OMAHA, Neb. — For the first time in program history, the men's hockey team will visit The Cornhusker State when it takes on Nebraska Omaha for a pair of games this weekend to kick off the 2013-14 season. The game will be streamed worldwide on the new Ivy League Digital Network subscription service. It will feature play-by-play from Jason Weinstein, which can also be heard on WHCU-AM (870) in the Ithaca area.
 
#19 CORNELL at NEBRASKA OMAHA
GAME 1: 7:37 p.m. CDT Friday, October 25
GAME 2: 7:07 p.m. CDT Saturday, October 26
PLACE: CenturyLink Center Omaha · Omaha, Neb.
RECORDS: Cornell 0-0, 0-0 ECAC Hockey · Nebraska Omaha 2-2, 0-0 National Collegiate Hockey Conference
RADIO: WHCU-AM (870)
AUDIO: Ivy League Digital Network
VIDEO: Ivy League Digital Network
LIVE STATS: www.omavs.com/liveStats/liveStats.dbml
 
Cornell game notes (PDF)
Nebraska Omaha game notes (PDF)
 
ABOUT THE BIG RED
Cornell's streak of five consecutive appearances in the ECAC Hockey Championship weekend came to a bitter end last season, when a late one-goal lead in Game 3 of quarterfinal series at top-seeded Quinnipiac ended in a double-overtime loss. Midseason struggles were well documented, but the Big Red was 7-1-1 over a nine-game span after sweeping Princeton in the first round of the playoffs and topping the No. 1-ranked Bobcats in the first game of the quarterfinals. Leading scorer Greg Miller has since graduated and signed professionally, but much of the team's core remains intact. The next four leading scorers from a season ago are returning for their junior years in front of incumbent starting goalie Andy Iles. Former ECAC Hockey and Ivy League Rookie of the Year Brian Ferlin was second on the team in scoring with 10 goals and 14 assists for 24 points. Four of his goals came in the playoffs, and he finished the season with 11 points over his final 10 games. Classmates Joel Lowry (12-11–23) and Joakim Ryan (3-20–23) were tied for third on the team in scoring, and John McCarron (7-12–19).
 
ABOUT NEBRASKA OMAHA
The Mavericks split the first two non-league series of their season against Bentley and Northern Michigan to carry a 2-2 record into this weekend's games with Cornell. Senior forward Ryan Walters leads the way in scoring with two goals and four assists for six points, coming off a season in which he finished second in the NCAA scoring race (22-30–52), was a Second Team West All-America honoree, and one of 10 finalists for the Hobey Baker Award. ... Eight different players have scored UNO's 13 goals this season. ... There are six NHL draft selections on the Mavericks' roster, including Pittsburgh Penguins draft pick Josh Archibald (2-2–4), who has primarily played on the opposite wing of Walters in the early going. ...  Freshman Kirk Thompson has started three of the team's four games in goal, posting a 2-1 record, 2.70 goals-against average and .901 save percentage.
 
EARLY RETURNS
Cornell earned a 7-2 victory over York University last Saturday in its only preseason exhibition of the season. Forwards Cole Bardreau and Madison Dias had two goals and one assist apiece, and the Big Red was 4-for-9 on the power play. Both of Bardreau's goals came in the first period, with the first on a shorthanded breakaway set up by Dias. Sophomore forwards Teemu Tiitinen, John Knisley and Christian Hilbrich also scored goals to give Cornell a 5-0 lead after two periods, then Dias popped in his goals during the third period. The Big Red held a dominating 53-10 edge in shots on goal, with senior goalie Andy Iles making eight saves before yielding to freshman Mitch Gillam for the final 20 minutes. Cornell is now 17-1-3 in exhibitions since 2000.
 
LET'S GET IT STARTED
Cornell has an all-time record of 56-34-6 in season openers and will try to claim its third straight win in its season debut. Last season, Cornell claimed a 2-0 victory against visiting Colorado College behind a 19-save shutout from Andy Iles. Both of the Big Red's goals were scored on the power play by John Esposito, who has since graduated and now plays professionally in Austria. Under current head coach Mike Schafer, the Big Red is 11-6-1 in season openers.
 
IRON MAN
Andy Iles has started 70 consecutive games in goal for the Big Red, spanning all of the last two seasons and the final game of his freshman campaign. His 70 consecutive starts rank eighth in NCAA Division I history, leaving him 34 games a familiar leader. Cornell's Ben Scrivens holds the current record of 104 consecutive starts from 2006-10. Iles was one of just two goalies to be used exclusively by his team in 2011-12, with Minnesota's Kent Patterson being the other. By starting and finishing all of the Big Red's games that season, Iles became the first goalie at Cornell to accomplish that feat since Darren Eliot in 1982-83, and the first Cornell sophomore to do so since Laing Kennedy in 1960-61 — when the season was just 19 games long.
 
FEEL THE DRAFT?
Cornell has seven players on the roster who have been selected in the NHL Entry Draft, including one pick from last June. Freshman forward Matt Buckles became the first Cornellian to be selected by the Florida Panthers, when the NHL's southern-most team nabbed the Toronto native in the fourth round with the 98th overall selection. Other NHL draft picks on the team include defensemen Reece Willcox (Philadelphia Flyers), Joakim Ryan (San Jose Sharks) and Kirill Gotovets (Tampa Bay Lightning; has since been traded to the Chicago Blackhawks) and forwards John McCarron (Edmonton Oilers), Brian Ferlin (Boston Bruins) and Joel Lowry (Los Angeles Kings).
 
