ESTERO, Fla. — For a 17th consecutive season, the men's hockey team will emerge from its semester and holiday break to compete at the Florida College Hockey Classic at Germain Arena. The Big Red opens the two-day tournament at 4:05 p.m. Wednesday against Northern Michigan, while Colorado College and Merrimack will tangle in the day's second game at 7:35 p.m. The teams will then play in a consolation (4:05 p.m.) and championship game (7:35 p.m.) on Thursday. All four games of the tournament will be broadcast on the subscription-based Ivy League Digital Network. Jason Weinstein will handle play-by-play for all four games, and his call for the Cornell games can also be heard in the Ithaca area on WHCU (870 AM, 95.9 FM).

GAME #12: CORNELL vs. NORTHERN MICHIGAN
TIME: 4:05 p.m.
DATES: Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2016
PLACE: Germain Arena · Estero, Fla.
RECORDS: Cornell 7-3-1, 4-2-1 ECAC Hockey · Northern Michigan 3-12-1, 1-6-1 WCHA
RADIO: WHCU-AM (95.9 FM, 870 AM)
WEBCAST: Ivy League Digital Network
LIVE STATS: CornellBigRed.com

Other Florida College Hockey Classic semifinal
Colorado College vs. Merrimack — 7:35 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2016
WEBCAST: Ivy League Digital Network
LIVE STATS: CornellBigRed.com

Cornell game notes (PDF)
Northern Michigan game notes (PDF)
Colorado College game notes
Merrimack game notes (PDF)

Big Red Rewind:
•  Cornell enters the unofficial second half of its season on a five-game winning streak after a Dec. 2-3 sweep of Miami (Ohio) in Ithaca. It's the nation's second-longest active winning streak behind Penn State's 11-game streak.
•  The Big Red erased a two-goal deficit in the opener against the RedHawks and scored three goals in a span of less than five minutes in the third period to secure a 4-3 victory. Cornell never trailed the following night, with Mitch Gillam making 11 of his 25 saves in the third period of a 2-1 win.
•  Cornell defeated New Hampshire, 3-1, on Nov. 26 at Madison Square Garden in New York. Noah Bauld's first collegiate goal proved to be the winner, and Alex Rauter capped the scoring with a penalty-shot goal.
The Hot Hands:
•  Senior forward Eric Freschi (1-5–6) has five points in his last three games after posting 17 points in his first 99 collegiate games. He scored the winning goal Nov. 29 against Colgate.
•  Senior defenseman Patrick McCarron (2-8–10) ranks second in team scoring and had an eight-game points streak snapped after the Big Red's last game Dec. 3 vs. Miami. He was the first Cornell player to have a points streak of that length since Greg Miller from Oct. 29 to Nov. 22, 2011 and the first Big Red blueliner with points in eight straight since Mark McRae from Jan. 25 to Feb. 21, 2003.

Highlights from the wins over Miami:




Who's Who at CU:
•  Even with Jeff Kubiak — the Big Red's leading scorer last season — out of the lineup for the last 10 games, the other members of the vaunted 'JAM' line from a year ago, sophomore forwards Mitch Vanderlaan (7-5–12) and Anthony Angello (4-4–8), are off to productive starts. Vanderlaan ranks fourth in ECAC Hockey for goals per game in league play (0.86).
•  Junior forward Trevor Yates (5-3–8) leads the team with four power-play goals. He is tied for seventh nationally in power-play goals per game (0.36).
•  Senior goaltender Mitch Gillam (7-3-1, 2.37, .914) has started the last 45 games for the Big Red. His seven shutouts last year were tied for the third-most in the country.

Lynah South:
•  Cornell is the only team to appear in every edition of the Florida College Hockey Classic, which is now in its 17th year. The Big Red has an all-time record of 11-16-5 in the tournament, finishing second last year after defeating Providence and losing to Ohio State in the finals. Cornell has won the four-team tournament four times (2003, 2005, 2008, 2013). Northern Michigan has also won a title in its only other appearance at the event in 2001. This will also be the second time Colorado College has participated, following a second-place finish in 2009. This year marks Merrimack's first appearance at the tournament.

