ITHACA, N.Y. – After enjoying a bye week through the first round of the ECAC Hockey Championships, the men's hockey team starts its postseason journey this weekend with a best-of-three quarterfinal series against Clarkson at Lynah Rink. A live webcast of both games is available online through America One Sports, which owns the exclusive webcasting rights of the ECAC Hockey Championships. Play-by-play from Jason Weinstein and color commentary from Tony Eisenhut will be available for all of the games for free on the Ivy League Digital Network and can also be heard in the Ithaca area on WHCU-AM (870).
 
CLARKSON at #12/12 CORNELL
ECAC Hockey Championships – quarterfinals series (best of three)
GAME 1: 7 p.m. Friday, March 14
GAME 2: 7 p.m. Saturday, March 15*
GAME 3: 7 p.m. Sunday, March 16 (if necessary)
PLACE: Lynah Rink · Ithaca, N.Y.
RECORDS: Cornell 15-8-5, 11-7-4 ECAC Hockey · Clarkson 20-15-4, 11-9-2 ECAC Hockey
WEBCAST: www.americaonesports.com
AUDIO: www.ivyleaguedigitalnetwork.com/cornell/schedule?date=2014-03-17
RADIO: WHCU-AM (870)
LIVE STATS: www.sidearmstats.com/cornell/mhockey
* – Saturday's start time may be later if the Cornell/Mercyhurst NCAA women's hockey quarterfinal goes into overtime periods.
 
Cornell game notes (PDF)
Clarkson game notes (PDF)
 
ABOUT THE BIG RED
Cornell split its final weekend of the regular season, running into a hot goalie in a 1-0 loss Feb. 28 against Dartmouth, then rallying for a dramatic 3-2 overtime Senior Night victory over Harvard on March 1. Junior forward Joel Lowry (7 goals-16 assists–23 points) notched the winner with 36 seconds remaining in the extra frame in a game the Big Red trailed by two goals after 31 minutes. ... Junior forward Brian Ferlin (12-12–24; 6 PPGs; 5 GWGs) leads the team in scoring, one point ahead of Lowry and two ahead of junior forward captain John McCarron (7-15–22). ...   Junior defenseman Joakim Ryan (6-15–21) is 11th in the nation in points per game for blueliners (0.75) and is one of the Big Red's three All-Ivy League First Team selections. ... Senior goaltender Andy Iles (14-8-5, 2.20 goals-against average, .920 save percentage) has started 97 of the Big Red's last 98 games, dating back to his freshman year – finishing all but two of those games. He has backstopped the team to surrendering three or fewer goals in 25 of 28 games this season.
 
SITTING ATOP THE IVY
With its win Feb. 22 at Princeton, Cornell locked up the outright 2014 Ivy League championship. It's the second time in the last three years the Big Red claimed the Ivy crown, the 17th time its done so outright and the 21st time overall in program history. Cornell came up just short of even more history when a 1-0 loss to Dartmouth on Feb. 28 proved to be the squad's only loss against the Ancient Eight this season. Just three times in program history has the Big Red completed the Ivy League schedule undefeated. The last time Cornell was unbeaten in Ivy games was 1996, when it was 9-0-1 in Mike Schafer's first season as the Big Red's head coach. The other two occasions were in 1969 and 1970.
 
LET THE POSTSEASON AWARDS BEGIN
While the year-end ECAC Hockey honors won't be doled out until next week, the Ivy League handed out its postseason awards March 6 – and there is a strong presence from the Big Red. Senior goaltender Andy Iles was named the Ivy League Player of the Year and was one of three Cornellians on the All-Ivy First Team alongside junior forward Brian Ferlin and junior defenseman Joakim Ryan. Iles, who was also named to the first team in 2012, is Cornell's first Ivy player of the year since goaltender David McKee in 2005. Ryan was one of just two unanimous first-team selections after being named to the second team in 2013. Ferlin was the Ivy League Rookie of the Year in 2012, was also placed on the second team that season. The last time Cornell had three first-team representatives was 2010, when it won the program's 12th ECAC Hockey championship. Junior forward John McCarron also earned All-Ivy Honorable Mention.
 
ABOUT CLARKSON
Selected to finish in last place in ECAC Hockey in both the preseason coaches poll and preseason media poll, the Golden Knights turned heads with a 12-3-1 start to the season before Christmas. Clarkson posted a more mundane 6-11-3 record for the rest of the regular season to finish fifth in the ECAC Hockey standings, then survived a three-game first-round series last weekend against 12th-seeded Princeton. The Tigers won Game 1 in overtime, but the Golden Knights answered with a resounding 4-0 rout the next night to force a decisive Game 3 last Sunday. Senior winger Will Frederick scored the winner on a second-period power play to vault Clarkson to a 3-2 victory. ... Senior forward Allan McPherson (13-17–30; 5 PPGs; 5 GWGs) leads the team in scoring. He centers one of the top two lines, with senior Ben Sexton (6-20–26; 4 PPGs) pivoting the other. Sexton returned to the lineup last weekend after a seven-game absence. ... Senior Jarrett Burton (10-9–19) also plays center, ranking second on the team in goals alongside sophomore Jeff DiNallo (10-13–23). ... Frederick (9-13–22; 7 PPGs) leads the team in power-play goals.
 
