Cornell had reasserted its presence on the national stage with three wins in a four-game series against Boston University in the 2001-02 and 2002-03 seasons, a first overall seed in the 2003 NCAA Tournament, a run to the 2003 Frozen Four, and three Whitelaw Cups in eight years. Cornell was again among the nation's elite in college hockey. 

The 2003-04 season was not a suitable encore to the modern ascension of Cornell hockey. Cornell won fewer than 20 games after 25-win and 30-win seasons. Cornell did not earn a berth to the 2004 ECAC Championships at the Times Union Center. The most disheartening part of the 2003-04 season was the playoffs. Cornell hosted Clarkson the 2004 ECAC Tournament. The Golden Knights left Lynah Rink with a victory in the series. The visitors had wrested from hostile Lynah Rink two wins in a three-game series. Cornell had not lost a playoff series at Lynah Rink during the Schafer Era.

Cornell begins each season with the expectation that it will compete for the Whitelaw Cup in March. Cornell fell far from that goal in the 2004 ECAC Tournament. The 2004-05 team felt compelled to ensure that all the progress that had been gained in the previous nine seasons was neither lost nor forgotten.

Mike Knoepfli was tapped to wear the captain's C for the 2004-05 season. The roster he would help Schafer helm included 12 veterans who had helped Cornell win its tenth Whitelaw Cup in 2003. A talented sophomore squad had experienced defeat in its first season. That second-year core included Byron Bitz, Mitch Carefoot, Dan Glover, Kevin McLeod, Mark McCutcheon, Ryan O'Byrne, and Evan Samela. The Big Red reloaded with incoming freshmen Troy Davenport, Doug Krantz, Matt McKeown, Sasha Pokulok, Ryan Sawada, and Topher Scott.

Dave LeNeveu had departed Cornell early after the 2002-03 season. Texan Dave McKee was entrusted with defending Cornell's pipes in his freshman season of 2003-04 season. McKee saw gametime in all of Cornell's games during that season. The first-year goaltender performed well in a starting goal. His defense and he earned a goals-against average of 1.84. McKee managed to produce a save percentage of 0.920 in his first season for Cornell. His performance was one glimmer of hope from a season that seemed mired in pessimism.

Another highlight of the 2003-04 season was the emergence of a freshman of the 2002-03 campaign as a dependable and durable scorer. Matt Moulson emerged as the leading point tallier of the 2003-04 season. A position that he would not relinquish until the completion of his four-year career at Cornell. Moulson totaled 35 points with 18 goals during his sophomore seasons. Four of his 18 goals decided the outcome of the game. This prowess and his burgeoning leadership of the Red squad made the prospects of a Big Red recovery in the 2004-05 season seem more likely.

Various media outlets predicted that Dartmouth would be among the elite in the ECAC during the 2004-05 season. Nearly as many of those followers of the Conference believed that Colgate would be perched atop the league standings with the New-Hampshire Ivy. The Raiders of Colgate had claimed the ECAC's regular-season title during the 2003-04 season. Colgate exited the 2004 ECAC Tournament in a semifinal contest against eventual champion Clarkson. Dartmouth had not returned to the title game of the ECAC Tournament since the insurgent 1979-80 Cornell team upended the Big Red at Boston Garden.

Cornell was given a modicum of respect in most preseason polls. The Big Red, despite its early postseason exit a few months before, was chosen by a small few as the team to beat within the ECAC. The preseason favorites of Colgate and Dartmouth were far from the usual teams suspected to compete for a Whitelaw Cup.

The schedule of the 2004-05 season gave Cornell few out-of-conference contests by which to measure its standing among the nation's elite. The Big Red would host Army, Sacred Heart, and Canisius while the skaters of East Hill would travel to Munn Ice Arena in East Lansing, MI. The field of the Florida College Classic included Boston College, Cornell, Maine, and St. Cloud State.

Cornell opened the regular season with contests against Army and Sacred Heart. Cornell hosted the Atlantic Hockey foes in consecutive nights. The Big Red beat each by identical scores of 7-1. The first contest of Cornell's ECAC slate was against Harvard. The Lynah Faithful would welcome the Crimson on the first weekend of November 2004.

The serenade of "zero offense" that deluged the Harvard Crimson when they visited Lynah Rink captured the flow of the first regular-season meeting between the rivals. Harvard spent most of the contest trapped in its own end. The stereotype of Cornell players as hulking but slow had become ubiquitous among ECAC fans and followers. The size and physicality that had become hallmarks of Cornell teams from the early 2000s kept the faster Cantabs at bay.

Dave McKee was challenged only 17 times in the entire contest. His play in the first conference game of the regular season was stellar. He recorded a shutout that evening. The game was not decided with the teams at even strength. Special teams controlled the evening. Mitch Carefoot and captain Mike Knoepfli connected from behind to in front of the Crimson net for a shorthanded goal. Ryan O’Byrne then shot a beautiful one-timer on one of Cornell's power-play opportunities to give the Big Red an early season 2-1 victory over Harvard.

The next evening Cornell obliterated the Bears of Brown University by a 7-2 margin. Cornell's lone out-of-conference road test was next on the Big Red's slate. The contest that awaited the traveling Cornellians was one between the land-grant institution of New York and that of Michigan.

Cornell and Michigan State would square off for a two-game series. Michigan State was known for its propensity for high-paced offense that season. The outcome of the series likely would depend upon the ability of Cornell to dominate the Spartans on their home ice. Cornell was unable to hem Michigan State in its own end.

The first game devolved into a shooting gallery. Cornell's netminder saw 12 shots in the first period of play. The Spartans scored in the first period. Doug Krantz responded in the second period for Cornell in what was his first collegiate tally. Michigan State continued to dominate the game. It would remain deadlock. McKee needed to make 36 saves to keep Cornell in the game and the result deadlock. He did so successfully.

Cornell got a much needed rest day between the first and second game of the series. It was to no avail. Cornell was unable to muster even as much offense as it had in the first game of the series. The Big Red returned East with a tie and a 2-0 loss against Michigan State. The Eastern Timezone was no more welcoming. The early season slide of Cornell continued. Cornell was held winless against Vermont and Dartmouth with a tie and an overtime loss respectively.

Cornell gained a slight confidence boost with a 3-0 shutout of Canisius College at Lynah Rink. The last two games of the first half of the season had the Cornellians play host to Ivy-League foes Yale and Princeton. The Big Red won the weekend with a combined margin of victory over the Bulldogs and Tigers of 11 goals to five goals.

The season had begun to take a turn for the better. Many began to believe that an inflection point had been found and passed. Cornell would put this to the test in the Florida College Classic. The Big Red was honored with the the rank of ninth in the nation before it headed South of the Mason-Dixon Line. Boston College, Cornell's first opponent in Estero, was ranked fifth in the nation.

The clash between the Eagles who were removed just four seasons from a national-title performance witnessed 20 penalties between Boston College and Cornell. The Eagles won the special-teams battle. Boston College converted on three power-play opportunities. It used those openings to secure a 4-2 victory over Cornell. The taste of loss did not last long in the mouths of the Red skaters. Cornell regrouped in the next game against Maine. The ninth-ranked Cornell bested the 15th-ranked Maine with a 4-3 final score.

A majority of the regular season in ECAC competition awaited Cornell. The Big Red would begin the stretch to the playoffs against Brown and Harvard. Cornell dominated the Bears for the second time in the 2004-05 season. The Big Red's 4-2 victory was not quite the 7-2 thrashing that Cornell had given Brown at Lynah earlier in the season, but it was commanding in its own regard.

Harvard was in a state of transition during the 2004-05 season. Alumnus Ted Donato had taken the reins of the Crimson at the beginning of the season. Hopes ran high. Donato and his staff began to rationalize Harvard's lack of success during its early trip through Central New York as an inevitable product of Harvard's players adapting to a new system in Cambridge. Harvard viewed the Cornell-Harvard game at Bright Hockey Center as a chance for self-preservation. Mike Schafer and his Cornell teams never missed a chance to defeat Cornell's most reviled opponent.

The Cornell-Harvard clash became a duel of netminders. McKee was firm behind Cornell's blue line. Grumet-Morris defended Harvard's net despite a crowd whose partisanship arced in favor of Red rather than Crimson. Penalties that favored Harvard early in the game deflated Cornell. The Crimson did not convert on any of its power-play opportunities. Nonetheless, Schafer attributed the Big Red's apparent lack of offensive flow in the game to the lapse of time between Harvard's first power play and Cornell's opportunity with a man advantage. One tally would make the difference.

Somewhat paradoxically Cornell had found itself on the wrong side of a 1-0 shutout in a goalie duel. No volume of apologies that anyone on East Hill or who followed the team proffered could numb the sting of losing a one-goal shutout to Harvard at Bright Hockey Center. The January 2005 game provided a much-needed wake-up call to the 2004-05 squad. It was the inflection point of the season.

What happened next in the season cannot be captured in the events of one game. What happened next defined the 2004-05 season. The loss to Harvard impelled Cornell to a level of dominance that no team since Cornell's 1969-70 team had enjoyed. Cornell would be unbeaten in all of its remaining ECAC contests.

The streak started in earnest. Cornell found itself tied with Union College headed into overtime at Messa Rink. Matt Moulson had answered a first-period goal from the Dutchmen. Cornell had not been able to close Union out in the last 24:16 of regulation. Three minutes of overtime expired. Then, Mike Iggulden of the Big Red solved Union's Kris Mayotte with 1:52 remaining in the contest. RPI would not be granted as kind a fate the next evening. Cornell deconstructed the Engineers in a 5-0 shutout at Houston Field House.

The Lynah Faithful and the Big Red would face preseason favorite Dartmouth at Lynah Rink next. The Big Green had fallen from grace somewhat. It was among the top of the ECAC contenders, but it was not the clear favorite. Cornell refused to underestimate the rural Ivy and granted its skaters no quarter. Cornell won 3-1.

The 2004-05 team continued to roll. Cornell recorded wins against Vermont, Clarkson, and St. Lawrence before its next key contest. Six wins distanced Cornell from the sting of its loss outside of Boston. The next challenge was Colgate. The Raiders had proven to be as good as advertised. Many Conference opponents had suffered in Central New York at the hands of the dominance of Don Vaughan's Raiders and Mike Schafer's Big Red. The teams of both would now battle.

Cornell won the first contest as Mike Iggulden scored the lone goal. Cornell's committed defense and Dave McKee preserved a late one-goal lead for victory. The shutout was McKee's fifth of the season. The next evening Cornell did not wait for the third period to strike. Byron Bitz opened scoring against the Raiders less than ten minutes into the game. Cornell jumped to a 2-1 lead later in the second period behind a goal from Daniel Pegoraro. Colgate knotted the game in the first minute of the third period. The regional rivals would settle for a draw. It was the first time in eight contests that Cornell settled for a result less than a win.

The streak did not end. The Big Red had performed well against the elite of the ECAC in the 2004-05 season. Cornell had taken three points from Colgate, split with Harvard, and split with Dartmouth. Half of the month of February came and went. The playoffs were approaching. Cornell could not be stopped. The Red skaters amassed six mores wins before the close of the regular season. Half of those victories were shutouts. Cornell dominated its opponents with scoring 23 goals to its opponents's five goals over that six-game span.

Cornell's active unbeaten streak headed into the 2005 ECAC Tournament stood at 14 games. The momentum of such an unstoppable performance catapulted the Big Red to the first seed in the 2005 ECAC Tournament. The first seed included with it recognition as the Conference's regular-season titleholder. That was of no mind to the 2004-05 team. A bye week separated Cornell from beginning the 2005 postseason at Lynah Rink.

The field of the first round sorted itself. Clarkson was the only team that began on the road that advanced. The success of the Golden Knights granted them the opportunity to seek a ticket to the Times Union Center in Ithaca. Clarkson had given Cornell a far greater gift. The 2004-05 team could avenge the elimination at Lynah Rink that the Golden Knights made the Red skaters suffer a year ago. Revenge may not have been a goal of this postseason, but it would sweeten the run.

Cornell showed no signs of rust after a bye week. Captain Mike Knoepfli led the charge with a shorthanded goal in the first period of the series. Byron Bitz matched his tally before the first period expired. The third period saw Bitz add a second goal after Shane Hynes and Mike Iggulden registered markers for Cornell. The Golden Knights switched goaltenders while Dave McKee delivered a shutout in the opener of the 2005 playoffs.

Cornell had beaten Clarkson by a margin of 5-1 in the opening contest of the 2004 ECAC Tournament. The Big Red went on to lose that series. Schafer needed to ensure that no similar lag plagued Cornell in the second game of the three-game series in the 2005 ECAC Quarterfinals. The beginning of the second game did not bode well. It appeared as though Lynah Rink would host a game three.

The Big Red seemed moribund early in the game two. Clarkson capitalized on this opening. Cornell was unable to stave off the Golden Knights's advances and had taken a 1-0 lead before two minutes had expired in game two. Images of the series a year before began to race through the minds of the sophomores, juniors, and seniors on the 2004-05 team.

An interference penalty gave Cornell the chance that it desired. Topher Scott and Matt Moulson found Shane Hynes on the resultant power play. Hynes tickled the twine just over two minutes after Clarkson had jumped to a 1-0 lead. The Golden Knights were unrelenting. Clarkson forwards connected on stretch passes down the ice at 11:22 of the first period. David Cayer helped Cornell regain the lead. The teams returned to their locker rooms for the first intermission. The horror of being eliminated on home ice again crept into the locker room.

Clarkson continued to press to extend its lead. Terrific performances from defensemen including Jeremy Downs helped keep Cornell's deficit to one goal. The Big Red bided its time in this manner for nearly half of the second period. An opening appeared when Hynes saw open ice and telegraphed the puck to Moulson who was rushing down ice. Moulson gained the zone. He cut across the right face-off circle and challenged Clarkson's Dustin Traylen in the blue paint. The junior forward guided the puck around the netminder and released it into an empty net. Moulson's 21st goal of the season had tied the game.

The game remained tied for the last half of the second period. Clarkson struck one of McKee's posts midway through the third period. The Lynah Faithful breathed a sign of relief as the sounds of struck iron resonated through the hallowed rafters. The inability of either time to convert in the last ten minutes of regulation sent the game to overtime. Both teams were in a 2-2 deadlock.

The second game of the Cornell-Clarkson playoff series would continue until a winner was known. Both teams needed a hero. The game was decided after more than ten minutes had expired in overtime. Raymond Sawada was working behind the Clarkson net. The threat of Sawada drew Clarkson defenders. Freshman Topher Scott saw an opening in Clarkson's defense. Scott occupied the spot just inside the left face-off circle. Sawada maneuvered to make a tough-angle pass to Scott. The Illinois native lasered an elevated one-timer over Clarkson's goaltender and diving Golden Knight defensemen. Topher Scott sent his team to Albany to seek Cornell's 11th Whitelaw Cup.

Cornell played the Catamounts of Vermont in the first semifinal game at the Times Union Center. Topher Scott showed quickly that his scoring touch was not limited to overtime games. Just over six minutes remained in the first period before the freshman struck. Cornell took a 1-0 lead at the 13:22 mark of the first period. It was the only goal scored during the first period.

Solid defense especially that played by seniors Charlie Cook and Jeremy Downs of Cornell ensured that Vermont did not benefit from the opportunity to get back into the game. McKee remarked after the game "we got the first goal and the guys shut them down. Our PK did an incredible job. They only had a couple of shots on their power plays." The Catamounts languished in an ensnaring web of Red on special teams while Cornell relied upon them to win the contest. Charlie Cook chipped in a helper for Matt Moulson on the power play to put Cornell up 2-0. The contest was out-of-reach for Vermont. Chris Abbott added an empty-net goal that sent Cornell to the 2005 ECAC Championship Final.

The Lynah Faithful stayed in the Times Union Center after their beloved team had advanced. The throngs of Faithful heckled both Colgate and Harvard in the other semifinal match-up. The arena in Albany was filled with chants of "safety school," "grade inflation," and "where are your fans?" while the maroon and Crimson grappled to see which would have the right to challenge Cornell. Colgate sought its second while Harvard sought its eighth Whitelaw Cup.

Matt Moulson remarked after the 2005 ECAC Championship Semifinal that the game was a demonstration of Cornell hockey. "Getting a lead is the strength of our team. Getting up by one or two goals and wearing teams down. When you've got Dave back there making saves like he does, being ahead gives us a ton of confidence." The junior's statements captured accurately the style of all Cornell teams under Mike Schafer. Cornell hoped to do the same against Harvard the next evening.

A crowd of 8,637 descended upon the Times Union Center to watch the historic powers of the ECAC battle for the Whitelaw Cup. The ideal game that Cornell hoped to play passed by the wayside in the first period. The Crimson solved McKee with 1:37 lingering before the first intermission. Dylan Reese of Harvard had denied Cornell the ability to get an early lead, defend it, and add to it while time expired. Harvard had taken Cornell out of its game.

