ITHACA, N.Y. — The women's hockey team announced Tuesday its schedule for the upcoming season. The Big Red will play four of its first six games against other teams that qualified for the 2017 NCAA tournament, then it will enjoy a six-game home stand in January as it begins its push toward the postseason.

The full 2017-18 schedule can be found here.
 
Cornell's lone exhibition tune-up for the season is also particularly noteworthy, with the Big Red slated to host Shenzhen Vanke Red Star at 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 13 in the year's first game at Lynah Rink. Vanke Red Star is one of two China-based expansion teams starting up this season in the professional Canadian Women's Hockey League.
 
Cornell opens the regular season with familiar foes as it treks to the North Country for games against St. Lawrence and Clarkson on Friday, Oct. 27 and Saturday, Oct. 28, respectively. The opener vs. the Saints serves as a rematch of the Big Red's 3-1 victory in the ECAC Hockey semifinals in March, then the next day's matinee comes against a Golden Knights squad that eliminated Cornell in both the league finals and NCAA quarterfinals en route to a national championship.
 
The Big Red returns home for its next four, starting with a visit from 2016 ECAC Hockey champion Quinnipiac. At 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 4, Cornell hosts Princeton to give it meetings with the other three semifinalists from last year's ECAC Hockey championship weekend within its first four games of the new campaign. The stern test continues in Cornell's first non-league games the following weekend, when Wisconsin makes its first visit to Lynah Rink for 3 p.m. tilts on Friday, Nov. 10 and Saturday, Nov. 11. The Badgers — which won a pair of home games against Cornell last November — spent all of the season as the nation's top-ranked team until suffering a 3-0 loss to Clarkson in the national championship game.
 
After a quick Ivy League road trip to Brown and Yale the following weekend, Cornell plays its first-ever game against Penn State at 3 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 21 as part of a pre-Thanksgiving doubleheader with the men's program playing later that evening. Cornell then hits the road for a holiday weekend two-game set Nov. 25-26 at Providence before wrapping up the semester with a home-and-home against regional rival Colgate. The first game is at 6 p.m. Friday, Dec. 1 before shifting northeast to Hamilton for a rematch at 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 2. The Big Red eliminated the Raiders from the playoffs last season with a pair of one-goal victories in the ECAC Hockey quarterfinals.
 
The Big Red reconvenes for nine games in January, starting with a Jan. 5-6 trip to Princeton and Quinnipiac before a Tuesday night jaunt to Syracuse. A visit from Dartmouth on Friday, Jan. 12 kicks off a stretch of six straight at home, followed by a game against rival Harvard the following afternoon. The team's first look at Rensselaer and Union is Jan. 19-20, then Cornell closes out the home stand Jan. 26-27 against Clarkson and St. Lawrence.
 
A New England swing Feb. 2-3 takes Cornell to Harvard and Dartmouth before a return to Lynah at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 6 closes out the non-league schedule with a game against Syracuse. Yale comes to town three days later, and Senior Day will be staged at 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 10 against Brown. The regular season's final games are then slate for Feb. 16-17 at Union and RPI.