Apple Harvest:
•  Freshman Yanni Kaldis (0-6–6) is second on the team in assists. His passes set up the shots resulting in all three of the Big Red's power-play goals Nov. 5 at Harvard, making him the first Big Red player to record three power-play assists in a single game since Byron Bitz on Jan. 7, 2006. Subsequently, Kaldis was named the ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Week on Nov. 8.

An Empire State of Mind:
•  The Big Red's stars in the Nov. 26 win over New Hampshire at The Frozen Apple at Madison Square Garden all had ties to New York. Junior forward Alex Rauter, who scored on a penalty shot in the third period, is from nearby Chatham, N.J., and once played youth hockey on MSG ice in between periods of a New York Rangers game. Freshman forward Noah Bauld, who scored the game-winner, was actually born in New York before moving to his hometown of Halifax, Nova Scotia when he was a toddler, and senior goaltender Mitch Gillam once attended the New York Islanders' prospect camp.

What, Me Worry?:
•  Five of Cornell's seven victories so far this season have come in games in which the Big Red has surrendered the first goal. Only two other teams in the country have that many wins when being scored upon first — Minn.-Duluth (6-1-3) and Union (6-3-2).
•  The Big Red's resilience from an early deficit has become somewhat of a trend, with the team sporting a very respectable 10-10-3 record when conceding the game's first strike since the beginning of the 2015-16 campaign. That's a stark turnaround from the team's 14-34-5 record when yielding the game's first goal from the previous three seasons (2012-15).

Binational Interests:
•  Cornell has the unique distinction of having exactly 14 players hailing from both the U.S. and Canada. The Big Red joins just two other teams — Robert Morris and Michigan Tech — with an even split on their respective rosters.

The Streak Is Over!
•  Junior forward Alex Rauter's penalty-shot goal in the third period of The Frozen Apple on Nov. 26 ended a fairly remarkable string of futility on such plays for the Big Red. Rauter became the first Cornell player to score on a penalty shot since Feb. 27, 1987 — a span of 949 games since Joe Nieuwendyk scored on a penalty shot against Rensselaer.

Road Warriors:
•  The history of Cornell hockey dates all the way back to 1900-01, but this year was the first time the Big Red has ever started its season with five consecutive road games — and all three of the trips over that stretch were lengthy. The Big Red traversed approximately 2,450 miles over a 17-day span (Oct. 27 to Nov. 13), amounting to about 44 hours on the bus.

Face Off Frenzy:
•  Senior Jake Weidner has been the Big Red's leading faceoff man for three years now, but Jeff Kubiak's early-season injury has pushed Cornell's captain into even more draws this year.
•  Weidner enters the weekend ranked third in the nation in average faceoffs per game (25.5) — trailing only Bentley's Max French (29.8) and Robert Morris' Brady Ferguson (27.6).

Turning The Trick:
•  Mitch Vanderlaan's hat trick Nov. 12 at Yale was Cornell's first since Jan. 22, 2011, when Tyler Roeszler scored three times against Colgate. Subsequently, Vanderlaan was named the ECAC Hockey Player of the Week on Nov. 15.
•  The Big Red's leading scorer to date potted a couple more goals Nov. 19 against Princeton to become the first player from Cornell with seven goals in the first seven games of the season since Blake Gallagher did so at the start of the 2009-10 campaign.

Gillam's Groove:
•  Senior goaltender Mitch Gillam posted the third-longest shutout streak in program history last season, spanning 213 minutes, 17 seconds over four games in November 2015 — including consecutive shutouts at Yale and Brown. That marked the Big Red's first back-to-back shutouts since Andy Iles did so Dec. 2-3, 2011 against St. Lawrence and Clarkson, and it was the Big Red's first consecutive road shutouts since Ben Scrivens blanked Princeton and Quinnipiac from Nov. 7-8, 2008.
•  An odd twist on Gillam's eight career shutouts is that he's only won six of them — Dec. 28, 2014 against Lake Superior State and Nov. 20, 2015 against Yale were both scoreless ties.