The Big Red was undaunted. Cornell retook the ice with determination. Harvard was awarded a power play that could have been fatal early in the second period. The penalty-killing unit from East Hill made no mistake in killing off the Crimson's power play. The carnelian-and-white-clad penalty killers knew that the game was at stake.

The final seconds of the penalty ticked away. Frantically, the Crimson unleashed one last shot on the power play. Paul Varteressian dove to block Harvard's last power-play challenge. The puck rebounded off of Varteressian's extended body. Daniel Pegoraro collected the puck as it rolled to him as he was leaving the penalty box. Varteressian picked himself up from the ice and met Pegoraro as they raced down the ice. The two created a rare two-on-one opportunity against the Crimson. Pegoraro passed the puck to Varteressian in the Crimson's zone. Varteressian deposited the puck behind Grumet-Morris.

Cornell was back in the game. The game would soon belong to Cornell. Ted Donato reflected "their first goal killed us...from that point forward, they really took the play to us for the rest of the game." Harvard committed a penalty 27 seconds later. Cornell's power-play unit owned the best power-play conversion rate in the nation. The Big Red was not going to spare Harvard of the fate that so many other teams had suffered.

It took Cornell less than 30 seconds. Charlie Cook sent the Lynah Faithful and his teammates into a frenzy when he blasted the puck into Harvard's net. Cook had become known as "Mr. Textbook," a name that Mike Schafer had given him. Schafer stated that the name was befitting because Cook "pays attention to detail more than any other athlete I've had" and does everything as it should be done. The assistant captain and defenseman proved that. There is nothing more archetypically Cornellian than lifting the Big Red overs its most hated foe in the ECAC Championship title game.

The Cornell bench was energized. The Lynah Faithful were more zealous than usual. Images of hoisting the Whitelaw Cup two years before began to go through the minds of players and fans alike. Harvard was deflating. A task remained at hand.

The complexion of the game became decidedly Red. Harvard did not again challenge Cornell physically. Harvard's offensive efforts were lackluster and poorly executed. Harvard was not playing as a Crimson squad should in the ECAC Championship Final. Cornell had beaten its archrival into submission. One goal would be all that Harvard would score. Charlie Cook would score more on the evening as he added a power-play goal before the game expired.

Cornell defeated Harvard behind two goals from Charlie Cook and a game-changing effort from Daniel Pegoraro and Paul Varteressian. It was the fourth time in Cornell hockey history that the carnelian and white defeated the Crimson for an ECAC Championship. Mike Schafer claimed his fourth Whitelaw Cup and brought Cornell its 11th ECAC Championship. The 2004-05 team behind the senior leadership of Charlie Cook, Jeremy Downs, Mike Iggulden, Mike Knoepfli and Paul Varteressian brought Cornell its second championship in three postseasons after a disappointing junior campaign.

Cornell outscored its opponents 13 goals to three goals during the 2005 ECAC Tournament. Charlie Cook's first goal in a two-goal effort stood as the deciding and championship-winning tally against Harvard in the 2005 ECAC Championship Final. Dave McKee produced a goals-against average of 0.75 and a save percentage of 0.970 over the course of the 2005 ECAC Tournament. Cornell ensured that it would not wait as long for its 11th ECAC Championship as it had its tenth.

The seeds of greatest victory are sowed often in the despair of gravest defeat.

Those wearing the white jerseys of Cornell breathed a deep sigh. The game had lingered on for over half a game's length beyond regulation. The size of the Olympic sheet at Herb Brooks Arena had begun to take its toll in the two overtime periods. The opponent was a familiar and despised one: Harvard. The Big Red and the Crimson were in pitched battle for nearly five periods for what would be Cornell's tenth or Harvard's sixth Whitelaw Cup.

Cornell had endured a suspect call at the close of the first overtime when junior defenseman Doug Murray was whistled for a an alleged roughing penalty. An irritated Cornell squad weathered that storm. That is how it arrived late in the second overtime to battle for Cornell's third ECAC Championship in six years. Cornell had been denied one year before when the St. Lawrence Saints bested the Big Red in the 2001 ECAC Championship Final. The Crimson would do the same this evening.

Harvard's Tyler Kolarik let loose a shot at 16:11 of the second overtime that beat Cornell's Matt Underhill. That goal erased Cornell's hope of winning its tenth ECAC Championship that evening. As the Crimson celebrated at Herb Brooks Arena, Cornell prepared. It prepared not just for the coming NCAA Tournament, but for revenge against its most hated foe and redemption in the 2003 ECAC Tournament.

These passions drove the 2002-03 Cornell team. The team decided that having climbed so high and been denied that they must do more. In an era when NHL development camps did not exist, most of the 2002-03 squad remained on East Hill for the summer to prepare for a championship season; not just of the ECAC variety.

Talented veterans including Stephen Bâby, Mike Iggulden, Mike Knoepfli, Mark McRae, Matt McRae, Doug Murray, Sam Paolini, and Ryan Vesce led this drive for Cornell to secure postseason success. Promising freshmen including Cam Abbott, Chris Abbott, Jon Gleed, Shane Hynes, and Matt Moulson would need to perform to bolster this effort. Starting goaltender Matt Underhill graduated. The Big Red now would need to rely on sophomore Dave LeNeveu to fill that void. LeNeveu had seen time in 14 games during his 2001-02 freshman campaign.

These players knew as they logged time preparing for the season on East Hill that the team that carried Cornell to its second consecutive appearance in the ECAC Championship Final game returned. Eight of Cornell's top-ten scorers from the previous championship-game run returned. The lone departures were Denis Ladouceur and Kryztoff Wieckowski who had registered at sixth and seventh in terms of offensive production during the 2001-02 season. Dave LeNeveu received an unexpected vote of confidence in August when the Canadian Junior National Development Camp invited him to attend. The players would have the potential, but they needed to put that residuary into kinetic results.

The first test of the season would be against the Buckeyes of Ohio State. Schafer would lead his Red skaters into CCHA territory for the beginning of the season. There they would confront a talented roster that Cornell alumnus Casey Jones recruited for the scarlet and gray. The Buckeyes had played in five previous games. They had been victorious in three of them. This was Cornell's first contest of the 2002-03 season.

Few Buckeye leaves were awarded that evening. LeNeveu was solid in helping Cornell defend a one-goal lead late in the third period. Sophomore forward Mike Knoepfli and freshman forward Chris Abbott found the back of the net. The former would add an empty-net tally to give Cornell a final margin of 3-1 over Ohio State.

Cornell returned East to host a weekend of ECAC clashes at Lynah Rink. The Big Red convincingly defeated its Ivy-League foes the Bulldogs and the Tigers. Cornell outscored its opponents over its first three Conference meetings by a margin of 17 to two. The focus of the season was redemption. Cornell wanted to make Harvard pay for depriving Cornell of its tenth Whitelaw Cup at the end of an otherwise storybook season.

Dartmouth stood as the lone test between an 8-0 victory over Vermont and a rematch against the Crimson. The Big Green gave Cornell one of its lone blemishes on the season. Dartmouth bested the Red 5-2 at Thompson Arena. This loss represented one of the few early seasons disappointments of the 2002-03 season.

Cornell had fallen to eighth in the nation. It would host Harvard at Lynah Rink for the first meeting of the archrivals. The Crimson carried with them the rank of 15th in the nation. The 2002-03 team craved revenge and it wanted to exact it in front of the rabid Lynah Faithful.

The Faithful would not need to wait five periods for a decision. The ancient foes exchanged blows in the first period. Mark McRae lifted Cornell to a lead when he beat Harvard's netminder through a screen. Harvard's Dominic Moore helped the Crimson claw back into the game less than three minutes later. Senior captain Doug Murray had an answer before the first stanza expired. He stepped up from the blue line and unleashed a potent slapshot that put Cornell back on top.

Hornby and Iggulden connected on an opportunistic breakaway. Shane Palahicky and Cam Abbott joined the Red rush in the second period. Both added goals. Harvard had only one lone response. Cornell entered the third period with a 5-2 margin in its favor. This was despite a second period in which the Cantabs outshot the Ithacans by a margin of 12 to five. The determined Big Red converted on three of its five shots in the second period.

Cornell had more than turned the corner on its loathsome foe. As was typical of Schafer-coached teams for seven years, Cornell defended the lead. Harvard had little chance to fight its way back into the contest. The players and coaches in the locker room knew that Cornell had taken a mere step toward its goal. Cornell obliterated the Brown Bears the next evening 5-0. A glimmer of another key contest gleamed on the horizon.

The beginning of the Schafer Era of Cornell hockey saw a marked improvement in the quality of out-of-conference opponents that Cornell could schedule in a given season. The respectable performance of Cornell at Michigan during the 1996-97 season as well as its admirable showings in the 1996, 1997, and 2002 NCAA Tournaments had earned the respect of most in the college-hockey world. One corner of the college-hockey world still was incredulous about the level of play that was on display regularly during the Winter months on East Hill. That corner was Cornell. That was about to chamge.

The Boston University-Cornell series during the 2002-03 season, much like the series between Cornell and Harvard in the same season, cannot be understood without looking back to the 2001-02 season. The previous meeting between the Big Red and Terriers before the 2001-02 season was a one-game meeting during Mike Schafer's freshman season behind the bench. That contest was decisive. Boston University demolished Cornell by a 7-1 margin.

The reignition of the heated rivalry between the historic foes and one-time archrivals would prove a suitable barometer for measuring how far Cornell had climbed in six years. Walter Brown Arena hosted the first two games of a four-game, home-and-home series between Boston University and Cornell. The Terriers were just six years removed from their fourth national title. Cornell had stumbled before the Schafer Era but was seeking to regain its footing. The Big Red's legendary nemesis had maintained its status as among the national elite. The Terriers represented a historic power that remained elite. The first game at Walter Brown Arena went as many had expected including many in the locker room on East Hill.

Cornell scored the first two goals of the contest. However, the offensive outburst of the Terriers in the second and third periods overwhelmed the traveling Red. Boston University tallied a win in November 2001. The final score was 5-3.

The second night went quite differently. Boston University pounced early. The Terriers owned a two-goal lead by the time the first intermission arrived. Then something changed. Matt McRae buoyed Cornell with two goals in the second period. The Terriers had no response in their historic barn that had known so many heroes of the game. That night the heroes wore carnelian, not scarlet. Doug Murray joined the scoring with a power-play goal in the third period. The final margin was extended with an empty-net goal from Kryztoff Wieckowski.

The meeting between the Big Red and Terriers during the 2002-03 season came just over a year after the 2001-02 season. Cornell had toppled the fifth-ranked Boston University in the 2001-02 season and claimed a split at Walter Brown Arena. The boost in the program's confidence was instantly apparent. However, Cornell had proven merely that it could compete with the best, not that it was among the best in college hockey again.

It was Cornell that held the higher national ranking in the 2002-03 meeting. Cornell hosted Boston University as the seventh-best team in the nation. The Terriers were recognized as the 11th-best team. A Cornell team had not beaten Boston University at Lynah Rink in 14 years. The 2002-03 team was determined to make a statement. The question remained how emphatic it would be.

Upstate New York native Sam Paolini showed that his proclivity for dominance extended to all rivalry series. Paolini notched three points with a goal in the first period to set the tone of the series. Dave LeNeveu was needed to hold off the Terriers in the first period. The Boston natives controlled the flow of the game and outshot the Big Red by a margin greater than two to one. The Big Red retained a 3-0 lead after the first period of the series. Matt Moulson and Shane Hynes added the additional tallies.

The game had 40 minutes remaining but it was effectively over. A goal for the Terriers midway through the second period and an empty-net goal for Cornell sent the historic enemies into the second game of the series. The second game of the 2002-03 series between the Big Red and Terriers took place during the afternoon of December 1, 2002.

The game was much like its immediate predecessor. Cornell performed at Lynah Rink very much unlike how Boston University competed at Walter Brown Arena in the closing game of the previous season's series. The first period mirrored that of the first game of the 2002-03 series. Cornell controlled a 3-0 lead at the first intermission. Shane Hynes, Jeremy Downs, and captain Stephen Bâby contributed the tallies. Boston University had little chance to reenter the game. Cornell was relentless.

Cornell controlled play. The Big Red physically dominated the Bay Staters who seemed pushed into submission. Red skaters added a goal in each of the remaining periods. Cam Abbott connected with Greg Hornby to extend Cornell's lead to a 4-0 differential. Mike Knoepfli was the last player to convert in the series.

Cornell defeated Boston University 5-1 that afternoon at Lynah Rink. Cornell had taken three of four games out of an elite opponent over the course of two seasons. The Big Red outscored the Terriers nine goals to two goals in the 2002-03 series. Dave LeNeveu preserved a save percentage of 0.962 against some of the best scorers in college hockey. Legendary head coach Jack Parker remarked upon departing from Lynah Rink that Winter that Cornell against Boston University in the series "was like men against boys."

The imputed value of greatest importance was not from Boston. The series between the one-time archnemeses proved something more to Cornell. Mike Schafer would remark after the series that it was the modern turning point for Cornell hockey. It was the moment that Cornell arrived again on the national college-hockey scene. Schafer commented how important the four-game series was to Cornell hockey. Schafer later described the experience "we walked in and we got a split on Boston University on the road. They were number two in the country. We were number eight. We walked into their home ice surface and we split with them. We came back the following year. We beat them here badly; two games in a row. Our team knew at that point in time, it’s been there ever since, that we could beat anybody at any time or any place.”

Those involved with Cornell hockey most importantly had proven to themselves that Cornell was again among the elite echelon of college hockey. This lesson persists today within the institution that is Cornell hockey. However, the task at hand for the 2002-03 season was incomplete.

Cornell controlled a series on the road against Western Michigan. The next contests for the Big Red would be at the Florida College Classic in Estero, FL. Cornell dropped the opening game to cohost Maine. The next day, the Big Red suffered another loss at the hands of Ohio State in the second meeting with the Buckeyes during the regular season. When ECAC play recommenced, Cornell accumulated a 9-1-1 record. The lone loss was an overtime loss to Colgate. Brown forced Cornell to settle for a tie. The last circled game on the Big Red's schedule was at Bright Hockey Center in mid-February.

Cornell still wanted to exact revenge against its modern rival despite having decimated its classic foe. The crowd at Bright Hockey Center in February 2003 was as partisan in favor of Cornell as it had been during the Schafer Era. It was Lynah East. The venue was not the only character in this meeting. Many of the figures in the Cornell-Harvard series of the 2002-03 season had begun to assume status as legends in the program. One such figure was Sam Paolini.

Sam Paolini hailed from Rochester, NY. He dreamt of playing for Cornell during his young adulthood. He was not recruited to play for the Big Red. He contacted Mike Schafer and the coaching staff expressing his desire to play for the program. The Rochesterian gained admittance to Cornell University without recruitment as a student-athlete. He pursued becoming a genuine walk-on, a nearly unheard of feat at an Ivy-League institution. His work ethic and resolve so impressed the hard-working Mike Schafer that he added Paolini to the Big Red roster for his freshman season. Schafer later joked that Paolini had "talked his way onto the team. We told him that if he worked hard, we’d keep him."

This story would be sufficient for most to gain legendary status. It is far from the complete story in the career of Sam Paolini. Paolini chose to wear the jersey number 25 of Cornell legend Joe Nieuwendyk. Paolini discovered his own way of bearing the weight and honoring the legacy of that number. He became the first Crimson Killer.

Sam Paolini developed an uncanny knack for scoring crucial goals against Cornell's most hated foe. He averaged 1.31 points per game and 0.69 goals per game when playing the Crimson. Each represents a performance increase of 170% and 216% respectively over his average offensive production. The title of Crimson Killer was rightfully his and no time was it truer than during the last months of his senior season.

Cornell had earned the respect of many and was ranked second in the nation by the time Cornell and Harvard met for the second time in the regular season. Harvard committed a penalty less than 20 seconds into the contest. As had become common, Doug Murray made the Cantabs pay on the power play with Ryan Vesce redirecting the puck to open scoring. Cornell opened the lead on another power-play opportunity when it was the Crimson Killer, Paolini, who ushered the puck past Grumet-Morris from a shot from Stephen Bâby.

Cornell went to its locker room with the same 3-0 lead that had seen it victorious in both games against Boston University. It took the Crimson more than half of the second period to ruin Dave LeNeveu's chance at a shutout. LeNeveu was resilient after that tally, but Harvard continued to press Cornell. Less than five minutes later, Cornell's lead had been whittled down to one goal. Cornell would not be held scoreless in the second period.