THE SERIES WITH CLARKSON
The Big Red and Golden Knights have met 124 times coming into this weekend, with Cornell owning a 59-51-14 lead in the all-time series. The Big Red recently had a nine-game unbeaten streak against Clarkson until the Golden Knights won the final meeting of the 2012-13 season. Clarkson scored the first two goals of both games against Cornell this season, but only won one of them. On Nov. 15 at Cheel Arena, Allan McPherson scored with 37 seconds left in the third period to lift the Golden Knights to a 3-2 victory. John McCarron and Brian Ferlin scored power-play goals for the Big Red to erase a 2-0 deficit. Clarkson then scored twice in the first period on Jan. 25 at Lynah Rink before Cornell countered with second-period goals from Matt Buckles, Jacob MacDonald and Christian Hilbrich in an eight-minute span to earn a 3-2 victory. Cornell head coach Mike Schafer holds a 32-16-7 record against the Golden Knights.
 
POSTSEASON SERIES WITH CLARKSON
The Big Red is 18-7-1 record against the Golden Knights in the postseason, including a 3-1 record in the ECAC Hockey finals and a 6-4 victory in the NCAA championship game in 1970 at Lake Placid. The teams have met three times in the quarterfinals since the league adopted the current format of the round featuring a best-of-three series, and all three meetings were in consecutive seasons at Lynah Rink. As the ninth seed in 2004, Clarkson pulled off a big upset of second-seeded Cornell with wins in Games 2 and 3. The Big Red responded with two-game sweeps in both 2005 and 2006 – with the latter series featuring two double-overtime games.
 
NOW THAT'S A STREAK
It has been 1,543 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.
 
THE PUCK STOPS HERE
Senior goaltender Andy Iles made history with 3:16 left in the second period on Feb. 28, setting the program record for career saves when he stopped a shot by Dartmouth's Nick Bligh from the right circle. While it was far from the most difficult stop in Iles' career, it was the 2,874th save of his Big Red career – a program record. Now with an even 2,900 stops entering play this weekend, Iles has surpassed the old mark set by current Edmonton Oilers starting goalie Ben Scrivens (2,873).
 
POLLS PROSE
The Big Red climbed one spot to 12th in the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine and in the USCHO.com polls this week. More importantly, the Big Red also moved up one position to 13th in the PairWise Rankings, which are used to help determine which teams qualify for the NCAA tournament. That would place Cornell as a fourth 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 Rankings.
 
BRINGING BACK THE POWER
The Big Red ended an 11-game slump on the power play in a Feb. 22 win at Princeton. Cornell was 0-for-32 on the man advantage before Brian Ferlin and Jacob MacDonald both scored power-play goals to lead Cornell to its second road sweep in a four-week span. The Big Red's power play is still converting at a respectable 18.9 percent clip (ranked 22nd in the country), despite just the two goals over the last 41 opportunities.
 
AND THE WINNER IS ...
Senior Andy Iles was named the ECAC Hockey Goaltender of the Week for a third time this season on Feb. 25 after stopping 64 of 66 shots in an impressive road sweep of Quinnipiac and Princeton. Iles' other two weekly honors came after games against Yale and Brown (Nov. 26 and Feb. 4). The Big Red also had the league's Rookie of the Week on Feb. 4, when freshman forward Jeff Kubiak was honored for scoring his first collegiate goal against Yale and adding two assists on the weekend, and Dec. 3 after goaltender Mitch Gillam scored a goal in his collegiate debut.
 
NOT JUST A DEFENSEMAN
Junior blueliner Joakim Ryan enters the week ranked 11th in the nation in points per game for defensemen (0.75). 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. Over the last two years, he has been on the ice for 84 of the team's 154 goals (54.5 percent). 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.
 
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 (Feb. 1) and Princeton (Feb. 22) scratched out extra-attacker goals late in the third periods of recent games.
 
CLASS-Y GUY
Andy Iles is one of 10 national finalists 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. Iles is one of just two Ivy League student-athletes to make the list of finalists (Brown's Dennis Robertson is the other).
 
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.
 
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).
 
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.
 
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).
 
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).
 
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.
 
UP NEXT
The winner of this weekend's quarterfinal series will advance to the ECAC Hockey Championship weekend, March 21-22 in Lake Placid, N.Y