Men’s hockey is no stranger to playing games with high stakes.
Each year, the team travels down to New York City to play at Madison Square Garden, perhaps the most historic arena in all of sports.
Over the last two seasons, the Red has made its mark in the NCAA tournament, falling one game short of the Frozen Four in both cases. The team boasts wins over college hockey powerhouses Boston University, the University of North Dakota, the University of Maine, the University of Denver and more over the last two years, and the Red took the eventual national champions to the brink in the NCAA tournament regional final just 11 months ago.
This weekend’s games, though they won’t come on the national tournament stage, hold the same weight as Cornell’s previous playoff battles.
Not enough can be said about the stakes this weekend, as No. 19 Clarkson (18-9-3, 12-5-1 ECAC) and St. Lawrence (9-19-2, 5-11-2 ECAC) arrive in Ithaca for a pair of crucial ECAC tests.
What looms after Friday’s pivotal game is something 30 years in the making — head coach Mike Schafer’s ’86 final regular season home game at Lynah Rink.
“It's been a long haul — 30 years,” Schafer said. “It hasn't really hit me. [It] probably won't hit me until I'm totally done.”
The Red (11-8-6, 8-6-4 ECAC) is on the outside looking in when it comes to receiving the pivotal first-round bye for the ECAC playoffs. The team it needs to catch will be at Lynah Rink on Friday, before the celebratory festivities for Schafer and the graduating class of 2025 on Saturday.
Though no game is necessarily a “must-win,” Friday’s game is the closest the team will get to that all year.
Just six points — equivalent to one clean weekend sweep — separate sixth-place Cornell (30 points) with second-place Clarkson (36 points). Between them sits Colgate (34), Union (34), and Dartmouth (30; Dartmouth holds the tiebreaker over Cornell).
Though there are a handful of teams ahead of Cornell, the Red has the all-important opportunity to control its own fate — win this weekend and the path to the top-four is much clearer.
“[Our team] knows they have a good hockey team, they've done well in the league, and they know where they are in the standings,” Schafer said. “We need to come out and narrow our focus on how we want to play, and not think about all the periphery, all the standings and senior weekend and all the stuff that's going around it.”
Clarkson, tabbed as a top-20 team in the nation, came back from two separate two-goal deficits to force a tie against Cornell on Feb. 1 in Potsdam, New York. That night, the Red unveiled an extremely depleted lineup, dressing just nine forwards and ten defensemen due to injuries.
Now, with 12 healthy forwards and four complete lines of offense, the team feels confident it can deliver a better result.
“I think our guys are really looking forward to the series, because we didn't really get the chance to play the type of hockey that we wanted to [play] up there for a lot of different reasons,” Schafer said.
After scoring 10 goals across its five games prior to this past weekend, Cornell scored 11 in just two games at Brown and Yale. Though the team lost sophomore forward Jonathan Castagna, who Schafer noted is likely to miss this weekend’s games, the Red regained freshman forward Charlie Major.
Cornell also saw long-awaited production from its top-six forwards, including a six-point weekend from sophomore forward Ryan Walsh and a four-point weekend from junior forward Dalton Bancroft. Senior goaltender Ian Shane’s two wins earned him ECAC Goaltender of the Week honors.
“We spent the whole week in practice [before Brown and Yale] talking about defense. Every drill that we did [was] about keeping the puck out of our net; about becoming better defensively, so that we could become better offensively,” Schafer said. “I think that paid dividends for us.”
On Saturday, Cornell will host St. Lawrence for senior night. The Red has 10 departing seniors who will be honored after the matchup: Ondrej Psenicka, Kyle Penney, Shane, Kyler Kovich, Sullivan Mack, Jack O’Leary, Hank Kempf, Michael Suda, Tim Rego and Jimmy Rayhill.
“I expected it would come eventually, but it just went so fast,” Psenicka said. “I remember last year seeing [Gabriel Seger] and [Ryan McInchak] leave. I was a junior, so I knew next time it was gonna be me, but I didn't expect that it would [go] that fast.”
Cornell’s last matchup against St. Lawrence on Jan. 31 was a disappointing 2-1 road loss, though the Red was severely shorthanded due to both injuries and suspensions as a result of the Cornell-Dartmouth brawl on Jan. 25.
But in just a few short weeks, the team demeanor has shifted for the better.
“I think confidence is never going to be an issue with our guys. There's excitement within our team, and a confidence that [with] where we're heading,” Schafer said. “Maybe three weeks ago we're questioning, like, could we ever score again? And I think that all that [has] disappeared, and we've got good focus right now.”
Cornell hosts Clarkson on Friday night at 7 p.m. before taking on St. Lawrence at 6 p.m. on Saturday. All action will be streamed live on ESPN+.
Jane McNally is a senior editor on the 143rd editorial board and was the sports editor on the 142nd editorial board. She is a member of the class of 2026 in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. You can follow her on X @JaneMcNally_ and reach her at jmcnally@cornellsun.com.
