ITHACA, N.Y. — After a successful opening weekend at the friendly confines of Lynah Rink, the women's hockey team will hit the road on Friday and Saturday to open up ECAC Hockey play with games against Rensselaer and Union.
 
GAME #3: CORNELL BIG RED AT RENSSELAER ENGINEERS
TIME: 3 p.m.
DATE: Friday, Oct. 28, 2016
PLACE: Houston Field House — Troy, N.Y.
LIVE STATS: RPIAthletics.com
 
GAME #4: CORNELL BIG RED AT UNION DUTCHWOMEN
TIME: 3 p.m.
DATE: Saturday, Oct. 29, 2016
PLACE: Achilles Center — Schenectady, N.Y.
LIVE VIDEO: UnionAthletics.tv
LIVE STATS: UnionAthletics.com
 
RECORDS: Cornell 2-0-0 (0-0-0 ECAC Hockey), Rensselaer 2-5-1 (0-0-0 ECAC Hockey), Union 2-6-0 (0-0-0 ECAC Hockey)*
 
* - records do not include Friday's results
 
About the Big Red
Cornell opened the season up at home last weekend with a two game sweep of Mercyhurst. On Friday night, the Big Red scored three unanswered goals to earn a 3-1 win. Freshmen Valerie Audet and Jaime Bourbonnais scored their first career goals and junior Erin O'Connor scored an insurance goal on the man-advantage while sophomore Lenka Serdar recorded two assists and senior Paula Voorheis had a solid game in goal, stopping 19 of 20 shots. In Saturday's 2-1 win, both goals came from freshman Kristin O'Neill with senior Hanna Bunton earning an assist on each one and sophomore Marlène Boissonnault made 21 saves for the win. … The team enters the 2016-17 season looking to return to the ECAC Hockey playoffs for the 10th straight year and get back the championship game for the seventh time in eight years.
 
About Rensselaer
The Engineers enter the game against Cornell holding a 2-5-1 record but coming off two weeks of rest. RPI last played when it welcomed Connecticut to Houston Field House for a pair of games on Oct. 14 and 15, winning the first one, 3-0, before dropping the second, 4-1. … Lovisa Selander, who was named to the preseason All-ECAC team, has played well in goal for the Engineers, posting a 1.86 goals against average and a .933 save percentage behind a defense that is killing 86.5 percent of penalties … Hannah Behounek leads the Engineers with four points on three goals and one assist while Makenna Thomas has contributed three goals. Nineteen different players have registered at least one point for RPI.
 
The Series with Rensselaer
Last year, the Engineers swept the season series, beating the Big Red, 2-1, in overtime at Lynah and then again by the same score in regulation in Troy. Cornell holds the edge in the all-time series, though, with a record of 17-6-0.
 
About Union
The Dutchwomen, who enter the weekend with a 2-6 record, started the year with four-straight non-conference losses but then topped Penn State, 4-2, to snap a 55-game winless skid. Union won a second-straight game with a 2-0 win over Rochester Institute of Technology before dropping two games in a row to RIT and Providence. … Freshman Haley Shugart leads the Dutchwomen in scoring with three goals and two assists for five points, while Emily Erickson and Caitlyn McLaren each have four points on two goals and two assists. Freshman Kate Spooner has been in net for both of Union's wins and holds a 2-4-0 record to go along with her 2.54 goals against average and .910 save percentage.
 
The Series with Union
Cornell has a 23-game unbeaten streak against the Dutchwomen that dates back to 2004 and holds an all-time 24-1-1 series lead. The lone tie, a 2-2 affair at Lynah, came in the first meeting between the teams last year. Cornell then won the second matchup between the two teams, 3-1, on the strength of two goals from Jess Brown and one from Diana Buckley (the first of her career).
 
