second on the team in goals after scoring five times in the last eight games. ... Junior defenseman Joakim Ryan (5-14–19) is sixth in the nation in points per game for blueliners (0.86). ... Junior Joel Lowry (6-12–18) and captain John McCarron (4-13–17) are next on the team scoring list. ... Senior Andy Iles (11-5-5, 2.31 goals-against average, .918 save percentage) is in his third season as the Big Red's undisputed starting goaltender.
 
ABOUT UNION
The Dutchmen are not only atop the league standings, they're one of the top teams in country. Union outlasted Brown and Yale at home last weekend for a pair of victories after splitting the previous weekend in the North Country against St. Lawrence and Clarkson. ... Senior Daniel Carr (13-17–30; 5 PPGs) is the team's leading scorer and tied for the team lead in power-play goals with freshman Michael Pontarelli (9-11–20; 5 PPGs). Senior Mat Bodie (4-20–24) and junior Shayne Gostisbehere (7-14–21) are both in the national top 10 in scoring for defensemen. ... Junior Colin Stevens (16-4-1, 2.18, .921, 3 SO) is in his first season as the starting goalie. ... Head coach Rick Bennett is eligible to return Friday after being suspended for four games for the aftermath of a Jan. 25 loss to Rensselaer.
 
ABOUT RENSSELAER
The Engineers have enjoyed a bit of a resurgence since a six-game winless skid from mid-December to mid-January. RPI is 4-2 since, including a neutral-ice victory over Union. ... Junior Ryan Haggerty (22-13–35; 8 PPGs) leads the league and ranks second in the nation in goals. His line with sophomore Mike Zalewski (8-12–20) at center and senior Brock Higgs (13-14–27) on the opposite wing has been hot of late. ... Junior Scott Diebold (11-11-4, 2.53, .911) has performed admirably since preseason all-league selection Jason Kasdorf was lost for the season with an injury. ... RPI is outscoring its opponents 37-17 in the first period.
 
THE SERIES WITH UNION
Friday's game will be the 55th all-time meeting between the Big Red and Dutchmen, with Cornell holding a 32-15-7 lead in the series. The Big Red holds an 9-3-2 advantage over the teams' last 14 meetings, including a victory in the 2010 ECAC Hockey Championship game. But Union won the most recent meeting between the teams, a 3-0 shutout on Nov. 9 in which the Big Red generated just 11 shots on goal. Cornell won last year's meeting at Lynah Rink, a 4-2 affair on Senior Night, Feb. 23, 2013. Mike Schafer is 23-11-6 against Union in his tenure as the Big Red's head coach.
 
THE SERIES WITH RENSSELAER
After 101 meetings, Cornell holds a 60-33-8 lead in the series against the Engineers — including a 11-3-4 mark in the last 17 meetings. The Big Red escaped Houston Field House with a 3-3 tie earlier this season, using extra-attacker goals from Joakim Ryan and Dustin Mowrey late in the third period to secure a point in the league standings. Cornell won last season's meeting at Lynah on Feb. 22, 4-1, with Joel Lowry netting the winner before the midway mark of the first period. Mike Schafer is 28-13-6 against Rensselaer in his tenure as the Big Red's head coach, while Engineers head coach Seth Appert is 3-11-4 against the Big Red.
 
IVY WATCH
After sweeping Yale and Brown two weeks ago, the Big Red has put itself in the driver's seat in the hunt for the program's eighth Ivy League under Mike Schafer's watch and the second in the last three years. At 6-0-1 for 13 points in Ancient Eight play, the Big Red is five points clear of Brown (4-3) and six points ahead of both Dartmouth and Harvard (3-3-1). Cornell can clinch at least a share of the title with a win in its next Ivy League game Saturday, Feb. 22 at Princeton – but the Big Red can also clinch at least a share of the title before then if Princeton either defeats or ties Brown on Friday. The last time Cornell won the Ivy title was in 2012 on its way to the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament.
 
AND THE WINNER IS ...
The Big Red had two of the three ECAC Hockey weekly award winners following its sweep of Yale and Brown a couple weeks ago. Freshman forward Jeff Kubiak was named the Rookie of the Week after scoring his first collegiate goal against the Bulldogs, also adding an assist on John Knisley's goal earlier in the night. Kubiak then set up Matt Buckles' goal the following night to get Cornell on the board against Brown. His four points over the last four games is highest on the team over that span. Senior Andy Iles was also named Goaltender of the Week after stopping 71 of 74 shots he faced over the weekend. It's the second time this season Iles has earned the honor. The first time was also after games against Brown and Yale, when he had 55 saves Nov. 22-23.
 
POLLS PROSE
The Big Red fell two spots to 10th in the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine poll and 11th in the USCHO.com poll this week. More importantly, the Big Red slipped to ninth 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. The Big Red has been ranked as high as eighth in the USA Today/USA Magazine poll, ninth in the USCHO.com poll and sixth in the PairWise Rakings.
 
NOT JUST A DEFENSEMAN
As of Monday, junior blueliner Joakim Ryan is sixth in the nation in points per game for defensemen (0.85). 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.
 
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 seven games, and it still ranks 17th in the nation with a 20.4 percent conversion rate. The Big Red scored seven goals on the power play in two games Oct. 25-26 at Nebraska Omaha. 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). Cornell's power play is now 0-for-21 over its last eight games.
 
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. Now 21 games into his final season on East Hill, Iles has now accumulated 2,757 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).
 
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 after Brown scratched out an extra-attacker goal with less than two minutes remaining in Cornell's 2-1 victory over the Bears on Feb. 1.
 
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 the last two seasons, 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.
 
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).
 
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 14 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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
LET'S GET IT STARTED
Cornell has an all-time record of 57-34-6 in season openers, claiming 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.
 
EXHIBITIONS IN NAME ONLY
Cornell is now 18-1-3 in exhibitions since 2000, including a 6-0 thrashing of the Russian Red Stars last Friday. 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 has just two weeks remaining in its regular season, starting with a tough road trip to 2013 NCAA tournament runner-up Quinnipiac on Friday, Feb. 21 and Princeton on Saturday, Feb. 22. Cornell then returns home for a game against Dartmouth on Feb. 28 before a Senior Night clash with Harvard on March 1.