By Brandon Thomas
Cornell Athletic Communications
 
On any given game night for the Cornell men's hockey team at Lynah Rink, the pressure on the student-athletes is unmistakable. The perennially boisterous crowd has earned the lofty reputation as one of college hockey's greatest stages, and its effect on the players is often palpable – whether it's the Big Red's own players' appreciation or the visiting team's players' surveying glances at a similar environment of which they have never seen.
 
While Cornell has seen its fair share of elite players advance all the way to the game's pinnacle (33 in the NHL, to be precise), the experience of playing on such a fervorous stage carries weight beyond just the sport for the players. Now 25 years after his final game in front of the Lynah Faithful, Dan Dufresne '96 credits those days with the Big Red as an influence on his ascent in the finance world.
 
In 21 years with Citadel, a large hedge fund and market-making firm based in Chicago, Dufresne has seen his fair share of high-stakes situations. He has met with U.S. Treasury Secretaries and Chairs of the Federal Reserve, was on the front line during the financial crisis in 2008, and he has been called to perform regularly on big stages. For all of those tense moments, the days on Lynah Rink ice have served as preparation.
 
"We went from 250 people and $2 billion in capital to a firm with over $40 billion and 4,000 people, and I was able to ride that wave," Dufresne said of his career at Citadel. "What I knew coming out of Cornell was not just what I learned, but also how to learn – and what I learned in athletics, which was you had to be great at your role to be part of a great team. That works in a meritocracy like Citadel."
 
It's a long and fascinating road from Dufresne's hometown of Glens Falls, N.Y. to the peak of the world's financial market, but it's even longer if you consider his two-year stint 1,500-plus miles away from home. High school hockey in the Empire State was enough to put Dufresne on the recruiting radar, but a higher level of competition was necessary to make that final step. At the time, domestic junior leagues were not as viable an option as they are currently, and Dufresne said he couldn't afford to enroll at New England prep schools, the other common path to Division I hockey for Americans. So when the opportunity came to play for the Notre Dame Hounds – a junior team affiliated with a Canadian school in rural Saskatchewan – Dufresne, at just 16 years old, made the leap.
 
While certainly a gamble of sorts, the move wasn't completely blind. A family friend from Glens Falls, Jason Vogel '93, made the same journey just a few years prior. Once at Notre Dame, Dufresne was able to hear Cornell's merits directly from Vogel – but he needed little convincing. Multiple Division I programs were calling, yet Dufresne was already seeing Red.
 
"Some of it was Jason's input, but the program really speaks for itself – the history; some of the great players that have come out of the program going back to the national championship teams (in 1967 and 1970); the tradition, which is phenomenal," Dufresne said. "I wanted to go to a school where I could get a great education, but also where hockey was an important part of the community; which it clearly is in Ithaca. I remember my recruiting trip like it was yesterday. I can still feel the chills from that first national anthem, not knowing that the entire crowd was going to scream 'RED!' on cue. I knew I had to play at Lynah in front of that crowd."
 
There were various ways in which Cornell felt like home. Of course, plenty of options would fit the bill after two years in Saskatchewan, but Dufresne's hometown had its own history beyond just Vogel. If not for the presence of Cornell and Ithaca College, Ithaca is similar to Glens Falls in size and a more key metric – hockey relevance. At the time of Dufresne's youth, the Adirondack Red Wings, an American Hockey League affiliate of the NHL's Detroit Red Wings, were based in Glens Falls. The team and the construction of its area in Glens Falls was the vision and execution of the city's adopted son, Ned Harkness – a Cornell Athletics Hall of Fame inductee who led the Big Red to both of its national titles in 1967 and 1970 before eventually embarking on a career in the Red Wings organization.

In four years at Cornell, Dufresne was an instant contributor on defense, ultimately posting 12 points and 202 penalty minutes in 93 games. The team had losing records for his first three seasons, but he was part of an extraordinary turnaround during his senior year. Winning 10 games more than it had the previous year, the Big Red would go on to win the ECAC Hockey Championship during the 1995-96 season – a year that also happened to be the first at the helm for Mike Schafer '86, now in his 26th season as the Jay R. Bloom '77 Head Coach of Men's Hockey.
 
"It was an uphill climb over our four years, but we had enormous pride, and I remember us keeping each other motivated and the coaches keeping us motivated – especially when Mike Schafer came in for his first year," Dufresne said. "He arrived with a confidence in himself and us as players, and he was able to get the best out of our team quickly. We were actually successful right away following his method and leadership. I have led teams in business through varied and sometimes challenging times. I have emulated some of the effective leadership traits I experienced through my teammates and coaches."
 
Through it all, Dufresne remains close with the program and his teammates through the relationships forged in those. It's not a coincidence that team leadership has buoyed Dufresne's success. While there's no shortage of successful Cornellians in the financial world, Dufresne's path through the School of Industrial and Labor Relations is unique.
 
"What intrigued me about the major was that it was enough business (curriculum) that it was going to potentially position me for something in finance, but I was also intrigued by the organizational behavior and work place psychology component of the ILR curriculum," Dufresne said. "While trading and group treasurer and operations head roles that I've played aren't an obvious path coming out of ILR, I did tap into a lot of the foundational principles learned there – particularly around organizational behavior and what motivates people through incentives and what really makes an organization hum."  
 
The traits that have driven Dufresne's professional success have also led to his recent decision to retire from Citadel to focus on a different large team – his family. Dufresne and his wife of 17 years, Sam, welcomed the couple's seventh child and first daughter, Ella Grace, about four months ago. Now Dufresne will be handing down sage coaching wisdom – albeit in T-ball, football and basketball.
 
"Family is the most important thing in my life, and I am incredibly blessed on that front," he said.
 
Still, the athletic instincts are undeniable.
 
"Yes, I recently retired at 46 and am rebalancing life and work," Dufresne said. "But my competitive nature tells me I will not stay retired for long."