About Head Coach Doug Derraugh '91
Now entering his 12th season directing the Cornell women's hockey program in 2016-17, Doug Derraugh has brought the Big Red women to their place among the nation's elite. He amassed a 202-126-28 record in his first 11 seasons as the head coach of the Big Red, with his 200th win coming in the form of a 4-2 win last year against Yale. Cornell has made the ECAC Hockey Tournament each of the last nine seasons, won the tournament four of the last seven years and advanced to the NCAA Tournament in five of those seasons. Derraugh guided the Big Red to the national title game in his fifth season and back-to-back-to-back NCAA Frozen Four appearances in 2010, 2011 and 2012. He led the team to five consecutive 20-win seasons for the first time in program history in 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-2014.
 
Meet the Captains
Senior Kaitlin Doering and sophomore Micah Hart will be serving as Cornell's captains for the 2016-17 season. Doering is coming off a 2015-16 season in which she set a career high with 18 points on seven goals and 11 assists. Hart led all Big Red defensemen last year with 18 points on one goal and 17 assists, finished the season with six multi-point outings and was second on the team with 56 blocked shots. Hart is just the fourth sophomore to don a letter in program history and the second to serve as a captain.
 
Freshmen Firsts
In the season-opening series against Mercyhurst, a member of the Class of 2020 played a factor in four of Cornell's five goals. In the first game, Valérie Audet scored the first goal of the season to tie the game in the first period before Jaime Bourbonnais slotted home the game-winner midway through the second frame. In the second game, Kristin O'Neill potted both goals for the Big Red, with Bourbonnais earning the primary assist on the first.
 
The Century Club
Saturday's game against Mercyhurst marked senior Sydney Smith's 100th career game and moved her into a tie for 50th all-time on the career games played list. Two other Class of 2017 members are also approaching the Century Club. Senior co-captain Kaitlin Doering has suited up for 98 games and senior forward Hanna Bunton has skated in 93 games. Alyssa Gagliardi '13 holds the all-time record for games played in the Cornellian red and white with 138.
 
Saves and Shutouts
During Friday night's contest against Mercyhurst, senior goaltender Paula Voorheis made 19 saves to move to 1,686 in her career, which puts her in a tie for third all-time in program history with Kathryn LoPresti. Alanna Hayes '98 sits first with 2,381 saves. Voorheis, who made a career-high 47 saves against Clarkson in Game 2 of the ECAC Hockey quarterfinals last year, made a total of 822 saves during the 2014-15 season, which is tops in single-season history. Voorheis also sits tied for fifth all-time with seven shutouts, two behind Hayes' who sits fourth with nine and 16 behind Amanda Mazzotta '12, who owns the record with 22.
 
Preseason Honor
Sophomore defenseman Micah Hart was named to the preseason All-ECAC team. Cornell last had a representative on the preseason all-conference team prior to the 2014-15 season when both Jill Saulnier and Brianne Jenner were selected.
 
And Then There Were Five
When Cornell heads out west the day after Thanksgiving to play Wisconsin, it will be the first-ever meeting between the two storied programs. It will also drop the number of teams in Division I NCAA hockey that Cornell has never played down to five. The Big Red has yet to take the ice against two other WCHA teams in Minnesota State and North Dakota as well as two CHA teams in Lindenwood and Penn State. Merrimack, which joined Division I play in Hockey East at the beginning of the 2015-16 season, is the fifth team that Cornell has not played.  
 
Meet the New Kids
The Class of 2020 makes up 37 percent of the Big Red roster this year and consists of six forwards and one defenseman. Grace Graham, Hanna Mutschelknaus, Valérie Audet, Paige Lewis, Kristin O'Neill and Amy Curlew will play up front, while Jaime Bourbonnais will patrol the blue line. Graham, Audet, O'Neill, Curlew and Bourbonnais all hail from Canada while Mutschelknaus and Lewis come from South Dakota and Connecticut, respectively.
 