Stephen Bâby muscled his way around the net and let loose a blast. Vesce and he exchanged chances on the rebounds, but it was the former who gave Cornell its fourth tally. Cornell had reclaimed a two-goal lead with 40 minutes remaining in the game. Harvard's last gasp of life came early in the third period. The margin stood at 4-3. Cornell's defensemen and Dave LeNeveu held fast. Cornell claimed a regular-season sweep of the Crimson.

The time for which this Cornell team had waited laid just ahead of it. The Big Red accumulated four more wins in the regular season. Cornell had secured the first seed in the 2003 ECAC Tournament. Harvard had garnered the second seed. The only time that the two rivals could meet would be in the championship game. The 2002-03 team all but hoped for that outcome.

Cornell hosted RPI in the quarterfinals. The 2002-03 team would enjoy a bye week before the first series of the playoffs. The ECAC had adopted a new format for the 2003 postseason: all teams made the playoffs while the top-four seeds earned a bye from the first round of play. The Engineers had earned the right to play at Lynah Rink with a sweep of Capital-District rival Union College. Cornell had outscored the Engineers four to one in the regular season en route to a regular-season sweep. RPI would not fair much better in the 2003 ECAC Quarterfinals.

Ryan Vesce opened scoring for Cornell 3:27 into the series. Matt Moulson and Charlie Cook expanded that lead. RPI never caught the Big Red in the entirety of the series. Ryan Vesce, Mike Knoepfli, Cam Abbott, and Shane Hynes scored in the second game while Dave LeNeveu was putting on a shut-out performance. Cornell advanced to the ECAC Championships with 3-2 and 4-0 wins. Cornell swept RPI. Harvard swept Vermont.

The air of destiny had begun to return to the Lynah Faithful like it had during the 2002 postseason. This time the team was committed to ensure that it brought a championship back to East Hill. No opponent could deny the Big Red, especially its archrival. Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, and Harvard traveled to the Times Union Center in Albany, NY.

Cornell met the Brown Bears. The Crimson would duel with the Big Green. The Bears were one of five teams during the 2002-03 regular season that denied Cornell a victory. Cornell mustered only a win and a tie against Brown. Cornell would not be denied. The first period witnessed six penalties divided evenly between the teams. Neither team converted. Brown held tough but Cornell had battled to a 1-0 lead by the time the second period expired. Shane Palahicky, Mark McRae, and Travis Bell connected for Bell to wrist a shot past Brown's netminder. The 2-0 margin would hold. Cornell and LeNeveu would earn its second shutout of the 2003 ECAC Tournament.

Harvard had defeated Dartmouth in the other semifinal match-up in a game that saw eight goals scored. The 2003 ECAC Championship Final would be a rematch of the 2002 ECAC Championship Final. Cornell's 2002-03 team got the chance for which it had waited one year. Cornell could exact revenge against its greatest rival.

Sam Paolini remarked about the rematch in the 2003 ECAC Championship Final that "the loss was definitely the driving force going into this year. It’s always Harvard and us, and we felt we had to win the ECAC title to prove something. I know that loss changed my hunger for a championship." Mike Schafer echoed the sentiments of his entire team "we’ve been disheartened from last year to this year and we’ve carried that will and focus for 365 days." Cornell had gotten its chance to redeem itself from utter disappointment from a year prior. Redemption seemed to lay just 60 minutes away.

Nearly 1,800 more fans made the pilgrimage to the Times Union Center for the rematch than had to Herb Brooks Arena in 2002. The crowd of 8,296 was decidedly dominated by the Lynah Faithful. Emotions and tensions ran high for both squads. Harvard was whistled for holding less than one minute into the game.

The dominant power-play unit from Cornell took to the ice. Its mission was apparent. Stephen Bâby found an open patch of ice and a lane to Grumet-Morris. Sam Paolini redirected the shot into the net. The arena erupted as Cornell took the lead less than two minutes into the title game.

The game took a dramatic shift. A premature whistle erased an apparent Cornell goal later in the first period. Cornell clung to its 1-0 lead. The midpoint of the first period saw Harvard be awarded consecutive power plays. One of those was against key defenseman Doug Murray. Cornell killed off both penalties with the nation's best penalty-killing unit that was denying opposing teams on 90.2% of power-play opportunities allowed.

The Crimson appeared to knot the game early in the second period. The goal was disallowed because the net was dislodged. Harvard was undaunted. Dominic Moore of the Crimson challenged Dave LeNeveu several times in the second period. The netminder from East Hill was equal to all the challenges. However, it was Harvard's Moore who would tie the game in the third period. Red forwards including Matt Moulson ensured that Harvard's netminder did not go unchallenged.

The final five minutes of the game arrived. Cornell and Harvard were tied. The sense of apprehension in the building grew as players and fans alike began to anticipate an overtime game like that played in Lake Placid. That apprehension among the Lynah Faithful was replaced with dread moments later. Harvard solved LeNeveu with 3:46 remaining in the game.

A group of Red skaters known for its physicality and defensive play, not its speed and offensive prowess, would be forced to chase a lead late in the third period of a title game. Time ticked away. Schafer called LeNeveu to the bench with 1:27 remaining in the game. Cornell earned a face-off in Harvard's zone. Harvard lobbed a puck at Cornell's empty net that barely missed. The game clock stopped at 0:38 as Harvard's missed attempt was ruled icing.

Ryan Vesce took the resulting face-off. He passed to Mark McRae. Doug Murray and McRae took positions in the face-off circles. The four other Red skaters established a dense maze of carnelian and white in front of Harvard's net. Mark McRae anticipated passing to Murray. He took another look. He saw a lane to the net. He let loose a wrister with 33 seconds remaining. The puck blazed through the mass of bodies. Cornell had tied the game. The Lynah Faithful in attendance unleashed a deafening roar. Could this team be denied?

Dave LeNeveu returned to the net. He was challenged in the closing seconds of the third period. His skill dwarfed the challenges that Harvard presented. The 2003 ECAC Championship Final like that of the season before would be decided in overtime. Paolini took upon a leadership role in the locker room before the overtime. He was determined that his last ECAC Hockey game would not end in defeat to Harvard. The Crimson Killer recollected that "we mentioned that before overtime []: 'Remember all the hard laps and runs up the Hill [over the summer].'"

Cornell had waited long enough for its tenth Whitelaw Cup. Cornell had been denied in 2001 and 2002. It was not to wait a moment longer. The first overtime began. Harvard pinned Cornell in the Red's zone. Cornell grappled with the Cantabs along the boards to the right of Dave LeNeveu. Mark McRae retrieved the puck and connected with a streaking Sam Paolini at center ice. Paolini at the blue line deked around a Harvard defender. He raced onto open ice. A two-on-one opportunity developed. The Crimson Killer surveyed the situation. He had his shot. He wound up a slapshot and unleashed it.

The net rippled as Paolini's shot found the back of the net. The Lynah Faithful found reason yet again to celebrate. Cornell had won its tenth ECAC Championship. The Big Red had done it in spectacular fashion. The scorer of the game-winning goal remarked after the game "maybe I could score more against teams that aren’t Harvard, but they are our biggest rivals. Who better to score against?" The weight of a year's preparation had been lifted. Schafer remarked humorously about the fact that Paolini had scored the game-winning goal that "I think I’ll have to start telling him that each opponent we play is Harvard." The historic nature of the 2002-03 season did not end that evening.

Cornell advanced to the 2003 NCAA Tournament. The Big Red was selected as the first overall seed in the national tournament. Cornell defeated Minnesota State 5-2. It took overtime heroics, but Cornell behind Matt McRae's game-winning goal defeated Boston College 2-1 to advance to the 2003 Frozen Four in Buffalo, NY. That win was Cornell's 30th win of the season. Schafer's 30 wins in the 2002-03 season surpassed even Harkness' 29 wins in the 1969-70 season. The astounding performance of every member of the 2002-03 team led Cornell to the winningest season in the history of the program.

Sam Paolini became the first Cornell hockey player in program history to be recognized with an individual award after the 2002-03 season. Paolini won the Hockey Humanitarian Award for his civic services and community outreach. He was involved extensively with the Ithaca Breast Cancer Alliance and helped establish Power Play for Prevention that committed donors to contributing money for cancer prevention projects for each power-play goal that Cornell scored during the 2002-03 season.

Cornell outscored its opponents 12 goals to four goals during the 2003 ECAC Tournament. Sam Paolini bested Harvard's Dov Grumet-Morris during overtime for Cornell's championship-winning goal against the Crimson. Dave LeNeveu produced a goals-against average of 1.00 and a save percentage of 0.945 during the 2003 ECAC Tournament. Cornell had won its tenth Whitelaw Cup that evening in Albany on March 22, 2003, but it had done so much more. It had claimed redemption and confidence for the program over an incredible season.

Each spectacular performance demands an encore. Schafer's first season as the bench boss of the Big Red was no different. Cornell had accomplished the unexpected. A first-year coach had led an insurgent team to Cornell's eighth Whitelaw Cup. The Red skaters had achieved that goal in spectacular fashion with playoff victories over regional rival Colgate and archrival Harvard to claim ultimate glory. Many journalists who covered the ECAC began to dub the narrative of Cornell's 1995-96 season a Cinderella story. With the echoes of the chants of "thank you, Schafer" that escorted the freshman coach and his first squad off the ice of Herb Brooks Arena still resonating in his ears, the former captain knew he wanted more.

The unexpected success of the 1995-96 season ended when the Big Red fell to Lake Superior State at Albany, NY in the 1996 NCAA Tournament. Schafer had accomplished all of the goals of his first season. The only thing that could have made his freshman season more triumphant would have been obtaining Cornell's third national title.

Despite not achieving the truly unlikely, Schafer and his 1995-96 team had left an indelible impression on the ECAC and the proud institution of Cornell hockey. Don Vaughan, coach of Cornell's 1996 ECAC Tournament opponent Colgate and alumnus of St. Lawrence University, remarked after the 1995-96 season that "home crowds are usually good for a goal or two, but this crowd had to be good for three or four. I've never seen Lynah Rink like this and I've seen a lot of games here." Some questioned if the beginning of the Schafer Era ushered in renewed Cornell dominance or was a mere aberration that was a result of beginner's luck.

The cupboards were not bare on East Hill. Cornell returned six of its top-ten scorers from the 1996 ECAC Championship team. Former captain Brad Chartrand, whose leadership was integral in guiding the Big Red to success in a season of transition, graduated. Leadership in front of the blue line might have been lost but Jason Elliott who was the workhorse goaltender who helped Cornell win a Whitelaw Cup returned for his junior season.

Key players were lost, but ample talent remained for Cornell to attempt to defend its eighth ECAC Championship. No program had defended successfully a prior year's playoff success since the Saints of St. Lawrence had done so in 1988 and 1989. Only Jack Parker of Boston University had won and defended an ECAC Championship in his first two seasons as head coach. The 1996-97 team and their second-year coach wanted to do something nearly unprecedented. Something that no member of the post-Divorce ECAC had accomplished ever.

One key out-of-conference game loomed on the horizon. The members of the 1996-97 team did not lose sight of the goal before them. The Big Red wanted to put the Conference on notice that the skaters from Ithaca were ready to defend the historic crown of the East. Cornell's season began on the road at Meehan Auditorium and Bright Hockey Center.

Cornell's first game against Brown was a high-scoring affair. Nine goals were scored. Nonetheless, the deciding tally belonged to Cornell. The Big Red toppled the Brown Bears, 5-4.

Schafer's reinvigoration of the importance of the Cornell-Harvard rivalry quickly rendered the trip from Central New York to Cambridge, MA a pilgrimage for the Lynah Faithful. When the Crimson hosted Cornell, the former was awash in a carnelian-and-white tide. Bright Hockey Center had begun to become Lynah East.

The first regular-season battle between the historically dominant programs of the ECAC was very much unlike Cornell's game the previous night. The result was the same. Cornell left Massachusetts with a favorable 3-2 decision giving Cornell four consecutive victories over the Cantabs in the Schafer Era.

The first semester of the season concluded with Cornell accumulating a 6-3-1. The Syracuse Invitation Tournament provided the bridge between the first and second semesters. Cornell defeated former ECAC foe Providence College and Merrimack College during its trip to Syracuse. Cornell's fortunes looked bright as it became apparent that Cornell was among the league's best for the second season in a row. The trip to the North Country stood between Cornell and its greatest challenge of the regular season.

The Red skaters stumbled at Appleton and Cheel Arenas. Cornell salvaged only one point out of the trip and fell to the Golden Knights. It was time for the Big Red to pack its bags. The game that loomed large on Cornell's regular-season slate awaited.

Yost Ice Arena welcomed Cornell in January 1997. The previous meeting between the Big Red and the Wolverines was in the 1991 NCAA Tournament. That game also was at Yost. Both fanbases remember that series not for its result but for its creation of the Children of Yost. The throngs of boisterous Lynah Faithful that ventured to see their beloved team take on "the champions of the West" stunned and silenced the then-tame maize-and-blue-clad fans with their relentless harassment of the Wolverines and their netminder.

Michigan fans appropriated the chants of the Lynah Faithful and began to identify as "the Children of Yost." The 1997 meeting would be the first time that Cornell and the Lynah Faithful grappled with the Wolverines and their devoted Children of Yost. Cornell was up to the challenge.

Michigan entered the 1996-97 season riding high. It had just captured its first national title in 32 years at the close of the 1996 season. The Wolverines had realized that accolade in impressive fashion. Michigan ended the seasons of Minnesota, Boston University, and Colorado College to give Red Berenson his first national title. Cornell may have been seeking a defense of its most recent Whitelaw Cup, but Michigan was hoping to defend its national title.

The Children of Yost thought that such a defense was possible. In fact, Michigan's loyal fans believed that the 1996-97 team was far more skilled than the team that had a year prior won a national title in Cincinnati, OH. The Wolverines carried the banner of the top-ranked team in the nation into the clash against Cornell.

The first period saw Michigan jump to a one-goal lead. The intimidation of Yost, recent success, and lofty ranking of the Wolverines had little effect on the Eastern challengers. The winged helmet did not hold sway. Chad Wilson struck to even the game for Cornell less than five minutes into the second period. The Wolverines responded but a power-play goal from Vinnie Auger helped the Big Red keep pace. The stalemate would stand. Cornell and Michigan would both tally in the third period with the Big Red's Darren Tymchyshyn evening the game with under seven minutes remaining on the clock.

Schafer and the 1996-97 Cornell team returned back to East Hill having gone tête-à-tête with the defending national champion on the road and wresting a tie from Yost. The outcome was not the greatest possible, but it established that Cornell hockey's reemergence on the national stage was a burgeoning reality and not just a fleeting fancy found in the hills of Central New York. The Big Red and Wolverines parted ways each seeking their respective title defenses.

Cornell surged into February after the 1997 Michigan game. The Red skaters tallied three wins, one loss, and one tie in the run-up to the penultimate month of the 1996-97 regular season. Crucial tests against Harvard and Clarkson remained before the 1997 ECAC Tournament would begin.

Clarkson and Cornell had proven to be the teams to beat in the ECAC throughout the 1996-97 season. The Golden Knights and the Big Red sat perched atop the Conference standings by the end of February. Clarkson had guaranteed that it would begin the postseason at Cheel Arena. The welcome confines of Lynah Rink would host the beginning of Cornell's Whitelaw-Cup defense.

The closing weeks of the regular season witnessed Cornell's defeat of the Crimson by a one-goal margin for the second time in the regular season. The Big Red triumphed over its archrival with a 2-1 final score at Lynah Rink. Harvard had braved Lynah Rink with the hopes of securing a first-round bye in the playoffs.

The offensive power of Cornell ranked third in terms of productivity in the league. This might of the Big Red proved too much for the remarkable play of freshman Crimson netminder J.R. Prestifilippo. The historic rivals lobbed the same number of challenges but it was the markers of Cornell's Kyle Knopp and Matt Cooney that stood. The play of Jason Elliott and Schaferian defense in front of him held off Harvard's attempt at a third-period rally.

Cornell marched on to a disappointing loss to an atypically formidable Union College squad. The Big Red rebounded with a decisive 5-2 victory over the Engineers of RPI.  The carnelian and white hosted the Golden Knights in the last week of the regular season. Clarkson defended its first-place standing at Lynah Rink with a 3-1 victory over the home-standing Red.

Cornell entered the 1997 ECAC Tournament as the second seed. Its nemesis had tumbled to eighth. The playoffs of the 1997 postseason would began as those from the 1996 postseason had ended: the Red and Crimson would battle once again for supremacy.

The 1997 ECAC Quarterfinals marked the first time in seven years that Cornell had hosted its rival at Lynah Rink in the postseason. Those who attended the 1990 ECAC Quarterfinals watched as Cornell swept the Crimson by a combined margin of ten goals to four goals in a two-game series. Home-ice advantage favored Cornell, but Schafer and his second squad knew that the beginning of their title defense would not be easy.

