ITHACA, N.Y. — After a pair of victories in preparatory exhibition games, the Cornell men's hockey team's regular season begins with a first-time visit to Lynah Rink from Alaska in the form of two non-league games at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Series Information:

Alaska at #16 Cornell
SITE: Lynah Rink — Ithaca, N.Y. 
GAME 1: 7 p.m. Friday, October 29 
GAME 2: 7 p.m. Saturday, October 30 
BROADCAST: ESPN+
RADIO: WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM)
TICKETS: Friday | Saturday
STATS: CornellBigRed.com
GAME NOTES (PDFs): Alaska | Cornell

How To Watch:

•  Featuring the call of Grady Whittenburg, the games will be broadcast on ESPN+ in the U.S. (with an option for international viewers also available through Stretch Internet). 
•  The game can also be heard on WHCU (870 AM, 97.7 FM) with Jason Weinstein back for his 17th season on play-by-play and Tony Eisenhut '88 on color commentary.

... And We're Back:

•  Cornell is returning to action for the first time since a 5-1 victory over Clarkson was capped with Ben Berard's hat trick, closing the Big Red's regular season with a 23-2-4 record and a perch at the #1 ranking in both major national polls. The COVID-19 pandemic then wiped out all of the Big Red's postseason and the entire 2020-21 campaign.
•  Seniors Kyle Betts, Cody Haiskanen and Brenden Locke will serve as tri-captains for the Big Red. 
•  Mike Schafer '86 returns for his 26th season as the Jay R. Bloom '77 Head Coach of Men's Hockey at Cornell, as does his entire support staff.

Exhibitions In Name Only:

•  In its first outside competition since Feb. 29, 2020, Cornell tuned up for the new season with a pair of exhibition victories over Princeton and the National Team Development Program's Under-18 team.
•  The Big Red scored twice inside three minutes en route to a resounding 5-0 decision over the Tigers on Oct. 16. Junior forward Matt Stienburg added a pair of goals over the final two periods while Cornell held a 33-14 advantage in shots on goal.
•  Power plays abound in last Saturday's game against The Program, eventually producing two scintillating goals from junior forward Ben Berard separated by just 18 seconds in the latter half of the third period to fuel a 4-2 victory.
•  The visitors twice took one-goal leads, but on both occasions those strikes were neutralized within a minute by Cornell tallies by freshman forward Ondrej Psenicka and Stienburg. 
•  With the victories, Cornell ran its unbeaten streak in exhibitions to 20 games (18-0-2).

On Offense:

•  Cornell returns nine of the 15 forwards it deployed in the 2019-20 season, including two of the team's top-five scorers. Senior Brenden Locke (#28, 8-18–26; plus-20) heads that group, becoming just the ninth Big Red forward in the last 10 seasons to accrue at least 26 points in a season. In addition to Locke, seniors Max Andreev (#15, 5-15–20) and Kyle Betts (3-7–10) give Cornell a full stable of experience centers returning to the team.
•  Ending his freshman season with a hat trick, now-junior Ben Berard (#29, 7-10–17) has the most power-play goals (4) among any returning player.
•  Berard is part of slew of current juniors who quickly advanced into key roles in their collegiate debuts, along with NHL draft picks Matt Stienburg (#20, 5-5–10) and Jack Malone (#13, 2-6–8).
•  There are seven forwards looking toward their first collegiate action, including a pair of sophomores and five freshmen — a group that includes 2021 third-round draft pick Justin Ertel (#18).

On Defense:

•  The Big Red's blue line corps include just one senior, Cody Haiskanen (#3, 0-3–3), but it still returns more regular contributors than did a 2019-20 team that ended up ranking second in the nation in team defense by surrendering a paltry 1.55 goals against per game — including a remarkably low 24 even-strength goals in 29 games.
•  The 2019-20 team had just three incumbents, but it excelled with the help of instant contributions from three newcomers among its top six. Those three are now juniors, and they team with Haiskanen to comprise the Big Red's returners.
•  Sam Malinski (#24, 4-12–16) had the most points by a Big Red freshman defenseman in 10 years (Nick D'Agostino '13 had 18 in the 2009-10 season); Travis Mitchell (#10, 2-10–12, plus-20) was among three finalists for ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Year, and Sebastian Dirven (#5, 1-3–4) became increasingly comfortable in his 200-foot style.
•  There are six defensemen looking toward their first collegiate action, including junior Peter Muzyka (#2), a pair of sophomores and three freshmen — a group that includes 2021 seventh-round draft pick Hank Kempf.

In Goal:

•  For the first time since the 1983-84 season, the Big Red goaltending corps enter a season with zero varsity collegiate experience. 
•  Senior Nate McDonald is the lone incumbent after backing up All-American Matthew Galajda '21 and All-Ivy League first-teamer Austin McGrath '21 for his first two seasons at Cornell.
•  Freshmen Joe Howe and Ian Shane will compete with McDonald for playing time.

Paring Down The Pairwise:

•  If not for the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cornell was a shoo-in to earn a berth to the NCAA tournament for a fourth consecutive season. That feat has only happened once in program history — a stretch from 1967 to 1970 that was book-ended by a pair of national championships.
•  The numbers bear out Cornell's standing as one of the nation's elite programs. The Big Red's season-ending average Pairwise Ratings Index scores over its last three seasons is 5.7. For comparison, that numbers ranks: 
       •  second in the country (trailing just Minnesota State, 3.7)
       •  first among ECAC Hockey programs (Clarkson 8.0, Quinnipiac 18.3, etc.)
       •  first among Ivy League programs (Harvard 22.7, Yale 36.0, etc.)