Five Players, Six Medals
Entering the 2016-17 season, the Big Red has five players on the roster who have earned a collective six medals for Team Canada at the IIHF U-18 World Championships. Hanna Bunton assisted on the game-winning goal in overtime of the 2013 gold medal game. Micah Hart captained a 2015 squad that included Marlene Boissonnault and Kristin O'Neill to a silver medal, while O'Neill and Jaime Bourbonnais earned silver medals at the 2016 competition.
 
23 and Counting…
With the arrival of South Dakota native Hanna Mutschelknaus on East Hill, the number of states from which Cornell players have hailed since the inaugural 1972-73 season rises to 23. Alaska, Colorado, Maryland, Georgia, Nevada, Texas, and Wisconsin can all lay claim to one Big Red player.
 
New Newfoundlander
Freshman forward Amy Curlew is the first player to come to Ithaca by way of Newfoundland and Labrador. Curlew's arrival leaves just Prince Edward Island as the only Canadian province without a player listed on a Big Red roster. Of the three Canadian territories, Yukon and Nunavut haven't been represented, but Allison Simpson '04 hailed from the Northwest Territories capital of Yellowknife.
 
The 45th Season
With the start of the 2016-17 season, the women's hockey program is embarking on its 45th season of intercollegiate play and currently holds an all-time record of 539-489-62. Cornell, which began play with the 1972-73 season, is the second-oldest Division I women's program in the country still in existence. Brown began play in 1967-68.
 
Big Red Rewind
Cornell finished the 2015-16 season with a 13-14-4 record, which was good enough to make the ECAC Hockey tournament for the ninth straight year, but the team bowed out in the quarterfinal round to an eventual Frozen Four team in Clarkson. Hanna Bunton led the Big Red in scoring with 13 goals and 14 assists for 27 points while Jess Brown and Kaitlin Doering finshed second and third, respectively. Paula Voorheis went 8-12-3 between the pipes and posted a 2.38 goals against average and a .915 save percentage. In six decisions, Marlene Boissonnault went 5-1 with a 3.02 goals against average and a .882 save percentage.
 
Five Cornellians Headed to Four Nations
Five former Big Red standouts were named to Canada's roster for the upcoming Four Nations Cup. Defensemen Lauriane Rougeau '13 and Laura Fortino '13 will be joined by forwards Jessica Campbell '14, Rebecca Johnston '12, and Brianne Jenner '15 on a 21-player squad that kicks off the tournament in Vierumaki, Finland on Nov. 1 against Finland. Canada will also play Sweden on Nov. 2 and then wrap up the preliminary round against the United States on Nov. 4. Fortino, Jenner, Johnston, and Rougeau were members of the silver medal-winning squad at the 2016 IIHF Women's World Championship. Fortino, Jenner, Johnston and Rougeau were members of the gold medal-winning squad at the 2014 Winter Olympics, while Campbell, Fortino, and Rougeau, won silver medals at the 2015 Four Nations Cup in Switzerland.
 
Pro Pipeline
Between both the Canadian Women's Hockey League and the National Women's Hockey League, 10 Cornellians appeared on a professional opening night roster. In the CWHL, the 2016 Clarkson Cup-winning Calgary Inferno boasts five former Big Red skaters in Brianne Jenner, Hayleigh Cudmore, Jessica Campbell, and Rebecca Johnston. Emily Fulton is the lone Cornell graduate skating for the Toronto Furies. Cassandra Poudrier joins Lauriane Rougeau on the Montreal Les Canadiennes roster and Taylor Woods has reunited with former teammate Laura Fortino on the Brampton Thunder. In the NWHL, both Alyssa Gagliardi and Lauren Slebodnick are attempting to win their second-straight Isobel Cup with the Boston Pride.
 
Up Next
Cornell will head to Colgate on Tuesday night to take on the nationally ranked Raiders in an ECAC Hockey matchup and then return to Lynah ice for more conference hockey against Brown. on Friday Nov. 11 and Yale on Saturday Nov. 12