Harvard was one year removed from carrying the weight of an eighth seed to the ECAC Championship game. The Crimson could not be taken lightly. Anticipation was high on East Hill and in Cambridge. Harvard's Scott Turco remarked to The Harvard Crimson that "we are all looking forward to playing them. This is an intense and close rivalry."

The pace of Cornell's game had taken a notable leap in the build-up to the postseason and goaltender Jason Elliott had begun to show glimmers of his indomitable form from the previous year's playoff run. The first game of the two-game quarterfinal series was many things; disciplined was not one of them.

The first game was brutal. Both teams spent large portions of the game playing down a man. Cornell peppered Harvard's freshman netminder with 35 shots but only a power-play challenge from Jamie Papp in the first period and a third-period blast from Vinnie Auger found the back of the Crimson's net. Jason Elliott stood tall but two Harvard tallies beat him. The first game of the two-game series ended in a stalemate. However, the Red had fought its way back into a contest that it was losing with less than 11 minutes remaining. Cornell was determined that the second game would not be the same.

It took over half the first period of the second game for the scoring to open. Harvard established a crucial net-front presence, screened Elliott, and allowed the Crimson's Jeremiah McCarthy to blast a power-play shot into the Red's net. The Red roster, must like the Lynah Faithful in attendance, refused to be silenced. Tony Bergin knotted the game less than two minutes later.

Lynah Rink hummed as the teams returned to their locker rooms for the first intermission. A Schafer-coached squad had not lost to Harvard in six previous meetings. Five of those contests ended in wins for the Big Red. Anticipation and excitement was building. The zeal of the fans was not the only thing waiting to explode.

The first five minutes of the second period were uneventful. The passion and efficiency of Cornell's play began to build. The host was awarded a power play with about 12 minutes remaining in the second period. Cornell senior Vinnie Auguer collected the puck at the right face-off circle and rifled a shot past Prestifilippo that beat the goaltender cleanly. Cornell was not finished.

A Harvard error allowed Cornell's Mike Rutter to gain the blue line and race into the Crimson's zone unchallenged. The freshman unleashed a slapshot that expanded Cornell's lead to two goals with less than 30 minutes remaining.

Cornell's dominance receded somewhat. Harvard was able to generate several shorthanded opportunities. Steve Wilson stifled the Crimson's first shorthanded breakaway. With a goal all but guaranteed, he poke checked the puck out of the possession of an onrushing Harvard forward. Jason Elliott was all that was needed to quash the hopes of Harvard's other two threatening shorthanded breakaways.

The third period observed Cornell's commitment to defending its lead. Harvard could scarcely gain the Big Red's zone. The few times that the Crimson did, Cornell quickly re-collected the puck and dumped it into Harvard's zone. Cornell successfully defended its lead, but not before Ryan Moynihan notched a tally of his own against Harvard. Cornell advanced with a score of 4-1 over Harvard. Schafer remained undefeated against the Crimson. The 1996-97 squad earned the right to defend the Whitelaw Cup at Herb Brooks Arena.

Fourth-seeded RPI awaited Cornell in Lake Placid, NY. The Engineers had earned a berth to the ECAC Championships with a sweep of regional rival Union College. Cornell had relative confidence when preparing for the meeting with the Engineers of Troy who were two years removed from earning the program's third ECAC Championship. Cornell had split the regular-season series with RPI. The Big Red had outscored the Engineers seven goals to six goals in those meetings. Neither meeting saw fewer than six goals scored. The contest between the two Harkness-influenced programs in the 1997 ECAC Championship Semifinal would be no different.

RPI would exhaust two netminders. Jason Elliott would face 39 shots. The raucous fans draped in cherry and white and the Lynah Faithful in carnelian and white made Herb Brooks Arena and Lake Placid a volatile place during the semifinal meeting. Cornell controlled a two-goal lead before the first intermission.

Jamie Papp scored the marker that would stand as the game-winning tally less than three minutes into the second period. RPI battled back to a 4-3 margin by the time the second intermission occurred. Cornell's third period against the Engineers resembled that against Crimson. The Big Red defended its lead while adding a tally. This time Ryan Smart's power-play goal expanded the margin.

Cornell's victory over the Engineers gave the Red skaters the right to battle the ECAC's other engineering institution for the Whitelaw Cup. It seemed destined that Clarkson and Cornell would be the last two teams standing in the ECAC Tournament. The two had dueled for the top spots in the regular-season standings throughout the season. Cornell knew that most commentators who followed the Conference believed that Clarkson was the far more talented squad. Most regarded Clarkson as the one team whose talent could burn Cornell if it made even a minor mistake.

Cornell needed a break to defend its title. A Cornell power play at the end of the first period provided Cornell such an opportunity. Jason Dailey scored a goal with exactly three minutes remaining in the first period. Cornell continued its tactic of biding its time and waiting patiently for its opportunities to score while clogging the neutral zone and dumping the puck down the Olympic-sized ice at Herb Brooks Arena.

These tactics held Clarkson at bay for over two periods. Steve Wilson added another power-play goal for Cornell just before the midpoint of the game. The third period arrived. Cornell needed to do what it had done in the two previous games. Only 20 minutes stood between Cornell and its second Whitelaw Cup in as many years.

Clarkson challenged the Big Red's defense and Jason Elliott was called on to perform heroics for the second consecutive year in Lake Placid. Half of the third period expired with Clarkson still held scoreless. Cornell continued to dump the puck and defy the Golden Knights to penetrate the Big Red's zone.

Cornell's opponent did beat Elliott with less than seven minutes remaining in the game. Cornell continued to remain committed to defense. The Red skaters and their coach were fearful that a misstep would give the North-Country natives the championship they desired. The minutes passed. Mark Morris pulled Clarkson's Murphy with exactly one minute remaining. The final 60 seconds of the game elapsed as had most of the game. Cornell held off Clarkson's best challenges. Cornell won the contest 2-1.

The Big Red had done what few outside of the locker room on East Hill had thought possible at the beginning of the 1996-97 season. Schafer had become the first Cornell coach to win consecutive ECAC Championships since Ned Harkness had in 1969 and 1970. The 1996-97 team became the first Cornell team in 27 years to defend an ECAC Championship. Cornell's run to back-to-back ECAC Championships answered the doubts of all Eastern detractors. The Decade of Dormancy had come to a punctuated end as Cornell lifted the Whitelaw Cup on March 15, 1997.

Cornell outscored its opponents 13 goals to seven goals during the 1997 ECAC Tournament. Steve Wilson found the back of the net in overtime for Cornell's championship-clinching goal against Clarkson. Jason Elliott produced a goals-against average of 1.75 and a save percentage of 0.943 over the course of the 1997 ECAC Tournament. Elliott became the second goaltender in Cornell hockey history to win at least two ECAC Championships. He joined Ken Dryden. Cornell celebrated its ninth ECAC Championship that evening on March 15, 1997 at Herb Brooks Arena.

A lot changed between the evening of March 15, 1986 and August 1995 when Cornell students returned to East Hill for the 1995-96 academic year and hockey season. Harvard's location in Cambridge, MA proved an insufficient bulkhead to ward off the growing success of Hockey East at the expense of the popularity of the ECAC. The site of the ECAC Championships migrated from Boston Garden to Herb Brooks Arena, then called the Olympic Center, in 1993 as a result. Lou Reycroft handed the reins of the Cornell hockey program to Brian McCutcheon before the 1987-88 season.

Cornell stumbled. McCutcheon's tenure has been regarded as a veritable dark age in the history of Cornell hockey. Cornell had returned to the ECAC Championship game only once since the 1986 postseason. Cornell's lackluster performance in the playoffs over that span included missing the ten-team ECAC Tournament field in 1993 and suffering a sweep in 1994 at the hands of Harvard.

The one glimmer in an otherwise bleak era was Cornell's berth to the 1991 NCAA Tournament. Yost Ice Arena hosted the Big Red and the Wolverines in a three-game series. Cornell silenced the then-meek Children of Yost in the first game with a spectacular effort that resulted in Trent Andison's overtime-winning goal. In a manner representative of the era, Cornell would drop the next two decisions to lose the series.

Cornell's dominance in the East was in peril. Harvard had won a national title in 1989. The skaters of East Hill had no rebuttal. Cornell increased its advantage of total numbers of ECAC Championships won relative to Harvard to four in 1986. Harvard had eroded that advantage to two with the Crimson winning the historic prize of the East in 1987 and 1994 by the time the 1995-96 season began. Cornell had produced an abysmal 25-51-10 record from 1992 through 1995. A former Cornell assistant coach who had further honed his craft at Western Michigan University could not conscience watching his alma mater flounder any longer.

The former Cornell assistant was the same son of a lumberjack whose charisma and mania had catapulted Cornell to its seventh and then last ECAC Championship. Mike Schafer became Cornell's 12th head coach for the outset of the 1995-96 campaign. His previous reputation as a skilled defenseman at Cornell had given way to a possibly more esteemed reputation as a great defensively minded tactician and skilled recruiter. His first season as bench boss at Cornell forced him to lead players whom he did not recruit to play within his system.

The 1994-95 season for Cornell ended with the Golden Knights of Clarkson sweeping the visiting Big Red at Cheel Arena. That roster, like most of those from the same era, was talented but plagued with underperformance. Cornell returned nine of its top ten scorers for the 1995-96 campaign. Among those returning top scorers was captain Brad Chartrand.

Cornell platooned goaltenders during the 1994-95 season. Eddy Skazyk and Jason Elliott produced save percentages of 0.893 and 0.883, and goals-against averages of 3.53 and 4.08 respectively during that season. Cornell surrendered 34.5 shots and 3.83 goals per game on average. These numbers did not represent championship-calibre performances.

Brad Chartrand would don the captain's C during his senior campaign. He would be the first captain in the Schafer Era. The schedule that laid before the two-time captain and first-year head coach included seven out-of-conference challenges. The first game afforded Schafer the opportunity to venture back into CCHA territory.

The Big Red crossed swords with the Spartans of Michigan State in the first game of the 1995-96 season. Cornell would leave Munn Ice Arena dissatisfied. Cornell fell to the East Lansing natives, 6-2. This loss was certainly a setback. Cornell found some solace in the fact that the Spartans had made two consecutive appearances in the NCAA Tournament.

The trajectory of the 1995-96 team could be gleaned better from the third game of the season. Schafer had given his first team three objectives. First, he wanted Cornell to defeat Harvard. The Crimson had held the Big Red winless over the previous 20 regular-season meetings of the archrivals. This would be no small task. Second, Schafer wanted to reinvigorate the Lynah Faithful who had been moribund during the veritable dark age. The legendary defenseman believed that the best means to achieve this goal was for Cornell to earn home ice in the 1996 ECAC Tournament. Third, Cornell needed to begin its climb back to national prominence. Schafer believed a berth into the 1996 NCAA Tournament would begin this ascent.

Cornell serendipitously would host Harvard at Lynah Rink for the first weekend of intraleague play. Cornell was focused and motivated to beat the Crimson for the first time since March 1990. Harvard would have to prepare to do battle with Colgate the night before it challenged Cornell. Colgate's fourth-year head coach Don Vaughan was expected to lead a squad that was the class of the ECAC six seasons removed from the Raiders's national-finalist status. Harvard's trip to Central New York would not be easy.

Harvard head coach Ronn Tomassoni braced for the unexpected against Cornell. A new head coach at a program rich in history always presents uncertainty for rivals. Tomassoni was particularly aware of the effect that Schafer could have upon a Cornell team as the then-Harvard bench boss had served as an assistant to Cleary during Schafer's time as a defenseman at Cornell. Tomassoni intimated to The Harvard Crimson that Schafer would have the effect that "[Cornell] would be pumped to play Harvard" in a "tremendous rivalry between Cornell and Harvard."

Cornell made immediate headway toward realizing one of Schafer's goals. Cornell rose to the challenge of breaking a drought against its rival. Captain Brad Chartrand led the Big Red's charge with four points including a hat trick against the Cantabs. Chartrand also notched the game winner in a contest that broke a five-season winless era against Harvard. Cornell's margin of victory was five goals to three goals.

Cornell followed its four-point opening weekend in ECAC play with a three-point weekend against Vermont and Dartmouth on the road. The next adversary that Cornell would confront was historic nemesis, Boston University. The Big Red had earned only one win to the Terriers's two wins in the series between the former intraconference rivals since The Divorce.

Walter Brown Arena welcomed Cornell back for one game. The Terriers dominated Cornell. Boston University would score three goals in the first and third periods while adding a lone tally in the second period. The skaters from East Hill would be held scoreless until less than eight minutes remained. The result was no more pleasant. The Terriers bested Cornell by a 7-1 margin.

Cornell would face another throttling at the hands of Colorado College. That 11-0 loss was sandwiched between victories over Massachusetts and Air Force. Cornell's penultimate out-of-conference game of the season was at West Point's Tate Rink. The Black Knights had defected from the ECAC in 1991 after being perennially uncompetitive in the league. Cornell had lost to the Black Knights only three times during their membership in the Conference.

Army bettered Cornell with a final score of 4-1. As the game unfolded, Schafer began to realize that what he once viewed as possibly insubstantial cracks in the foundation of his first season were fundamental flaws in the way his team was approaching the season and its opponents. It was January 12. Drastic action was required.

Schafer did not allow his team to depart from the Hudson Valley. The team learned his expectations for a Cornell hockey team. He required the team to run laps up and down the stands at Tate Rink after the loss while still wearing their equipment. Then, after he believed that the 1995-96 team appreciated the level of discipline required of a championship-calibre Cornell team, he did not allow the players to remove their equipment on the ride back to Ithaca.

The lesson was learned. The next weekend Cornell earned a split against Colgate. The team earned five wins and a tie as it braced for the regular season's second installment of the Cornell-Harvard series. Harvard wanted vengeance. The game at Bright Hockey Center would be unlike that played at Lynah Rink earlier in the season.

Harvard returned several key and injured players to its lineup before the February 16, 1996 game. Cornell and Harvard both had climbed to the top of ECAC statistical rankings as the best power-play unit and best penalty killing unit in the Conference respectively. The second regular-season game would devolve into a special-teams battle of an unexpected variety.

Harvard returned key personnel to its power-play unit from its injury list. Those returning were no match for a dominant Red performance. The Crimson allowed Cornell's power-play unit to take the ice numerous time during the 60-minute game. Cornell would score four power-play goals on seven Harvard infractions.

Cornell hazed freshman goaltender Pete Zakowich to the ways of the Cornell-Harvard rivalry in the Schafer Era early. The Big Red found the back of the net on its first two shots. The netminders who began the game for Cornell and Harvard did not finish the game. Schafer pulled Eddy Skazyk for Jason Elliott.

Schafer remarked somewhat modestly after the game that "it was a game settled on special teams, and that's been a strength for us this year." A hallmark of Schafer-coached Cornell squads began to emerge early. Two weekends remained before the 1996 ECAC Tournament. The ECAC had bifurcated distinctly between the elite and the basement of the Conference that season. Clarkson, Colgate, Cornell, Harvard, St. Lawrence, and Vermont occupied the top perch.

The regular season ended with the top four seeds hosting quarterfinal series. Vermont had displaced Clarkson as the holder of the first seed. The Golden Knights settled for the second seed. The Saints of the North Country were the third seed. The skaters from East Hill? They had righted course and finished the season as the fourth seed in the 1996 ECAC Tournament.

The Big Red had achieved another of Schafer's first-season goals. It was not satisfied. As the fourth seed, Cornell would face the most evenly matched quarterfinal series as it would host the fifth seed. Don Vaughan's Colgate, a team that began the season expected to dominate the East, had been humbled with the fifth seed in the playoffs. The 1996 ECAC Quarterfinals were a rivalry of sorts.

The dynamic of the would-be Colgate-Cornell rivalry is one highly dependent upon the competitiveness of the Raiders. Colgate is invested in each Colgate-Cornell clash. Cornell is only if Colgate has given it reason to be. Colgate's lofty expectations for the 1995-96 season, Lynah Rink's hosting of a playoff series for the first time in five years, and the angst incumbent in an unrequited rivalry contributed volatility to the first stage of Cornell's playoff quest.

Cornell never allowed the series to be in question. Cornell scored two goals during the opening stanza. Then, the Big Red added three goals in each of the remaining two periods of the first game. Brad Chartrand, Jamie Papp, Mike Sancimino, Ryan Smart, and Chad Wilson each contributed to the final eight goals to three goals decision. Colgate drew first blood in game two, but it was futile. The Raiders provided the only goal in the first period, but Cornell piled on eight goals evenly divided over the last two frames that stood unanswered. Six members of the Big Red provided the eight goals with P.C. Drouin, Geoff Lopatka, Mark Scollan, and Steve Wilson joining Cornell's goal rush.