NO FREEBIES
The Big Red went the entire 2012-13 season without surrendering a shorthanded goal, with the last shorty against coming Jan. 28, 2012 by Colgate's Austin Smith. The last time Cornell went an entire season without yielding a shorthanded goal was the 2001-02 campaign, when it advanced all the way to the Frozen Four.
 
GLOBAL INFLUENCE
The Big Red has 15 players on the roster born in the United States, which is the highest total for a Mike Schafer-coached team at Cornell. Cornell also now has players native to seven different countries on its squad. Aside from the bulk of its roster hailing from the United States and Canada, Cornell also has a player from Belarus (Kirill Gotovets), Denmark (Christian Hilbrich), Finland (Teemu Tiitinen), Singapore (Dustin Mowrey) and South Africa (Armand de Swardt).
 
POLLS PROSE
The Big Red is 19th in the USCHO.com poll for a second straight week. Even though Cornell was out of both the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine and USCHO.com polls earlier this month, it still appeared in the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine poll a league-high 14 weeks during the 2012-13 regular season. Cornell held an 8-8-1 mark in games against teams in the Top 20 at the time of the games.
 
FOR THE RECORD
With three consecutive shutouts in November 2011, Andy Iles recorded the second-longest shutout streak in program history, spanning 213 minutes, 35 seconds over a five-game span. The only Cornell shutout streak that went longer was posted by Toronto Maple Leafs goalie Ben Scrivens, who held the opposition scoreless for 267:11 during the 2010 playoffs. But Iles wasn't done there — he posted back-to-back shutouts against St. Lawrence and Clarkson on Dec. 2 and Dec. 3, respectively, spurring a other lengthy shutout streak of 152:36 that ranks ninth all-time in Big Red history. His success has stretched into the postseason, as evidenced by a career-high 46 saves in a March 9 double-overtime victory against Dartmouth. Iles was third in the nation with six shutouts and 10th in goal-against average (2.12). He also set a record for longest streak in ECAC Hockey play of 286:54 from November 2011 to January 2012.
 
BLANK YOU VERY MUCH
Cornell has recorded at least one shutout in each of the last 18 seasons. The last time the Big Red went a full schedule without posting a shutout came during the 1994-95 season under former coach Brian McCutcheon, as Cornell finished that year 11-15-4. The following year marked the first season for current head coach Mike Schafer, and his clubs have never gone a full year without recording a shutout.
 
FIVE-ON-THREE PROWESS
There are few situations in hockey more dire than when your team is facing a two-man disadvantage, but the Big Red was impregnable in those scenarios last season. Cornell was a perfect 8-for-8 on the two-man disadvantage last season, spanning a total of 8 minutes, 18 seconds. The last time Cornell surrendered a five-on-three goal was against Yale on Feb. 11, 2012.
 
GOLDEN AGAIN
Junior forward Cole Bardreau won a gold medal while serving as an assistant captain for the United States at the 2013 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship in Ufa, Russia. He then scored a goal and added an assist in his first game back with the Big Red last weekend against Union. It wasn't the first time Bardreau's earned gold with the U.S. either — he also wore an "A" while capturing gold at the IIHF Under-18 World Championship in April 2011. Sophomore defenseman Joakim Ryan was also among the 45 players who started in camp for the United States before the roster was trimmed in advance of the World Junior championships.
 
MILESTONE WATCH
Already the winningest coach in program history, Mike Schafer needs just three more victories to eclipse 350 for his career — all of which have come from behind the Big Red's bench. There are currently 34 coaches all-time that have racked up 350 victories across all NCAA divisions, with four of them passing the milestone last season (Ferris State's Bob Daniels, Connecticut's Bruce Marshall, Notre Dame's Jim Jackson and Quinnipiac's Rand Pecknold). Schafer is bidding to become just the third coach to pass 350 victories with Ivy League tenure, joining Ned Harkness (Cornell, Union and Rensselaer) and Tim Taylor (Yale).
 
CLOSER TO HOME
Hometown fans of the Big Red got a rare treat when goalie Andy Iles became the first Ithaca native to play for the team since Mike Tallman in 1988-89. Forward Kevin Cole then made his collegiate debut in 2011, marking the first time in at least 50 years — and perhaps the first time in program history — that two Ithaca natives have played for the Big Red in the same season. Yet another Ithaca area connection came on board last season when the Big Red added 6-foot-4 defenseman Craig Esposito, who is also from Lansing and also competes on Cornell's men's golf team.
 
NOT JUST A DEFENSEMAN
Junior blueliner Joakim Ryan led the team with 20 assists last season and was tied for third in points with 23. He was also on the ice for 41 of the team's 83 goals, which ranked second on the team to only leading scorer Greg Miller (43). The production was nothing new to Ryan, who set a program record for goals by a freshman defenseman in 2011-12 with seven.
 
COLLECTING HARDWARE
While forward Cole Bardreau became the first Cornell player to earn gold with the U.S. at the IIHF World Junior Championships, goalie Andy Iles was the first to earn a medal with Team USA. Iles claimed bronze at the 2011 tournament in Buffalo, N.Y., with the only player before him to compete with the United States being goaltender Jean-Marc Pelletier in 1998.
 
INTERNATIONAL EXPOSURE
Junior Kirill Gotovets got a taste of the big time when he was selected to represent his native Belarus in the 2010 IIHF World Championships — not an age group World Championships (though he did play for Belarus at the U20 World Championship as well) — playing against some of the best players the world has to offer. He played in three of Belarus' eight games at the World Championships.
 
UP NEXT
The Big Red will return home to open ECAC Hockey play next weekend, with its Lynah debut coming at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 1 against Princeton. Cornell will then play host to national runnerup Quinnipiac at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2. The Big Red will then hit the road for its next four games at Clarkson, St. Lawrence, Rensselaer and Union.