Freshman Force:
•  The jump to college hockey can be a big one for newcomers, but forward Anthony Angello — a 2014 draft pick of the Pittsburgh Penguins — clearly felt right at home as a freshman last season. Angello was the Big Red's first player to have points in his first four collegiate games since Ryan Moynihan from Nov. 8-16, 1996 — which was Mike Schafer's second season as head coach of his alma mater.
•  Angello then scored the overtime winner Nov. 14 at Colgate and was named ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Week twice (Jan. 12 and March 1) on his way to posting a team-high 11 goals.

Feel The Draft?:
•  Cornell has five players on the roster who have been selected in the NHL Entry Draft, including four from 2014. Sophomore forward Beau Starrett (Chicago Blackhawks) was selected earliest in the group, having been taken in the third round with the 88th overall pick. Classmate Anthony Angello, also a forward, was selected in the fifth round by the Pittsburgh Penguins. Junior forwards Jared Fiegl (Arizona Coyotes) and Dwyer Tschantz (St. Louis Blues) were then picked in the seventh round. Senior forward Matt Buckles was taken by the Florida Panthers in the fourth round of the 2013 draft.

Milestone Watch:
•  Already the winningest coach in program history and in Ivy League history, Mike Schafer is closing in on another milestone this season. Schafer is now just three victories short of 400 over his career. He became the 35th coach all-time to rack up 350 victories across all NCAA divisions, and he 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).

Helping Out:
Members and friends of the Cornell men's hockey program embarked on another mission trip to the Dominican Republic through the Portal de Belén Foundation over the summer. It was the fourth time the program has participated, following trips in 2009, 2012 and 2014. Current members of the team Ryan Bliss, Alec McCrea, Anthony Angello, Dan Wedman, Alex Rauter, Hayden Stewart, Trent Shore, Jared Fiegl and Dwyer Tschantz were on this year's trip, as well as Mike Schafer, the Jay R. Bloom '77 Head Coach of Men's Hockey.
  

About Northern Michigan:
•  The Wildcats broke an eight-game winless streak with a Dec. 3 victory at Alaska-Anchorage, but were then swept at home Dec. 9-10 by Alabama-Huntsville. The 4-1 win over the Seawolves marked the only time in 20 games that Northern Michigan has surrendered fewer than two goals in a game.
•  Junior forward Robbie Payne (5-9–14; 2 SHG) leads the team in scoring, and senior forward Dominik Shine (6-3–9) has the most goals. Senior defenseman Brock Maschmeyer (2-5–7) has both of his goals on the power play.
•  Sophomore goalie Atte Tolvanen (3-14-2, 3.02, .900) has started 16 of 20 games after emerging as the team's starter last year.
•  The Wildcats' power play has two goals in its last 33 chances (6.1%).

The Series Against Northern Michigan:
•  The Wildcats hold a 3-2 series lead, though the teams haven't met since Northern Michigan's 3-2 double-overtime victory in Estero on Dec. 29, 2001. The first three meetings came in NCAA tournament play in 1980 and 1981, then Cornell won 4-3 in overtime on Jan. 2, 1987 in Hartford, Conn.

Anniversary Season:
There are some significant milestones in Cornell hockey history that have happened in years ending with a '7', so this season will feature a couple noteworthy anniversaries. This is the 60th year of hockey in Lynah Rink, since the facility was dedicated April 6, 1957. This season also marks the 50th anniversary of Cornell's first national championship team in 1967. There will be a special ceremony to honor that team Jan. 27-28 during home games against Dartmouth and Harvard.

Never Too Close For Comfort:
The Big Red had four 1-0 victories last season for the first time in program history. Cornell also set a team record by going to overtime in 14 of its 34 games last year. The previous record was 12, set in 1985-86, then matched in 2010-11 and 2011-12. Cornell went to overtime in seven of its final 15 games, with a 4-3-7 record in those games.

Up Next:
Depending on Wednesday's results, Cornell will take on either Colorado College or Merrimack in the consolation or championship of the Florida College Hockey Classic at 4:05 or 7:35 p.m. Thursday at Germain Arena. The Big Red will then conclude the non-league portion of its schedule on Saturday, Jan. 7 with its second trip of the season to Merrimack.