The writing was on the wall. Times had changed. Cornell's commanding 16 goals to Colgate's four goals put others on notice. Lynah Rink gave way to absolute bedlam as the Lynah Faithful rushed the ice after Cornell completed the sweep of a very good Raider squad.

Cornell punched its ticket to Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid, NY. Clarkson would greet them. The Golden Knights had ridden high all season as the assumed winner of the regular-season title until the closing weeks of the regular season. Defeating them would be no small task. However, Schafer's squad continued to make it seem as though it were.

Cornell put its trust in netminder Jason Elliott who had delivered the previous two victories. He would better his previous performance. Cornell delivered an even performance scoring one goal in each period. Clarkson was unable to solve Elliott. Cornell would advance to the 1996 ECAC Championship Final on the back of a 3-0 victory over the Golden Knights.

Could it have ended any other way? Cornell remained. The lone challenger that stood between the Big Red and its first Whitelaw Cup in a decade was Harvard. Cornell had completed a regular-season sweep of the Cantabs. It stood as a spectacular feat considering the recent history of the series, but a feat that nonetheless made it all the more challenging to best them in the ultimate game of the ECAC Tournament.

Tomassoni was determined not to allow a freshman, upstart coach from East Hill to erode further Harvard's 46-42-5 advantage in the all-time series between the most successful programs of the ECAC. Harvard let its intentions be known with the Crimson's Holmes putting to rest any chance of Elliott delivering back-to-back shutouts with a goal 36 seconds into the game. The Red skaters quickly informed Harvard that its contempt for Crimson far exceeded that for maroon.

Harvard would not score again. Cornell would resort to shut-down defense. The Big Red killed off two penalties in the first period. Cornell's efforts were so effective that Schafer remarked after the game that "they didn't get a chance to get a 2-0 lead."

The game shifted abruptly. The shift was in Cornell's favor. Cornell's Matt Cooney put a shot on net. Harvard's Tracy redirected the puck away from the goal line. The rebound off of the redirection struck a Harvard defenseman and careened past Tracy. Cooney was given credit for the goal and Cornell was on the board midway through the first period. The Crimson were deflated.

The teams returned from their locker rooms for the second period. Mike Sancimino would not wait long to put Cornell on top. Sancimino collected the puck on a scramble in front of the net. He elevated the puck. It bounced beautifully off of the inside of the crossbar of the net, struck the Crimson keeper, and rested placidly behind the blue paint. Cornell had taken the lead. The Big Red led 2-1. The Harvard bench was infuriated believing that luck had robbed them of yet another goal despite the well-directed efforts of Cornell. The Harvard Crimson remarked after the game "it appeared that Lady Luck was wearing a Cornell jersey."

Cornell struck again before the second period expired. Official review removed the tally. The on-ice officials determined that a Cornell player had prevented Harvard's Tracy from having a legitimate opportunity to stop the puck. Cornell took the 2-1 lead into the second intermission.

The Big Red was determined to make that difference stand for the last 20 minutes. Cornell and Harvard began to show signs of fatigue from the physicality of the contest late in the game. Despite fatigue, Cornell's defense managed to play its positions and ward off each Harvard challenge. The final 30 seconds of the game witnessed Cornell hemmed into its own end. The Big Red's defense was as dominant as ever. The Crimson would not even send a challenge to Elliott in that time.

Cornell won its eighth ECAC Championship on March 16, 1996 at Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid, NY. First-year head coach Mike Schafer had done what no other Cornell coach before him had. He had won a tournament championship in his first season behind the bench at East Hill. Schafer's first season as head coach and his senior campaign as captain at Cornell bookended the decade-long drought of championships on East Hill. Credit for the revitalization of Cornell hockey belongs to his ability to inspire his players even in his first season as well as the players who worked tirelessly to achieve his lofty goals.

Cornell outscored its opponents 21 goals to five goals during the 1996 ECAC Tournament. Mike Sancimino bested Harvard's Tripp Tracy during the second period for Cornell's championship-winning goal against the Crimson. Jason Elliott produced a goals-against average of 1.25 and a save percentage of 0.954 during 1996 ECAC Tournament. A new era of Cornell hockey had begun in spectacular fashion.

Scheduling regulations were the battlefield upon which the dispute about academic standards was waged. A faction of Eastern schools that were former members of the ECAC withdrew from the historic Conference to start anew. The departing schools disliked the disproportionate control that the Ivy League exerted within the affairs of the formerly constituted ECAC and desired a longer playing season. The split, or Divorce as it has been euphemized since, severed rivalries and created instant cultural tensions among two powerful conferences in the East.

Former Providence College head coach Lou Lamoriello organized the programs of the fracture and shepherded the creation of Hockey East. Hockey East crowned its first champion at the Providence Civic Center after the end of the 1984-85 season. The Friars were that champion. RPI, the 1985 ECAC Champion, defeated Providence College for the national championship in a statement win that asserted the ECAC's competitiveness and relevance on a new landscape.

Cornell was looking for a statement of its own. The seismic shifts that occurred removed key programs from the ECAC. The most dominant program in the ECAC before The Divorce was unquestionably Cornell. Cornell dominated the Conference with six ECAC Championships. Boston University had claimed only five, Harvard had three, and Boston College had two over the first 22 years of the ECAC. Would Cornell's dominance continue in the new East?

A senior defenseman and two-time captain from Durham, Ontario knew the answer to that question. He would answer it in two parts. The first would occur during this second season when he wore the C for the carnelian and red.

The Classes of 1984 and 1985 graduated without winning an ECAC Championship during their careers on East Hill. They were only the fifth and sixth graduating classes from Cornell to not claim the East's historic trophy since Cornell won its first ECAC championship. Mike Schafer, the senior defenseman captain, was determined that his class would not join those regrettable ranks. For him, winning an ECAC Championship and being a champion was the essence of Cornell hockey.

The 1985-86 team followed the lead of its zealous captain. Its goal was not to be merely ready to win the ECAC Championship. It prepared to win the 1986 ECAC Championship.

Preseason prognosticators chose Harvard as the team to win the ECAC. Most thought that Cornell would be the team in closest contention with its archrival. The defending ECAC and national champion RPI was expected to be respectable, but unlikely to repeat as either ECAC or national champion. The Crimson, Big Red, and Engineers were the expected, albeit usual suspects, to have good form when the postseason arrived. The preseason surprise out of the East was the high expectations placed on the Elis of Yale.

Lou Reycroft was handed the reins of Cornell hockey after Dick Bertrand's tenure ended in 1982. Bertrand had won two ECAC Championships over 12 seasons. The 1985-86 season was Reycroft's fourth as head coach. Cornell had missed the playoffs in his first two seasons and was eliminated in the 1985 ECAC Championship Semifinals. The 1985-86 edition of the Big Red team and he were ready to do much better.

The benchmarks of the season would be contests against the much-praised Crimson of Harvard, Engineers of RPI, and Elis of Yale. Cornell suffered an early season Ivy-League loss to Princeton in November. The Big Red held a 4-1-2 record when it was set to host archrival Harvard on December 8, 1985.

What is remembered about that game is less the score than the animosity. It was the game during which Mike Schafer shot a puck at Harvard head coach Bill Cleary on the bench for Cleary's usual Cornell-Harvard game antics and the Crimson's conduct in the game. Cleary, in what had continued to be almost tradition, refused to shake the hands of the Red skaters after the game. Captain Schafer took exception to that as well. Tempers flared and Cornell ended the game frustrated with a losing tally of 11-3 to its archrival.

Cornell and Yale attended the 1986 Thunderbird Centennial Classic in Vancouver, British Columbia in January. Cornell defeated teams from the University of British Columbia and Kokudo Keikaku Ice Hockey Club. Cornell and Yale were the last teams remaining. They met January 5, 1985. Cornell defeated the Bulldogs 5-3. The next barometer of success would be a game against RPI five days later.

Lynah Rink was the meeting place of Cornell and RPI for their first regular-season meeting in the 1985-86 season. Not long before, Cornell had seemed invincible within those hallowed walls. It would not be so that day. Talented forwards and offensively minded defensemen including Joe Nieuwendyk, Peter Natyshak, Duanne Moeser, Chris Norton, and Mike Schafer were held silent in front of the Lynah Faithful. The Engineers were unsolvable to the home-standing Cornell. The visitors won 3-0.

Cornell had registered a mark of 1-2-0 against the ECAC programs expected to be the most nationally relevant. The Big Red looked to rebound in a big way at Ingalls Rink. Cornell would rebound in spectacular fashion. Cornell trounced the offense-first Elis 6-3 in New Haven. The game was never in question. The flow of the game was set and typified when Dave Hunter of Cornell dumped the puck in the Bulldogs's zone and converted. Yale head coach Tim Taylor referred to the weekend as "the most disappointing weekend in Yale hockey in five years."

The playoffs loomed on the horizon. Harvard hosted Cornell on Valentine's Day 1986, but no love would be lost between the two teams. Cornell thirsted for revenge against Harvard. The Harvard Crimson reported gleefully that Cornell's point total in the ECAC had the Big Red barely clinging to the fourth and final spot to host a playoff series in the 1986 ECAC Tournament. Cornell had not lost a conference road game headed into the second clash between the archrivals.

Cornell's streak of road success would snap. Harvard jumped out to a 3-2 lead early in the second period. Cornell would find the equalizer more than halfway through the third. The Crimson would benefit from a power-play opportunity in overtime. The Cantabs's Lane MacDonald would convert giving Harvard its first sweep of Cornell since the 1981-82 season.

The strategic and psychological advantage of hosting a playoff game at Lynah Rink hung in the balance. The 1985-86 squad that began the season knowing that it would win the 1986 ECAC Championship was deflated. It no longer knew if it would begin its playoff quest at home. The team pondered if it would be required to do what the 1980 ECAC Champion squad needed to do.

Key contests against Yale and RPI remained. Over that span Cornell defeated Dartmouth, Brown, and Vermont by an 18-5 combined margin. The Big Red suffered its first loss to the Elis of Yale in the three regular-season meetings of the teams. Three second-period goals had given the Bulldogs a sizable lead. Dave Hunter whittled Yale’s advantage to a 3-2 disparity by the end of the second period.

Cornell was resolute not to fall to a 0.500 record in their proud building. A loss to Yale would result in such a stumble. Andy Craig found the equalizer for the home team in the third period. Could Cornell seize victory from the predatory jaws of defeat? Joe Nieuwendyk blasted a shot past Yale’s Schwalb for the go-ahead marker. Tim Taylor’s team responded less than two minutes later.

The Bulldogs escaped Lynah Rink with a 5-4 overtime win. A 4-4-3 record represented Cornell’s performance on East Hill after the overtime loss. Cornell responded with a victory over Brown the next evening to improve marginally a disappointingly mean record in the hallowed building. The Big Red wrapped up the season against RPI at Houston Field House.

The Engineers controlled a commanding 4-1 lead early in the second period of play. Cornell was determined to win in front of the carnelian-loathing and cherry-loving crowd. The gap shrunk to a 5-3 deficit by the end of the second frame. Cornell tied the game to send it into overtime with just over two minutes remaining in the ultimate regular-season game of the 1985-86 season.

It took nearly six and a half minutes but captain Peter Natyshak solved RPI's Jopling for the seventh and game-ending time. Cornell's Chris Morton chipped in four points, Duanne Moeser earned a hat trick, Joe Nieuwendyk tallied three points, and Mark Canduro and Mike Schafer recorded two points in a very important 7-6 win. Reycroft remarked that the game "helped our self-image at this time of the season because it was an uphill battle."

Cornell lost only once on the road during the regular season. Ironically, this performance secured Cornell the right to begin its 1986 playoff run at Lynah Rink. Cornell had gone 4-1-0 since a loss to Harvard. Cornell had produced a disappointing combined record of 3-4-0 against Harvard, RPI, and Yale. Cornell had lost only two other games during the regular season.

The season did not unfold as captain Mike Schafer had hoped. Schafer could not abide allowing Bill Cleary to record his third regular-season sweep of Cornell during Schafer’s senior campaign. These losses motivated Cornell. A championship was the only thing that could salve the disgust at suffering a sweep at the hands of Harvard. Winning now would allow the 1985-86 team to prove something to itself in addition to reaffirming a truth about the program it represented.

Cornell would begin its playoff quest against Vermont while Harvard hosted Colgate, Yale hosted St. Lawrence, and RPI hosted Clarkson. Vermont was a team that was not flush with talent but it would never self-destruct according to Reycroft. It would be a challenge.

The ECAC adopted a playoff format in 1983 that instituted series for the quarterfinals of the ECAC Tournament. A team that won and tied the first two games would advance. If the first two games of the series resulted in a split, a third mini game would be played under this format. Cornell had missed the playoffs in 1983 and 1984 under this regime. The 1985 playoffs saw Cornell win its first postseason series in the 1985 ECAC Quarterfinals. The Big Red eliminated Yale with two wins in 1985.

The first game went as many coaches around the ECAC expected. Cornell dominated Vermont in front of the Lynah Faithful. Cornell won the first game 8-3. However, the Catamounts were not content to go quietly. The second game of the 1986 ECAC Quarterfinals between Cornell and Vermont required an extra frame. The game would end in a tie. Cornell would advance to Boston Garden for the second time in as many years with a win and a tie against Vermont.

Cornell, Harvard, and Yale advanced out of the 1986 ECAC Quarterfinals. RPI suffered a sweep at the hands of rival Clarkson. Cornell's first opponent at Boston Garden would be the Bulldogs of Yale. Yale, the oldest collegiate hockey program in the nation, entered Boston Garden riding an emotional high. Yale's wins over St. Lawrence in the 1986 ECAC Quarterfinals were Yale's first playoff wins in program history.

Yale's offense was clicking at an astounding rate heading into the Bulldog's first appearance in the ECAC Championship Semifinals. Cornell's defense had begun to display its characteristic poise and discipline. The March 14, 1986 game was destined to be a clash of the philosophies of Cornell and Yale hockey.

The high-octane offense of the Yale squad allowed the Bulldogs to jump out to an early lead. Cornell's resolute defense held the Bulldogs to just one goal through the first frame. Yale learned early that Cornell's defense and Doug Dadswell had come to honor the Cornell tradition of winning the historic crown of the East. It would take more than fast-paced play and finesse to deny these Red skaters. Yale had outshot Cornell by a ratio of two to one. Cornell's offense returned to the ice for the second period with new focus.

Cornell would need to generate offense. It was becoming apparent to even the Lynah Faithful that Cornell's defense could not weather the Yale Blue onslaught indefinitely and that it was quickly becoming Dadswell against the Elis's offense. The Red response put pressure on the Bulldogs to win the game.

Cornell scored twice in the first ten minutes of the 1986 ECAC Championship Semifinal game. Alan Tigert took a long wrist shot that bested a screened Mike Schwalb for the Bulldogs. The second goal would be far less finesse and much more grit. Chris Grenier deposited the puck into Yale's net after a flurry in front of Schwalb left the puck lying on the crease. Yale needed to rebut the sudden offensive outburst from the Big Red.

Tim Taylor's team found the equalizer before the second period expired. The teams reemerged from their locker rooms for the third period. Schwalb and Dadswell engaged in a goalie duel. It was the latter who had greater opportunities for demonstration. Tim Taylor of Yale and his players began to grow obviously frustrated with the elevated play of Dadswell. The Cornell netminder seemed to get better with each subsequent Yale challenge. Cornell would enter overtime for the second time in the 1986 ECAC Tournament.

The minutes of the first overtime ticked away. Sophomore forward Joe Nieuwendyk was called for a penalty in the final minutes of the first overtime. Fewer minutes remained in the period than the penalty he would serve. Yale's power-play unit had been thwarted and frustrated since the first period.

Cornell earned its respite with killing off the minutes of Nieuwendyk's penalty in the first overtime. The Big Red would take the ice still needing to kill time off the residuary of that penalty. Cornell killed off the penalty. The phenomenal sophomore forward rushed from the box, received the puck behind Yale's net, and connected beautifully to an onrushing Duanne Moeser. Moeser made Cornell's 33rd shot of the 1986 ECAC Championship Semifinal count as he eliminated the Bulldogs.

Yale had lobbed 59 challenges at Dadswell. The Big Red netminder was equal to 57 of them. Yalie Dave Baseggio remarked that "frustration was the only word to describe it." Dadswell commented after the first game at Boston Garden that "by the end of the game, I didn't know how much longer I could go on." His stellar performance gave Cornell its first berth to the ECAC Championship game in five years.

