ESTERO, Fla. — Riding its longest winning streak 2005, Cornell will attempt to win its fifth Florida College Hockey Classic title when it takes on Colorado College at 7:35 p.m. at Germain Arena in Estero, Fla. The Big Red is competing in the Florida College Hockey Classic for a 17th consecutive season since the tournament's inception. Cornell is playing in the championship game for the ninth time. Both of the tournament's remaining games will be broadcast on the subscription-based Ivy League Digital Network. Jason Weinstein will handle play-by-play for both games, and his call for the championship game can also be heard in the Ithaca area on WHCU (870 AM, 95.9 FM).

GAME #13: CORNELL vs. COLORADO COLLEGE
TIME: 7:35 p.m.
DATES: Thursday, Dec. 29, 2016
PLACE: Germain Arena · Estero, Fla.
RECORDS: Cornell 8-3-1, 4-2-1 ECAC Hockey · Colorado College 4-12-1, 1-6-1 NCHC
RADIO: WHCU-AM (95.9 FM, 870 AM)
WEBCAST: Ivy League Digital Network
LIVE STATS: CornellBigRed.com

Florida College Hockey Classic consolation
Northern Michigan vs. Merrimack — 4:05 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 29, 2016
WEBCAST: Ivy League Digital Network
LIVE STATS: CornellBigRed.com

Cornell game notes (PDF)
Colorado College game notes (PDF)

Big Red Rewind:
•  After missing a combined 16 consecutive games due to injury, senior forwards Jeff Kubiak and Matt Buckles each had a goal and an assist in yesterday's 5-2 victory over Northern Michigan in an FCHC first round game.
•  Senior defenseman Patrick McCarron assisted on three consecutive goals as Cornell pulled away from NMU with a couple strikes in the second period.
•  Cornell's string of six straight wins is tied for the second-longest active streak in the country behind Penn State's 11-game streak. The Big Red last won this many consecutive games from Feb. 11 to March 26, 2005, when it won 11 straight heading into an NCAA Regional final.
•  Sophomore forward Mitch Vanderlaan closed the scoring in Wednesday's game with his team-leading eighth goal of the season.
•  Both of Northern Michigan's goals came on the power play, with the first ending a streak of 18 consecutive penalty kills for the Big Red.

Highlights from the 5-2 win vs. Northern Michigan:


The Hot Hands:
•  Senior forward Eric Freschi (1-6–7) has six points in his last four games after posting 17 points in his first 99 collegiate games. He scored the winning goal Nov. 29 against Colgate.
•  Senior defenseman Patrick McCarron (2-11–13) has surged to a tie for the team scoring. He had an eight-game points streak snapped heading into this week's tournament, but had three assists yesterday. He was the first Cornell player to have a points streak of eight games 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.

Who's Who at CU:
•  Senior forward Jeff Kubiak (1-1–2) — the Big Red's leading scorer last season — returned yesterday from a 10-game absence due to injury. He was reunited with sophomore wingers Mitch Vanderlaan (8-5–13) and Anthony Angello (4-4–8) to reprise the vaunted 'JAM' line from a year ago. The trip combined for two goals and an assist yesterday. Vanderlaan ranks fourth in ECAC Hockey for goals per game in league play (0.86).
•  Junior forward Trevor Yates (6-3–9) leads the team with four power-play goals. He is tied for 10th nationally in power-play goals per game (0.33).
•  Senior goaltender Mitch Gillam (8-3-1, 2.34, .913) 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 12-16-5 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 tied for 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 eight 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 — Union (6-3-2) and Minn.-Duluth (6-1-3).
•  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 (25.3) — 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. He scored his team-leading eighth goal yesterday.

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 two 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).

About Colorado College:
•  The Tigers broke a nine-game winless streak last night with a 3-0 blanking of Merrimack in an FCHC first round game.
•  Senior forward Matt Hansen (0-4–4) assisted on all three CC goals, including a pair of power-play strikes on rebounds by sophomore forward Mason Bergh (9-3–12). Bergh leads the team in scoring, and has four of the team's 11 power-play goals.
•  Freshman Alex Leclerc (2-9-1, 3.63, .879) made 26 saves to record his first collegiate shutout. He was also named the NCHC Rookie of the Week on Dec. 12 after holding Miami to four goals in two games the previous weekend.
•  Leclerc and Cornell freshman forward Noah Bauld were teammates last year with the Alberta Junior Hockey League's Lloydminster Bobcats.
•  Junior Teemu Kivihalme (1-6–7) is the team's top offensive defenseman and its lone NHL draft pick (Nashville Predators).
•  Head coach Mike Haviland and top assistant Gene Reilly are both graduates of Elmira College, which is about 30 miles from Cornell's campus.

The Series Against Colorado College:
•  The Big Red holds a 6-2-1 advantage in the all-time series after a season-opening sweep of the Tigers when both squads were nationally ranked Oct. 26-27, 2012 at Lynah Rink.
•  Colorado College won the teams' only meeting at the Florida College Hockey Classic, 4-2, in a first-round game on Dec. 29, 2009.

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 last year, with a 4-3-7 record in those games.

Up Next:
•  Cornell will conclude the non-league portion of its schedule on Saturday, Jan. 7 with its second trip of the season to Merrimack. The Big Red then returns to ECAC Hockey play with a Jan. 13-14 road trip to Princeton and Quinnipiac.