Each year, Cornellians circle a particular date on their busy calendars.
The Harvard game.
And although this year it will bring the same fish-throwing antics that have occurred since the 1970s, it should inevitably feel a bit bittersweet for head coach Mike Schafer ’86, who is preparing for likely his final Cornell-Harvard matchup as both a player and a coach.
“It’s just provided a lot of great memories, both for and against, and it’s just a lot of fun,” Schafer said.
This year’s game will be held on a Friday evening, meaning the Red will have to quickly regroup for a Saturday game against an intimidating Dartmouth team that dealt Cornell a crushing 4-3 loss in Hanover, New Hampshire on Nov. 15.
Now, six weeks removed from its last game at Lynah Rink, Cornell is looking to redeem itself in front of a sold-out barn.
Leaderboard 2
“We will need our crowd for the rest of the year. With a short lineup, the team needs the crowd for that energy and enthusiasm to keep going,” Schafer said.
When Cornell made the trip out east in November to take on Harvard and Dartmouth, all three teams were ranked (Cornell at No. 6, Dartmouth at No. 17 and Harvard at No. 20). Now, none of them are.
But that doesn’t make the weekend any less contentious. Cornell, Harvard and Dartmouth sit at four, five and seven ECAC wins, respectively. They all fall within a mere six points of one another, and are part of a tooth-and-nail fight for a top-four seed for the ECAC playoffs.
Newsletter Signup
Fish-throwing aside, Harvard should generate yet another close result. The last six regular-season matchups between the Red and the Crimson at Lynah Rink have been decided by two goals or fewer. Further, Cornell hasn’t won a regular season game against Harvard at Lynah since Jan. 18, 2019.
Of course, Cornell found success against its archrival this past spring, as it swept the Crimson in the ECAC quarterfinals at Lynah en route to the Red’s 13th Whitelaw Cup.
But this weekend’s game has been sold out for weeks, and the buildup undoubtedly resonates with the players as they prepare to collect crucial ECAC points down the stretch.
“I think that last year, when we played them at home [on Nov. 11, 2023], we didn’t have that focus. … Everybody wanted to win so bad, but no one was thinking on the ice surface,” Schafer said. “So we’ve overcome that a little bit, but there’s always a little bit that in the game where guys get a little too antsy and you gotta control that emotion.”
One major difference between the Crimson that Cornell faced in November and this weekend’s team lies between the pipes: freshman Ben Charette has emerged as the starting netminder for Harvard and was named to the 2025 Mike Richter Award Watchlist. Though Charette is coming off a .879 percent performance against Union, the Ontario native has amassed a .920 percent save percentage in nine appearances, albeit winning just two of those.
Cornell is still facing injury issues that plagued it the last time it took on both Harvard and Dartmouth, though back then it was senior forward Ondrej Psenicka and Sullivan Mack, both of whom have returned. After being forced to dress nine defensemen last weekend due to the latest injury to freshman forward Charlie Major, Schafer is faced with a similar fate this weekend.
“To play nine defensemen and 10 forwards is unheard of. First time in my career that’s ever happened,” Schafer said. “Given the circumstances, we hadn’t scored a lot of goals. We talked about trying to create our own fortune by being more consistent offensively in our habits. So I thought we did that [last weekend].”
Senior forward Kyle Penney, junior forwards Sean Donaldson and Winter Wallace and sophomore forward Luke Devlin are unlikely to return this weekend, though some have begun on-ice activities and see an end in sight.
“There’s just no way that they can come back and play right now,” Schafer said. “We are getting some bodies back for practice a little bit, but they’re still a ways away from playing.”
Boasting three nominees for the first round of voting for the Hobey Baker Award, Dartmouth comes to Lynah as victors of its last three games. However, after continuing its then-undefeated season when it defeated the Red in November, Dartmouth has mellowed out and posted a 5-6-2 record since the game at Thompson Arena.
Luke Haymes, who didn’t play in the last game against Cornell, is a force to be reckoned with at the blueline. The three Hobey nominees are Sean Chisholm, Nikita Nikora and CJ Foley, all of whom have combined for nine points against Cornell across their careers.
“I think their defenseman can really shoot pucks and get pucks to the net, and they’re good in transition,” Schafer said of the Big Green. “It’s just a matter of us playing our game, being fundamentally sound in what we do [and] being disciplined.”
Though it is set to be a raucous weekend at Lynah, hockey games must be won at the end of the day. Though Cornell has potentially played itself out of an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament, a pair of wins gets it back on track as the race for a top-four seed for the ECAC playoffs intensifies.
“It’s just a matter of coming in and controlling your emotions on Friday night and being ready to bounce back and get after it again on Saturday against Dartmouth,” Schafer said.
Cornell will take on Harvard at 7 p.m. Friday and Dartmouth at 7 p.m. Saturday at Lynah Rink. Both games will be streamed live on ESPN+.