Cornell was the last favorite standing. RPI fell. Yale withered. Harvard collapsed. None of the favorites remained to challenge the Big Red. The 1986 ECAC Championship Final would pit Cornell against Clarkson. It was the third meeting of the Big Red and the Golden Knights in the ECAC Championship Final. The two had split the previous meetings.

Cornell wasted no time in letting its intentions be known. Clarkson found itself down by two goals early in the second period. The Golden Knights were not shy in showing that they wanted to win the ECAC Championship 20 years after they had won their first and only ECAC Championship to date. The Golden Knights tied the game on two power-play goals including a five-on-three opportunity.

The 1986 ECAC Championship Final would not continue without its controversy. Cornell's Dave Crombeen found the back of Clarkson's net in the third period. The goal was nullified after official consultation determined that Crombeen attained the goal from a hand pass. The game remained stalemated for regulation. The Red skaters and Dadswell prepared for Cornell's third overtime game in a four-game playoff run.

Cornell had not lost either of the previous overtime games in the 1986 ECAC Tournament. The players were determined that they would not be denied their goal of winning Cornell's seventh ECAC Championship. An entire overtime frame would be unnecessary. The Big Red's Chris Greiner beat Clarkson's Falle at 8:26 of the first overtime.

The Lynah Faithful erupted. Lou Reycroft was handed a championship trophy for the first time as head coach of Cornell during his fourth season. The Class of 1986 including captains Duanne Moeser, Peter Natyshak, and Mike Schafer had achieved its goal. Its bringing of another championship to East Hill honored the tradition of Cornell hockey. It would be far from the last championship that Mike Schafer gave Cornell.

Cornell outscored its opponents 17 goals to ten goals during the 1986 ECAC Tournament. Chris Greiner found the back of the net in overtime for Cornell's championship-clinching goal against Clarkson's goaltender, Jamie Falle. Doug Dadswell produced a goals-against average of 2.50 and a save percentage of 0.928 over the course of the 1986 ECAC Tournament. Cornell hoisted its first ECAC Championship in the post-Divorce era that evening on March 15, 1986 at Boston Garden.

Another historic game and achievement in Lake Placid, NY that occurred within a month’s time overshadowed the significance of Cornell's unexpected playoff run and ultimate championship during the 1979-80 season.

The 1979-80 season began after the graduation of now legendary point producer and goal scorer Lance Nethery. Nethery totaled 271 points over his four years at Cornell. He scored 91 goals over his career. Those totals place him first and third in each respective category for all-time records for Cornell.

It would seem in cursory retrospect that Cornell would worry about a dearth of offense headed into the 1979-80 season. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nethery may have departed but Cornell's roster was flush with abundant talent. Sophomore forward Kerling and junior forward Tredway were continuing careers that would join them with Nethery as the only three players in Cornell history to tally 200 or more points over their careers. Tredway and Kerling are ranked first and second for goals scored in a career besting Nethery's 91 goals with totals of 113 and 93 goals respectively.

The 1979-80 season began in the shadow of the preceding season's ECAC Tournament. Cornell had been eliminated from the 1979 ECAC Semifinals with a 5-2 loss to New Hampshire. The Big Red was overlooked for a bid to the 1979 NCAA Tournament.

The early season goal for Cornell in the 1979-80 season was to improve upon the 21-8-0 record from the previous season and win Cornell its sixth ECAC Championship. Cornell had the offensive talent to propel such a run. Sophomore goaltender Brian Hayward returned after playing in 25 of Cornell's 29 games during his freshman season. He won 18 of the games in which he tended the pipes. Freshman Hayward recorded a save percentage of 0.884 and goals-against average of 3.88. Goaltending may have seemed a point of intrigue but not weakness in that season. Cornell had Darren Eliot incoming as a freshman.

When Cornell first took the ice, the team suffered setbacks with respect to its lofty ambitions. The Big Red proceeded to drop its first three games. Opponents of Cornell outscored the Big Red 16 to 11 over that span. This early season slide included a two-game series against Notre Dame and a game against Brown. Cornell's offense was producing but the sown seeds of a goalie controversy appeared to be ripe for reaping even early in the season.

Cornell trudged on through the season. Passage to the postseason and success in the Elysian Fields thereof began to seem unnavigable. The 1979-80 Cornell team twice more found itself in the midst of three-game and four-game losing streaks.

A great deal of the frustration and controversy of the season played out when Cornell confronted the Harvard Crimson at Bright Hockey Center, a complex that had just months before been known as Watson Rink before renovations were complete and hosted the 1980 men's ice hockey team from the United States. The February 8, 1980 clash between the Big Red and Crimson had an interesting tone because both programs that had known great success in the ECAC (Cornell had won five ECAC Championships and Harvard had won two ECAC Championships at that point) found themselves on the outside looking in when the ECAC and national playoff picture was discussed at the close of the regular season for the 1979-80 season.

Cornell and Harvard both needed the win, but it was the host that would emerge victorious. Cornell had gotten hot of late having won four of its last five games. The Cleary-led Crimson were ice cold. It was confronting Cornell after having just squandered a three-goal lead to fall to Boston College 4-3 in the 1980 Beanpot.

Harvard followed a similar approach against Cornell and bested Cornell's freshman goaltender Eliot four times in the first frame. The young Eliot who had gained a tenuous grip on the starting goaltender position over sophomore Hayward was chased from the crease. Hayward entered the game in relief, tending the pipes that were once his. He would allow no more goals in that outing. Unsurprisingly, it was Kerling who would cut the Crimson's lead to 4-3. The late-game surge would prove for naught as Harvard defeated the Big Red. Cornell would lose to Dartmouth and get shelled 9-4 by RPI in the Big Red's next two outings.

It was mid-February. Cornell still remained locked out of the playoffs. Cornell and Harvard would continue to duel directly and indirectly as the two historically successful programs jockeyed for the last spot in the 1980 ECAC Tournament. Cornell's next clash against the Crimson came on February 20, 1980. This time Harvard would brave Lynah.

Darren Eliot got the chance at redemption as he got the nod against the Crimson at Lynah. It is uncertain at what point in the season that it may have occurred or had ill effects, but Cornell's head coach Dick Bertrand disclosed after the 1979-80 season that Hayward's diagnosis with mononucleosis had tilted the balance of the goaltender competition between Hayward and Eliot in the latter's favor. Eliot proved more than able to handle the Crimson in front of the Lynah Faithful. Harvard dominated the shot count in the first period. Eliot held them to one goal in the first period and that was all the Crimson would tally.

Cornell's offense erupted with tallies from scorers including Dan Duffy, Brian Marrett, Ken Kirley, Brock Tredway, Karl Habib, and Larry Tobin. The Big Red's dominance left Cleary and his Crimson red-faced with a 6-1 loss at the close of regulation. The Lynah Faithful's raucous serenade of the departing Crimson with "Goodbye, Harvard, we hate to see you go" added insult to injury. The most important result was not redemption in an increasingly heated rivalry. Cornell's win over the Crimson placed Cornell in the last spot for the 1980 ECAC Tournament while the Crimson were relegated to being the first team out of the playoffs.

Cornell would make quick work of Northeastern defeating the other Boston-bound school by a margin of 4-1. Cornell's grip on the playoffs grew ever so slightly more secure. There were four games remaining in the regular season. There was scarcely any margin for error as the Crimson were attempting to mount a hot pursuit of Cornell's covetable position.

Harvard dropped a decision to Colgate that resulted in a skid down the ECAC standings. The skid brought Harvard into a tie with Cornell's other archrival, Boston University, for status as teams two places removed from the last playoff berth. Cornell meanwhile clawed one rung higher in the ECAC seeding with its win over Northeastern. Five teams remained in contention for the last two playoff bids with just four games remaining in the regular season.

Cornell had the hardest remaining schedule of the five teams in contention for the ECAC's last playoff spot. Cornell needed to play Vermont at Gutterson Fieldhouse, Princeton and Providence at Lynah Rink, and Boston University at Walter Brown Arena to close out the regular season. The only opponent that Cornell was to meet in its last four games of the 1979-80 regular season that was out of the playoffs was Princeton.

The Friars and the Catamounts were performing impressively and had clinched a playoff berth. A victory over either Providence or Vermont would be a Herculean undertaking. Boston University would be playing against not only its archrival in Cornell when the Big Red met the Terriers, but also for its right to advance to the post-season. The Terriers would be home-standing. They would be hungry to defeat their rival and redeem themselves in the playoffs after getting eliminated in the 1979 ECAC Semifinals at the hands of Dartmouth.

The Catamounts bested the Big Red at Gutterson in the opening game of the final four regular-season contests. The result was disappointing, but not entirely unexpected as Vermont was uncharacteristically dominant that year. Cornell focused its sights on the Tigers of Princeton. The contest should have been a given with a lackluster Princeton squad that had little to play for in Lynah Rink. The Tigers trounced Cornell 7-6.

Cornell's clawing into the playoffs began to seem for naught. Cornell had dropped the first of its final four games that would serve to gain passage to the playoffs. The Big Red slipped in the ECAC standings. The only two teams that remained were Providence and Boston University. The former was among the elite in the ECAC that season, the latter was still gnashing to get in the playoffs and hardly could find more of a satisfying means of achieving that goal than defeating Cornell at home.

Providence ventured to Lynah Rink to confront the "heathens on the Hill." Cornell flagellated the Friars by a margin of 5-2. There was no acceptable setback allowed in the next game. If Cornell had lost, the Big Red likely would be out of the playoffs.

Goaltending gave way for both Cornell and Boston University. It was not an affair like the preceding Providence game where Cornell bested a good team at both ends of the ice. Cornell vaulted to a five-goal lead. As one would expect, the Terriers would not go quietly. The Terriers struck around four minutes into the second period. They were relentless for the next 20 minutes of game play during which Boston University tied the game. Cornell had allowed five unanswered goals in a game whose result could decide the post-season future of the 1979-80 Cornell squad.

Cornell mustered the ability to defend over the last 15 minutes of regulation. The Terriers would score no more. The game was pushed into overtime. It was there that Cornell's Marrett solved the Terriers's Barich and put the Big Red past the Terriers with the determinative tally. Cornell had reclaimed a 0.500 record with its last regular-season game and win.

Cornell's reward? It extended its season. Cornell earned a bid as the last seed in the 1980 ECAC playoffs. Boston College, Providence, Dartmouth, Vermont, Clarkson, RPI, and Colgate populated the remainder of the playoff field. Cornell's archrivals Boston University and Harvard were left out of the playoffs. It was the third consecutive time that Harvard had missed the post-season.

Cornell would meet top-seeded Boston College in the first round of the playoffs. Cornell would begin its playoff run on the road.

Cornell entered the 1980 ECAC Tournament in an unfamiliar position. The Big Red entered the postseason only after clawing and battling its way in after a daunting regular season. Cornell entered the tournament as the lowest seed that it had ever entered the postseason.

The lowest seed that Cornell had entered the ECAC Tournament as was fifth. The Red skaters entered the 1965 and 1976 ECAC Tournaments as the fifth seed. Cornell did not even appear in the ECAC Championship Final those seasons. Dick Bertrand's squad would embark upon its run in the 1980 ECAC Tournament as a lower seed.

It goes without saying that last-seeded Cornell was heavily disfavored to upend a top-seeded Boston College program that had won its second ECAC Championship in 1978. The Big Red and the Eagles had met once in the regular season. The game was a high-scoring affair that saw 11 goals and Boston College emerge on the better end of a 6-5 decision.

Eliot began Cornell's playoff run between the pipes. Cornell's forwards would not wait long to join the rally. Cornell struck first at 3:10 of the first period. Brian Marrett scored two goals as Cornell scored four additional unanswered goals to which the Eagles would have no response until 13 seconds remained in the game. Cornell had obliterated the top-seeded Eagles at their home in McHugh Forum in its first post-season outing of the 1980 ECAC Tournament.

Cornell advanced to Boston Garden for the 1980 ECAC Semifinals. The 1979-80 Cornell squad would reunite with the Providence Friars there. Less than a week had elapsed since the last meeting between Cornell and Providence.

The Lynah Faithful flocked to Boston Garden. The stage was set for the clash of last-seeded Cornell and second-seeded Providence. The game unraveled quickly for Cornell and its sizable contingent of Faithful at Boston Garden. Providence dominated play and seemed unstoppable. The Friars began the third period with a seemingly very comfortable 4-2 lead.

The final frame began. Cornell was determined to fight its way back into the game. Providence scored less than one minute into the ultimate stanza.

Cornell would have seemed to have lost any momentum it gained from Brock Tredway's four-on-four goal in the last 32 seconds of the second period. Tredway had beaten the Friars's Fiske with a wrap-around goal into the back door of the net. The goal had seemed to insert Cornell back into the game, but allowing an easy goal would have seemed to have stemmed the possible rising red tide.

The Big Red was undeterred. Cornell refocused and redoubled its efforts. The Lynah Faithful reasserted themselves into the game and let their presence be felt on the ice. Cornell closed that gap in just over 12 minutes. David Chiappini, Jeff Baikie and Dan Miele tickled the twine in sequence. The roar of the Faithful grew seemingly with each additional tally.

The 1979-80 Cornell squad's second-most prolific point producer would notch the marker that would stand. Roy Kerling, who would end the 1979-80 season with 52 points behind only Brock Tredway who produced 60 points, wristed a shot past Providence's Friske on a power-play opportunity for Cornell. The game clock still had 5:47 remaining on it.

Providence could not solve Eliot in that span. Kerling's goal stood. Cornell advanced to the 1980 ECAC Championship Final. Dartmouth had defeated Clarkson 6-4. The two deciding tallies that put the Big Green beyond the highly touted Golden Knights of Clarkson were fluky goals. Clarkson dominated most of the game but Dartmouth's netminder did what was needed to make the two fortuitous goals stand.

The 1980 ECAC Championship Final between Cornell and Dartmouth was the first all-Ivy final since Cornell defeated Harvard for Cornell's third ECAC Championship in 1969. The Big Red would need to overcome a Dartmouth squad that appeared to have good luck on its side and a goaltender who was hot at the right time in the season in Bob Gaudet.

The stage was set for the 1980 ECAC Championship Final to be a goalie duel. Dartmouth had entered the 1980 ECAC Tournament seeded third. Expectations were that Dartmouth would be able to handle Cornell. Most thought that Cornell had expended any karmic luck that they had in reserve to overcome a three-goal deficit to defeat Providence late in the semifinal's game. Dartmouth had swept Cornell in their two-game, regular-season series by a scoring margin of 12 to 6. The Cinderella story seemed more likely to be abridged than realized with a clash against Dartmouth.

All speculation stopped as soon as the puck dropped. It did not bode well for Cornell. Dartmouth appeared to take territorial control of the game almost immediately. The Big Green began peppering Cornell's Eliot. Eliot was more than equal to all challenges from Dartmouth in the first frame. Despite suffering from unfavorable disparities in terms of territory and possession, Cornell's forwards capitalized on seemingly all of the opportunities that they were given.

Cornell struck first. Cornell forward Tredway capitalized on a turnover and sprinted in on Gaudet on a breakaway. The Cornell forward bested the future head coach of the Big Green and put Cornell up 1-0. The Big Red's attack was relentless as Gaudet found himself collecting another puck from his net just a few minutes later when Tredway assisted on a goal for his linemate Jim Gibson.

Cornell's scoring was not done in the first period. Cornell may have bested Dartmouth with finesse on its first two tallies, but before the frame was over, Cornell would best its fellow non-urban Ivy in terms of grit when Brian Marrett tucked the puck into Dartmouth's net after a pile-up in the Big Green's crease. The buzzer that ended the first period sounded with Eliot not allowing the goal and Cornell scoring three.

The second period would prove fatal for Dartmouth. The Big Green decided that they needed an extra player to stop the Big Red onslaught. The officials decided that it was untoward and penalized Dartmouth with a too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty. The penalty was awarded 16 seconds before the first period ended. Dartmouth took the ice determined to kill of the undisciplined penalty. It was to no avail.

The Big Red converted on the Big Green's penalty. Cornell extended its lead to four goals just 58 seconds into the second period. John Olds converted from the slot as the 46 seconds remained on Cornell's power-play opportunity.

Eliot held firm throughout the second period. Cornell would not score again in the second frame, but due to Eliot's stellar play the Big Red and Big Green left the ice of the Boston Garden for the last intermission of the 1980 ECAC Championship Final with Cornell ahead of Dartmouth by a four-goal margin.

Dartmouth solved Eliot in the third period after 2:11 of the ultimate frame elapsed. The Cornell netminder's play gave the Dartmouthians no chance at fighting their way into the game. The official time showed that 17:49 remained in the game, but Cornell's early game outburst had deflated and defeated Dartmouth early.