The First Ivy League Coach to 400 Wins:

•  Already the winningest coach in program history and in Ivy League history, Mike Schafer '86 ranks fifth among active coaches with 481 victories at the Division I level. He also leads all active coaches of Cornell's 37 varsity teams in career victories.

Drawing on Experience on Draws:

•  Cornell finished tied for 13th in the nation and third among ECAC Hockey programs with a 52.5% success rate on faceoffs during the 2019-20. While that was two seasons ago, the Big Red still manages to return three of its top four centers from then.
•  Senior Brenden Locke (56.6%) was the team's leading faceoff man in the Big Red's most recent season, and classmate Kyle Betts (54.7%) is also typically proficient on draws. 

Don't Forget ...

•  Despite the early end to the 2019-20 season, Cornell had already laid claim to its third straight and 20th overall Ivy League title. Entering next weekend's games at Harvard and Dartmouth, the Big Red is 24-3-4 in its last 30 Ivy League contests.
•  By a long shot, the Big Red enters this weekend on the nation's longest winning streak at nine games — although the obvious caveat is that the streak began Feb. 1, 2020. That's when Cornell defeated host Princeton, 5-3, to

The Twin Tradition:

•  Juniors Ben and Zach Tupker give the Big Red its fourth pair of twins in Mike Schafer's 27-year tenure as the program's head coach. The others were the Devins (Joe and Mike, 2007-11), the Abbotts (Chris and Cam, 2001-06), and the McRaes (Mark and Matt, 1999-2003).

Feel The Draft?:

•  Cornell has four players on the roster who have been selected in the NHL Entry Draft — at least one in six of the last seven drafts. Freshman forward Matt Stienburg (Colorado Avalanche) was selected earliest in that group, having been taken in the third round with the 63rd overall pick in June.
•  Another St. Andrew's College product, freshman forward Justin Ertel, was also selected in the third round of the draft. The Dallas Stars selected the budding power forward with the 79th overall pick last summer.
•  Junior forward Jack Malone was taken by the Vancouver Canucks in the sixth round in 2019, and freshman defenseman Hank Kempf was taken in the seventh round last summer by the New York Rangers.

Rare Territory:

•  Freshman goaltender Joe Howe is doing something that no Cornell men's hockey player has ever done before — wearing #34. It is the 36th number to be worn by a member of the Big Red, and currently only the second to be worn by just one player (fellow goaltender Eddie Skazyk '96 is the only to have worn #39).
•  Junior forward Jack Malone is the first Cornell men's hockey player to wear #13 in more than 50 years. The perceived unluckiest of numbers has only been donned by five previous members of the Big Red, all in the first nine years of the program's resurrection in 1957. The last to wear #13 was James Wallace during the 1965-66 season.
start a blazing-hot finish to the 2019-20 season, when all nine of its victories were by a margin of multiple goals. Just one of those victories consisted of fewer than four goals for the Big Red.

About Alaska:

•  Like the Big Red, the Nanooks are getting their game legs back after a cancelation of the 2020-21 season — though they had a head start, bringing a 1-5 mark to Ithaca.
•  Four of Alaska's game to date have been against Clarkson, including two losses last weekend in Potsdam by scores of 5-1 and 4-2. The teams opened their respective seasons by splitting a pair of 2-1 decisions in Fairbanks, with the Nanooks' two games in between coming in the form of two losses at Omaha (one in regulation; one in overtime).
•  The Nanooks have a pair of defensemen among their trio of leading scorers — Roberts Kaļķis (#23, 2-2–4) and Antti Virtanen (#25, 1-3–4; plus-2). Left wing Brady Risk (#11, 2-2–4; team-high 17 shots on goal) is the leading producer among forwards so far.
•  As of last weekend, Jakob Breault (#23, 2-0–2) was centering the team's top line with Filip Fornåå Svensson (#13, 1-2–3) and Didrik Henbrant (#6, 0-1–1) on the wings.
•  Special teams have been a struggle for Alaska in the early going, with the power play clicking at just 8.6% and the penalty kill at 69.7%.
•  Gustavs Davis Grigals (#30, 1-4, 2.92, .896) has been the team's primary goaltender.
•  Like the Big Red, the Nanooks are resuming play this season after their 2020-21 campaign was canceled. As one of the programs abandoned by the majority of the old WCHA in favor of resurrecting the CCHA, Alaska is competing as an independent for the first time since the 1993-94 season.  

The Series With Alaska:

•  Cornell and Alaska have met just once before, and it was at a neutral-site venue. The Big Red came out on top of that decision, 5-2, on Jan. 3, 1987 in the championship game of the Phoenix Mutual Hockey Classic at what is now the XL Center in Hartford, Conn.
•  The Big Red scored five unanswered goals to defeat the Nanooks. Freshman Casey Jones '90 — now the head coach at Clarkson — had a goal and two assists in the game en route to being named tournament MVP for Cornell, which was without the services of All-American Joe Nieuwendyk as he competed with Team Canada at the Calgary Cup.

Looking Ahead:

•  The Big Red will open its ECAC Hockey schedule with an Ivy League road trip to take on Harvard on Friday, Nov. 5 and Dartmouth on Saturday, Nov. 6.
•  Cornell then returns home for four straight, beginning with a visit from Union (Nov. 12) and Rensselaer (Nov. 13).