It is rare for Division I hockey coaches to eclipse more than 500 wins in their career, much less all with the same team.
It is also rare for two who have accomplished this feat to have butted heads in the same conference over the last two decades.
Even rarer is it that, despite the 25-year rivalry between men’s hockey and Quinnipiac, that their two coaches have never met in Lake Placid.
Head coach Mike Schafer ’86 and Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold have established themselves as the pinnacle of college hockey coaching excellence. With a combined 1,224 wins between the two, Schafer and Pecknold are two of the three active coaches to boast over 550 career wins.
Despite the long winded history between Schafer and Pecknold, Friday’s ECAC semifinal matchup is a notable first.
The Red and the Bobcats have met in the playoffs before — in 2018, Cornell annihilated the Bobcats, 9-1, in an ECAC quarterfinal matchup before completing the sweep the next night.
In 2016, Cornell dropped two out of three in a quarterfinal series loss to the then-No. 1 Bobcats. The Red also fell in three games to Quinnipiac in the 2013 quarterfinals, a season in which the Bobcats were once again tabbed as the nation’s top team. The second game of that 2013 series was a 10-0 Quinnipiac win, the largest margin of victory for either team.
Quinnipiac might have the edge in playoff series victories, but the Bobcats and the Red have never met each other past the ECAC tournament quarterfinal round. It will be a first for Schafer in his final season of coaching.
Last season, both teams advanced to Lake Placid. Cornell downed Dartmouth — which also returns to Lake Placid this weekend — in the semifinal just hours after the top-seeded Bobcats were upset by seventh-seeded St. Lawrence in the other semifinal game. Cornell ultimately defeated the Saints in the championship game the next day to clinch the Whitelaw Cup.
“I think it's an asset to be through it and know what it's going to take. They’ve faced basically every situation — they got down against Dartmouth [last year] and came back,” Schafer said. “They faced adversity there, and they know that it can be done. I think that that's huge in your mindset [and] your confidence in yourself that you know that you can get the job done, and no situation is too big.”
Though Pecknold lifted his program to a national title in 2023, a Whitelaw Cup is what has recently eluded the Bobcats.
Quinnipiac, despite winning the national championship two seasons ago and making the NCAA tournament nine times in the last 11 seasons, has a 3-6 record in the semifinal game since joining the ECAC for the 2005-2006 season.
Quinnipiac’s lone ECAC title came in the 2015-2016 season. It has won only once in Lake Placid since.
As recently as this season, the Bobcats have won the last five Cleary Cups, awarded to the team with the best ECAC regular season record. In each of the last four years, Quinnipiac has been upset by a lower seed in the conference tournament.
Still, the Bobcats are a threat. Their power play ranks first in the nation, converting at a 30.3 percent clip. Discipline will be the key.
“I think one of the main focuses has got to be discipline. … Quinnipiac has got a great power play,” Schafer said.. “I think discipline in the championship round is always imperative. I think it’s even more imperative against Quinnipiac.”
Quinnipiac is the better team on paper. Cornell has the experience.
Read The Sun’s Lake Placid Notebook to learn more about the head-to-head matchup.
The margins are razor thin, especially when the game unfolds under one of the largest of stages — the arena where a miracle occurred.
“They know the layout of the rink. … They know what the locker rooms are like [and] they know what the ice surface is like,” Schafer told The Sun before last year’s matchup against Dartmouth. “It's not like they're walking [in] and going, ‘Oh, this is Herb Brooks, this is the Miracle on Ice [rink]’, right? They've been there already. They sat in that locker room.”
Two of the best coaching minds in college hockey, boasting two of the strongest resumes, will meet for one final time — Cornell with a title to defend, and Quinnipiac frothing at the mouth for more.
The Red will face the Bobcats at 4 p.m. Friday at Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid, New York for the ECAC tournament semifinal. If Cornell wins, it will take on either Dartmouth or Clarkson in the ECAC title game at 5 p.m. on Saturday.
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.