Dartmouth would not score again. Eventual 1980 ECAC Tournament Most Valuable Player Darren Eliot had an answer for every subsequent challenge that Dartmouth could level. Cornell's Kerling would tally another goal with 13 second remaining in the game to make the final margin of the game 5-1. Cornell denied Dartmouth a chance to win its first ECAC Championship. Dartmouth still has not won an ECAC Championship. The Big Red earned a berth to the Frozen Four. Cornell left Boston Garden in 1980 victorious with its sixth ECAC Championship.

Cornell was seeded eighth in the 1980 ECAC Tournament. The Big Red were the last team in the playoffs. The battle-tested Red would be guaranteed the hardest possible route to its possible sixth ECAC Championship. Cornell would be more than up to the task. Cornell downed the top-seeded Boston College at the Eagles's home of McHugh Forum. The Friars, who were seeded second overall entering the playoffs, would fall next to Bertrand's squads at Boston Garden. The remaining top seed was the third-seeded Big Green of Dartmouth. It was the Big Green's second consecutive appearance in the ECAC Championship Final. The Ivy Leaguers from Hanover were no match for the Red as Cornell prevented Dartmouth from earning its first ECAC Championship.

Cornell claimed its sixth ECAC Championship in the most unpredictable of ways. It won the ECAC Tournament having entered the postseason as the last seed. No program except Cornell hockey can claim a team that has won an ECAC Championship with entering the postseason as either the eighth seed or the last seed. No team in the history of the ECAC has won the league's ultimate prize in such a spectacular manner.

The 1979-80 season should be remembered among the fans and teams who witnessed it as a triumphant season in which a talented Cornell roster overcame great obstacles to claim playoff glory, and within the program as a point of pride that demonstrates the resiliency and hard work of Cornell hockey as an institution whose history can buoy success against the gravest of odds.

A postseason offensive outburst that overwhelmed playoff opponents by a margin of 16 goals to seven goals propelled Cornell. Jim Gibson bested Bob Gaudet for the championship-clinching tally in the 1980 ECAC Championship Final. Freshman goaltender Darren Eliot defended a goals-against average of 2.33 and a save percentage of 0.929 during the 1980 ECAC Tournament. The 1980 ECAC Championship was Dick Bertrand's second such championship as head coach. The Big Red left Boston Garden as the ECAC Champion for the sixth time on March 15, 1980.

Two complete seasons had passed since Harkness' departure. Dick Bertrand after captaining Cornell in the 1969-70 season filled the void left after Harkness' somewhat unanticipated exit. Bertrand began coaching duties in the 1970-71 season. He coached many of the players who were his teammates just a few months prior.

Bertrand's first season marked the first time in nearly five seasons that Cornell had not won the ECAC Championship. The 1970-71 team missed the NCAA Tournament despite an impressive 22-win freshman season for Bertrand. It would not take long for Cornell's new bench boss to lead his first Big Red team to the NCAA Tournament.

Bertrand and the 1970-71 team defended Cornell’s winning run at Lynah Rink. That streak broke on February 2, 1972 against Clarkson. This was not before it extended to the staggering length of 63 consecutive wins at Lynah Rink. Lynah Rink remained one of the most fearsome venues for opponents. Cornell did not lose another contest on East Hill during the remainder of the 1971-72 campaign.

The 1971-72 season witnessed Cornell battle back to the ECAC title game at Boston Garden. This first trip for the second-year coach would not be victorious. Cornell would fall to Boston University.

Cornell received an at-large invitation to the 1972 NCAA Tournament despite its disappointing loss in the ECAC Championship Final. The Big Red dominated the Denver Pioneers 7-2 in the NCAA Championship Semifinals. The victory likely proved cathartic for Bertrand. Dryden's last season and Bertrand's junior season at Cornell were ended when Denver defeated Cornell 4-3.

A rematch of the ECAC Championship Final awaited Cornell in the next round. Boston University did its best impression of Cornell in the 1967 postseason. The Terriers defeated their archrival again in the only game during which Cornell was shut out during the 1971-72 season. Ending the season empty-handed with no earned championships and claiming only runner-up status in two tournaments did not sit well with those returning to East Hill for the 1972-73 season.

Cornell returned three of the 1971-72 team's top scorers. Departed was 1971-72 captain Larry Fullan and his linemates. Eight sophomores would need to rise from the freshman team with uncertain trajectories. Despite these losses and uncertainties, Cornell entered the season ranked first in the East. Ivy-League archrival Harvard was ranked just behind the Cornellians.

One of the hallmarks of Bertrand's tenure was his choice to emphasize a team-first mentality in new and distinct ways from those that Harkness employed. Bertrand refused to number his lines. He instead designated them with colors. However, at the outset of the season it was apparent that Bertrand would need to rely upon captains Bill Hanson and Dave Street, and Carlo Ugolini. Hanson would be expected to fill the void that Fullan's departure left as best that he could.

Last season's top scorers on the varsity team, Carlo Ugolini and Bill Hanson, would be joined by the top scorer of the freshman team in the form of Gary Young. Gary Young was joined on the "yellow line" with Doug Marrett and Bob Murray. Observers pegged this sophomore line to be the second-most prolific during the 1972-73 season behind only the "blue line" of Bill Hanson, Carlo Ugolini, and Gord McCormick. Dave Elenbaas returned as Cornell's netminder for his senior season with Brian Rainey standing in reserve if Cornell needed.

The team was plagued with unavoidable questions. One of its top defenseman, Bill Murray, would be dedicated to soccer at the outset of the season. It was unknown if Cornell's combined talents could accommodate the loss of key players like Fullan. Bertrand remarked before the first weekend of play that "the season could be over for us by Christmas."

Cornell was 3-1-0 by the time Christmas arrived. Cornell had earned a 2-1-0 record in its first ECAC contests. The lone loss was Boston University's second consecutive shutout of its archrival Cornell. This time, however, the loss did not come far from East Hill at Boston Garden. The Lynah Faithful witnessed the 9-0 loss to the Terriers firsthand.

Controversially, Boston University would be forced to forfeit its win in that game. The Terriers's Dick Decloe, who scored a hat trick in the contest, was determined to be an ineligible player because his school in Canada had paid a local school tax. This in the minds of the ECAC and NCAA indicated that his school was regarded not as an institution involved in secondary education, but one involved with the ineligible practice of developing players professionally. Boston University would forfeit 11 total wins.

Cornell split tournament results against Loyola and Clarkson in a holiday tournament in Syracuse. The new year began with another pitch against Loyola. Cornell would again win. The Red was bound to meet its Ivy-League archrival Harvard just two days later at Watson Rink. What transpired in that season's series between the fierce Ivy-League foes is now legendary.

Coaching changes at Harvard mirrored those on East Hill. The Crimson handed the reins of its program to alumnus Bill Cleary before the 1971-72 season. Bill Cleary was noted for assisting his other Team USA teammates, including his brother, in winning a gold medal in hockey during the 1960 Olympic Games. His prowess as a college-hockey coach was unknown. Cleary had played in an era when neither the ECAC nor the Ivy League sponsored hockey.

The arrival of Bill Cleary resulted in a sudden shift in the dynamic of the Cornell-Harvard rivalry. Cornell’s and the Lynah Faithful’s dislike for Harvard could be equaled only by the reciprocated emotions of coach Bill Cleary. Cornell suffered a loss to the Crimson for the first time in 14 meetings between the historic foes.

Bill Cleary brought Harvard its first victory over Cornell in six years. Bertrand and his squad responded in January 1972 with a convincing win over Harvard. The rivalry between the Ivy of Upstate New York and the oldest college in the United States was on the precipice of growing more heated.

The January 6, 1973 clash between Cornell and Harvard was the game of the chicken. Harvard was ranked first in the nation headed into the game. The Crimson were undefeated in all of its previous outings. Dave Elenbaas frustrated the Crimson with what many believed was his best performance of the season. Harvard's power-play unit that owned a conversion rate of 53% was held to one power-play goal on seven opportunities. Cornell would score five goals to Harvard's two goals in a tremendous upset.

Harvard fans were none too subdued in demonstrating their displeasure at the upset that the upstart Ivy of Cornell was threatening. Dave Elenbaas found himself on the receiving end of airborne poultry during game play. The dead chicken was an unsubtle reference to and insult of New York State's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University. Most Cantabs viewed the studies afforded at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences as unbefitting an Ivy-League institution.

The Cornell-Harvard series paced the trajectory of Cornell during the 1972-73 season. Harvard rebounded after the loss to its Ivy-League rival. The Crimson ventured to East Hill on February 17, 1973. The Red squad was poised for a statement win and a season sweep. The Lynah Faithful were prepared to respond to the slight that the dead chicken directed at their alma mater and the Crimson fans’s reckless disregard for their student-athletes at Harvard.

Harvard's team once again looked like the best team that the Crimson had iced in history. The animosity of the game was immediately apparent. It was the most physical game that an already physical Cornell program had played that season. Showing more respect and regard for those on the ice than had Harvard, the Lynah Faithful deluged the Crimson on the ice with fish during breaks in game play. This antic has become the traditional means by which Cornell welcomes its archrival Crimson to Lynah Rink before the opening face-off.

Harvard left the ice for the second time in the season stunned. Bill Cleary waved his team off the ice instructing it to depart the ice without congratulating the victorious Cornell team. The Crimson refused to shake the hands of the victorious Cornell players. Harvard did the same when the two teams met in January. This practice became emblematic of Bill Cleary’s conduct in the pitched rivalry between Cornell and Harvard throughout his 19-year career in Cambridge. Cornell outclassed Harvard during both contests.

Cornell entered the postseason a better team than it was when the season began. Dave Elenbaas had lifted his game from its level during the previous season. Dave Street rejoined the roster on defense just before the first Harvard clash. George Shields returned as a forward at the same time. Doug Marrett, Carlo Ugolini, and Bob Murray had delivered upon the need to fill offensive voids. Carlo Ugolini had become so well regarded for his uncommon skills that many fans nicknamed him "the magician" by the time the 1973 postseason arrived.

Cornell entered the 1973 ECAC Tournament as the number one seed as it had in 1968, 1969, 1970, and 1972. The Big Red would play host to eighth-seeded RPI in the ECAC Quarterfinals. Cornell had not played the Engineers in the 1972-73 regular season.

Cornell was one of two top seeds that would survive the 1973 ECAC Quarterfinals. Perennial powers Harvard and Boston University fell in the first round allowing Clarkson and Penn to advance to Boston Garden. Cornell was determined to avoid a similar fate.

The Engineers were unable to calculate any way to measure up to the task that Cornell at Lynah presented. The Troy natives received the support of 750 fans from RPI who ventured eastward, but were disappointed in the ultimate result. The Engineers withered in the face of a dominating Cornell offensive and physical demonstration. Cornell led 8-0 after the second period ended. Bob Murray recorded a hat trick. "The magician," Carlo Ugolini, tallied five helpers.

RPI scored its only goals within a six-minute span in the third period. This feat would be enough to only close the final margin of victory to six goals. The third period saw the Engineers attempting to draw Cornell players into altercations that would result in game suspensions in the next round of the ECAC Tournament. Engineer John Donahue checked Cornell goaltender Dave Elenbaas when the latter was collecting the puck along the boards. The benches cleared as a result and back-up Cornell goalie Brian Rainey restrained RPI's McNab during the resulting fight.

The game ended 9-3 and Cornell advanced to Boston Garden for the 1973 ECAC Championship Semifinals. The Golden Knights of Clarkson who beat Boston University in the ECAC Quarterfinals would be Cornell's opponents in the semifinals. Cornell had split with Clarkson during the regular season. The Big Red lost 10-1 to Clarkson in December and defeated the Golden Knights 6-1 in February.

First-year head coach Jerry York, whose collegiate playing career at Boston College ended with a 12-2 loss to Cornell in the 1967 ECAC Championship Semifinals, led Clarkson into the 1973 ECAC Championship Semifinals. His squad had earned an 18-14-0 record before the weekend and was just one week removed from eliminating heavy favorite Harvard.

Cornell pummeled the Golden Knights at the outset of the semifinal contest. The Big Red rattled off three goals in the first ten minutes of the contest. Doug Marrett opened the scoring. Mike McGuire and Bob Murray joined the rush in sequence. The Golden Knights were not thwarted in their response. They would best Dave Elenbaas two times before the first buzzer rang. However, Gord McCormick had an answer to Clarkson's charge by the time the squads left the ice for the first intermission.

Game play resumed in the second frame. Cornell's physicality dissuaded Clarkson. Clarkson was contented to stay behind its blue line, passing the puck, avoiding the battering that the Big Red was presenting. Clarkson's reluctance to engage the Red in the neutral zone allowed Cornell to gain decisive control of the game. Doug Marrett completed his hat trick in the second period. Carlo Ugolini worked his magic with an unassisted tally.

The final stanza began with Cornell holding onto a commanding 7-2 lead. The seemingly disoriented Golden Knights regained some of their composure in the third period. They beat Elenbaas twice in the third period after the Big Red added another goal to its already gaudy total. Doug Marrett scored his fourth goal of the game to end the scoring. Cornell eliminated Clarkson with a final score of 9-4.

Boston College ended Penn's only run in program history to the ECAC Championship weekend in the other semifinal match-up. Cornell would face the Eagles in the ECAC Championship Final. The match-up was a rematch of the 1968 ECAC Championship Final. Cornell won that contest six goals to three goals.

Boston College thwarted the efforts of Cornell early in the contest. The Eagles's defense would collapse around Boston College netminder Ned Yetten and ward off the Cornell attackers. Boston College cycled in a disciplined manner the few times that it gained the zone and waited for lapses in Cornell's defense.

Dick Bertrand was left with few options but to employ his most talented "blue line" against the Eagles to break the gridlock. Carlo Ugolini, Doug Marrett, and Bob Murray logged 30 minutes of ice time by the time the game ended. Bertrand's stratagem worked.

The second period witnessed controversy as Cornell head coach Dick Bertrand and Clarkson head coach Len Ceglarski battled to gain the right to have the last line change at a pivotal point in the game. This dispute consumed ten minutes of running time. The officials on the ice consulted ECAC Rules Committee member Scotty Whitelaw. Whitelaw refused to resolve the issue in favor of either team. An on-ice official gave the last change to Clarkson. The game resumed.

The Eagles weary of Marrett's four-goal game the evening before tried to give him little space in which to maneuver. It was to no avail. Doug Marrett scored two goals and Carlo Ugolini assisted on all of Cornell's four goals. Cornell broke the gridlock that Boston College defended earlier. Cornell's "blue line" in recording 30 minutes of ice time helped Cornell gain a territorial advantage and register 52 shots on Boston College's skilled goaltender. Cornell's first and last goals of its three came on the power play.

Cornell's third goal and the final goal of the game was scored with 12:22 remaining in the third period. Clarkson would not find the equalizer. The victory gave Cornell its first postseason title that Cornell won without Ned Harkness. It took Bertrand just three seasons to win his first championship as head coach. It took him one season less than it did Harkness.

The 1973 ECAC Championship proved that the greatness of Cornell hockey was far greater than Harkness' leadership. Dick Bertrand and his 1972-73 squad proved that to themselves and all subsequent generations of players and coaches. Cornell hockey was greatness.

Cornell outscored its opponents 21 goals to nine goals during the course of the 1973 ECAC Tournament. Bill Murray tallied the championship-winning goal against Boston College netminder Ned Yetten. Dave Elenbaas earned a goals-against average of 3.00 and a save percentage of 0.907 during the 1973 ECAC Tournament. Cornell left Boston Garden on March 10, 1973 having won its fifth ECAC Championship.

The truest measure of the profoundness of an achievement is if one can be convinced of its inevitability upon reflection.

Cornell hockey has experienced several such achievements. The 1969-70 season is the starkest example. Paradoxically, what makes that season most deserving of celebration is the fact that the end result was guaranteed at no point when the 1969-70 team was progressing through its schedule and accumulating wins. Statistical accolades and primacy as the owner of an unchallenged status in college-hockey history is satisfactory, but to understand the meaning of the 1969-70 season, one must understand the triumph of will and spirit that generated a result that now seems all but destined.

The postseason success of Cornell continued through the 1970 ECAC Tournament. The skaters from East Hill brought back to Central New York a fourth consecutive ECAC Championship. They had managed to achieve this feat without the awe-inspiring skill set of already legendary goaltender Ken Dryden. Dryden's career ended upon his graduation in May 1969. Naysayers believed that his graduation would mark a decline in the quality of Cornell hockey. Harkness and his 1969-70 team had proven otherwise.

A trophy for a fourth ECAC Championship was not the only thing carried in tow back to Ithaca on March 14, 1970. The Big Red carried with it a clean slate. A perfect slate. Cornell had suffered no losses and no ties during the regular season or its run through Boston Garden. Cornell shouldered this accolade into the 1970 national tournament. Every opponent that Cornell confronted would be aiming to mar perfection with a first blemish. The Red skaters would be marked.

The distaste for participation and runners-up trophies is engrained deeply into the culture of Cornell hockey. One of the most poignant displays of the early genesis of this ethos occurred at the end of the 1968-69 season. Cornell closed that season with a third consecutive ECAC Championship. Harkness' players grappled through a difficult 1969 NCAA Tournament. It was Ned Harkness' second appearance in the national-title game behind the bench at Cornell. It was Ken Dryden's senior campaign. It would end in a loss. Cornell was unable to rally from a 4-2 deficit.

Harkness politely accepted the second-place trophy after Cornell fell to Murray Armstrong's Denver team in March 1969. The look of despair and disappointment was apparent on his face. Cornell hockey had come to embody greatness. Second place was not good enough. Championships were what was now glorified and expected on East Hill. Finishing second with a roster so talented was not sufficient. A culture had been born. This mindset persists within the institution of Cornell hockey. Harkness was determined that he would be better.

The field of the 1970 NCAA Tournament was constituted of Clarkson, Cornell, Michigan Tech, and Wisconsin. Cornell just defeated the Golden Knights in a tight 3-2 contest in the 1970 ECAC Championship Final. Clarkson was keen for revenge. The Cornell team buoyed by overzealous Lynah Faithful on East Hill had its focus on perfection.

Michigan Tech was the only other team in the 1970 NCAA Tournament that had won the ultimate prize of college hockey. The Huskies of Michigan's Upper Peninsula won national championships in 1962 and 1965. They had failed in their latest attempt to add to that total in the 1969 NCAA Tournament. Cornell had defeated the Huskies with a 4-3 overtime victory in that national tournament. John MacInnes hoped to lead Michigan Tech to vengeance with ending Cornell's bid for a perfect season.

MacInnes led his Huskies to their first consecutive appearances in the NCAA Tournament through a victory in the East Regional of the 1970 WCHA Tournament. The WCHA in the era of the 1969-70 season divided its Conference into East and West Regionals. The victor of each regional would receive the Conference's berths to the national tournament. Michigan Tech defeated a Minnesota team that won the MacNaughton Cup in a 6-5 WCHA Championship Final.

Wisconsin earned its first berth to an NCAA Tournament after its first season in the WCHA. The Western conference of college hockey admitted the Badgers at the beginning of the 1969-70 season. Their first season was a success. Wisconsin had powered its way through a difficult WCHA Tournament with victories over Michigan and Denver. Wisconsin won the West Regional of the 1970 WCHA Tournament. Wisconsin had no intentions of allowing its run to end easily.

The champion and runner-up of the ECAC joined the victors of the WCHA Tournament Regionals in Lake Placid, NY. The rink that hosted figure skating and half of the ice hockey competitions of the 1932 Olympic Games awaited its first NCAA Tournament. The presence of Cornell with its growing and loyal fanbase, and regionally proximate Clarkson ensured that the crowds at the foot of the Adirondack Mountains would be proportionate to the glory that Cornell sought.

The field of the 1970 NCAA Tournament was dotted with uncertainty for Cornell. The Red skaters had met neither Michigan Tech nor Wisconsin during the 1969-70 season. Clarkson was the lone opponent with which Cornell was acquainted. Cornell possessed still the advantage of experience. The Big Red was the most seasoned roster in terms of experience in the national tournament.

Wisconsin had never appeared in the national tournament. Clarkson had no remaining players on its roster who remembered the Golden Knights's trip to the 1966 NCAA Tournament. Michigan Tech had competed in the 1969 NCAA Tournament. Cornell boasted 15 players on its roster who had competed in at least one NCAA Tournament. This was a product of Cornell's four consecutive appearances in the national tournament. Cornell knew what to expect better than any other team in the 1970 NCAA Tournament.

The semifinal contests paired Clarkson against Michigan Tech and Cornell against Wisconsin. Michigan Tech would need to defeat Clarkson if it wanted a chance at revenge against Cornell. Wisconsin hoped to cap its impressive first season in the WCHA with ending the Red's perfect season.

The contest between Cornell and Wisconsin represented a role reversal. Three years before Cornell had been the uninitiated and inexperienced first-time competitor in the national tournament. It represented a new challenge from the East. Cornell was now the seasoned team and program that would welcome a competitive team from the West to the national tournament. Wisconsin in 1970, like Cornell in 1967, was ready for the challenge.

The teams that took the ice of Jack Shea Arena on March 19, 1970 had more similarities than their sets of uniforms. Coaches who would become legends of the college-hockey game stepped behind each bench. Ned Harkness was leading Cornell into its fourth national tournament and seeking his second national championship won while on East Hill. Bob Johnson was coaching Wisconsin to its first appearance in the national tournament. Both coaches had similar ethics in how they directed their teams.

Wisconsin had become already known for its grueling and often brutal style of play. The similarly clad skaters from Central New York perfected a variation on the same tenets. Neither team nor program was known to yield. It is this relentlessness and physicality that typifies clashes between Cornell and Wisconsin. It is unlikely that Harkness, Johnson, either of their teams, or anyone knew it that evening, but they were about to witness the birth of a classic rivalry of the NCAA Tournament between two historic programs.

A superb goaltender backstopped the Badgers. Wayne Thomas stood tall for Wisconsin. Cornell would need to solve him to win the contest. Thomas had some commentators comparing him to another tall goaltender with whom Cornell was very familiar. A netminder whose size and legend had earned the current tender of Cornell's pipes the nickname "the Little Kid." Brian Cropper would need to be Thomas's equal for at least 60 minutes of play.

The moment the puck dropped the advantages for each squad became apparent despite the similar style of play of the teams. Wisconsin was far larger. Cornell was exceedingly faster. Momentum trumped might as the game began. The swifter Cornellians asserted a strong presence in Badger territory. A Red deluge from the white-clad skaters of Cornell pummeled Thomas. Despite continual harassment, the Badger would not surrender.

A quarter of the first period had elapsed before Wisconsin muscled its way back into the contest. Cornell was whistled for a penalty at 6:22. Wisconsin established a strong presence in Cornell's zone. A Badger positioned behind the net found Wisconsin's Bob Poffenroth on Cropper's doorstep. Poffenroth received the puck and delivered it into the Red net. A small but loyal Wisconsin contingent erupted in the stands of Jack Shea Arena. Approximately 100 Badger fans had made the trip to New York. Nearly every member of their contingent knew the steep odds that their team was given to win the contest. Their team had faith in its reliable goaltender and had given Cornell a deficit to overcome.

Control of the game began to slip away from Cornell. Wisconsin followed its power-play goal with several nearly fatal challenges. The Big Red defense had few answers to them. Poffenroth from the slower Westerners bested Cornell's blueliners and charged in on Cropper on a breakaway. The junior goaltender answered. He would need to soon after make a phenomenal stop on another surrendered two-on-one breakaway. The Little Kid was doing what he needed until his defensive corp and forwards recovered.

John Hughes provided a response.  The senior captain saw a lane to Thomas. He unleashed a blast that scorched his stick. Wisconsin's goaltender extinguished the threat it posed. Thomas made the Badgers's one marker seem insurmountable in the first period. However, Cornell had regained its composure and resolve. The second period was unlike the first.

Cornell continued to challenge Wisconsin in the physical contests of the game and continued to outrace them. A power play in the second frame seemed to be the tipping point of the game. Cornell would take the lead. Thomas stopped each blast that left a Red stick. The best challenge came from Brian McCutcheon. His directed shot struck iron. The Lynah Faithful who numbered approximately 1,000 for half of the capacity of Jack Shea Arena sighed. Wisconsin was staving off a seemingly unstoppable team in a defensive battle.

Cornell continued to control the zone but Wisconsin, most often in the form of Johnson's Wayne Thomas, held off the Big Red's best efforts to knot the game. The 1969-70 team amazingly seemed undaunted. Another power play in the second period ended with Thomas giving the fans of the Western team much to cheer. Wisconsin clung to its one-goal lead for another 20 minutes.

Kevin Pettit appeared to accomplish the once-impossible less than 30 seconds into the third period. Pettit had beaten Thomas's front pad, but the puck never entered the net as it was corralled under Wisconsin's goaltender. Each seemingly impossible save tended to make Cornell more focused on its efforts. Cropper stopped all of Wisconsin's attempts after the Badgers goals. The Little Kid was called upon only four times in the last two periods to hold the Badgers at bay. Cornell would not give Wisconsin or its netminder a chance to breathe.

Wisconsin held the 1969-70 team scoreless longer than any team did in the season. The Badger shutout would end. Defenseman Dan Lodboa slapped a shot on net. Thomas made the save predictably. The puck bounced off of the netminder onto the stick of Cornell's Garth Ryan. Ryan pounced. His first attempt missed. His second attempt missed. Thomas and Ryan were battling in the crease. The forward from Cornell bested Thomas with his third attempt. The game was tied.

The Lynah Faithful clamored and drowned the cheers of the opposition. The Faithful knew that the remaining 14:28 was more than enough time for Cornell to win the contest. They were right. Cornell would wait only 5:29.

A defensive lapse for Wisconsin left defenseman Bill Duthie in the slot. Duthie tallied only four goals during the season. He was an atypical offensive threat. A backhander from Duthie buckled the twine and bested the most ferocious Badger. Cornell took the lead with 8:59 remaining.

Thomas would surrender no more goals. Cornell would score no empty-net tallies. The puck from Duthie sent Cornell to its second consecutive national-title game while relegating Wisconsin and its Bob Johnson to wait longer for their first national titles. Clarkson defeated Michigan Tech in the remaining semifinal battle. The Golden Knights neutered the Huskies in a 4-3 contest.

Cornell confronted for the second time an ECAC foe that it defeated for the ECAC Championship in the same season in the NCAA Championship Final. Harkness and his skaters were victorious in the first meeting when Boston University was the opponent. They would be again when that foe was Clarkson.

The Big Red defeated the Golden Knights one week earlier in a close 3-2 contest. The meeting of the two teams in the 1970 NCAA Championship Final would witness twice as many goals scored. The efforts would be very dissimilar for both teams.

Clarkson had been denied twice before in the national-title game. Len Ceglarski and his Golden Knights hoped the third time would be the charm. Great expectations surrounded the game among both fanbases. Clarkson was ready to seize the moment for redemption. Cornell felt the pressure of its fans, demands of dynasty, and calls of destiny to complete its perfect season. The Lynah Faithful returned to Jack Shea Arena with increased numbers. Among those who joined the pilgrimage to the final game to cheer on Cornell to the unthinkable was Cornell alumnus Ken Dryden.

The roar of the carnelian-and-white stands was silenced early. Clarkson opened the scoring for the contest. It took Luc St. Jean a mere 20 seconds to put the Golden Knights on the board. The dominance of the Big Red at the close of its game against Wisconsin did not spill over into the national title game. Some fans were perplexed to see the 1969-70 team appear bewildered at times.

Cornell weathered the storm as it had so many times before in the season. Gordie Lowe helped Brian Cropper behind the blue line in biding time while the roster waited for the seemingly unstoppable Red to begin to roll. The line of Larry Fullan, Garth Ryan, and Dave Westner was the first to show signs of life for Cornell. It gave the Lynah Faithful hope after early disappointment. Garth Ryan missed a rebound. Larry Fullan then received a feed from Steve Giuliani. Fullan struck and gave the Lynah Faithful something more tangible.

Cornell would wait less than seven minutes when Garth Ryan scored on the power play. Clarkson would answer when the onrushing Golden Knights caught Brian Cropper committed outside of the crease after making three key stops. They skated the puck past him. The score of the game had ratcheted. Those in attendance knew at that moment that the game would be unlike the 1970 ECAC Championship Final in Boston Garden or Cornell's first game of the 1970 NCAA Tournament.

Clarkson scored the next goal of the contest. The third tally for Clarkson occurred less than four minutes into the second stanza. The residents of Potsdam began to conjure up images of an NCAA national championship trophy in their trophy case. The dynamic chemistry of Fullan, Ryan, and Westner could not be neutralized for long. The trio exploded at 13:31 of the second period to beat Bruce Bullock of Clarkson. Fullan directed the puck to Ryan. Ryan centered the puck to Westner. The sophomore recipient re-zeroed the game.

Cornell did not escape the second chapter without incident. Clarkson would have two power plays in the last six minutes of the period. Three Cornellians decided that their team had given the Golden Knights enough. Clarkson received no quarter. Defensemen Gordie Lowe and Dan Lodboa with forward Brian McCutcheon displayed heroics when ensuring that Clarkson had no threatening opportunities on their consecutive power plays. The trio killed the penalty with ease.

The first few minutes of the third period ticked by without incident. Neither team scored. Then, Clarkson was called for a trip. The power-play unit took the ice in Clarkson's zone for the face-off. No one could expect what was going to happen next.

One must imagine that before the puck struck the ice on that power play that dynamic captain Dan Lodboa gripped his stick a little more tightly. He resolved to himself that he was going to give his team the victory and place in history that it deserved, and his beloved coach his third national championship. Lodboa would lift his team.

Brian McCutcheon corralled the puck in the corner of the boards. He gave a slight gesture to Lodboa. The defensman known as Bo sprinted from the right face-off circle to the front of the crease. McCutcheon delivered a pass that landed on the tape of Lodboa's stick. The senior defenseman and captain sent the puck sailing over the shoulder of Bullock.

The Lodboan avalanche was not complete.

The missteps of two Cornellians gave the North Countrymen a chance to start a new game. The Golden Knights would benefit from a five-on-three opportunity. Dan Lodboa took the ice to kill the Golden Knights's two-man advantage. The defenseman gathered the puck behind Cropper. He looked down ice and saw a seam that few could see.

Lodboa skated out from behind the Red cage. The reliable and prolific defenseman split Clarkson's defenders with the honed skills of a forward. Clarkson's five tried to stop him but the tempest that stirred in the determined senior was unstoppable. He outmaneuvered each challenge from skaters in green and goldenrod. Quickly, Bullock was all that stood in front of him. The Clarkson netminder expected Lodboa to deke once more as he had on his rush. Dan Lodboa beat Bullock cleanly with a straight shot into the net.

Cornell demonstrated its superb talent and depth 4:19 later. The teams skated four-on-four. It was Cornell that found the opportunity. Brian McCutcheon, John Hughes, and Dan Lodboa stormed into the territory of the Golden Knights. The three had generated a three-on-one opportunity for the Big Red. They would not waste it. McCutcheon handed off the puck to the defenseman in the trio. As he had twice before in the contest, Lodboa found the back of the net for his team.

Lodboa scored one of the fastest hat tricks in the history of the NCAA Tournament. Dan Lodboa had notched three tallies within 7:14 in the ultimate game of the college-hockey season. This outburst propelled from stellar team work and his pure determination gave Cornell a 6-3 advantage. The game had only 7:43 remaining. The Golden Knights would tally one more goal. It would be the final goal of the contest.

The hat trick and end-to-end play of Dan Lodboa that buoyed Cornell to a national championship guaranteed the senior captain recognition as the most valuable player of the 1970 NCAA Tournament in the minds of nearly all in attendance. The voters for that accolade concurred. Dan Lodboa scored the championship-winning goal that completed the only perfect season with an NCAA national championship on an awe-inspiring drive of skill, finesse, and determination.

The offensive efforts of Larry Fullan, Steve Giuliani, Dan Lodboa, Brian McCutcheon, Garth Ryan, and Dave Westner guided Cornell in achieving the impossible. The defensive feats of Dan Lodboa, Brian McCutcheon, and Gordie Lowe were integral to Cornell's victory. The victory was a team effort despite the spectacle of the efforts of individuals in the game. The team achieved against stark adversity. The game represented a microcosm of the season.

Rumors had begun to swirl before the 1970 ECAC Championships and NCAA Tournament regarding Harkness' departure from East Hill. The legendary coach eventually would depart. The thought did not cross the minds of those celebrating on the ice with their coach.

The entire institution of Cornell hockey that evening reflected how appropriate it was for Harkness to become the first coach to complete a national-championship perfect season. The trainer for the Big Red, Alf Ekman, remarked later that Ned "makes everyone believe he is better than they possibly might be-- he makes them do it-- and manages to convey the importance of the game." He made believers of his 1969-70 squad first. That belief spread into revived fanaticism in Ithaca, Boston, and Lake Placid.

Ekman's analysis was profoundly astute. Hockey was important to Harkness. He made it important to his teams. He made it important to the Cornell community. Hockey came to manifest the sincerity, hard work, and skill that had been tenets of Cornellians for nearly a century before the legendary coach arrived. Cornell was wedded to hockey perfectly and permanently.

It was the players who achieved the feat. The dreams of a season without blemish did not exist at the outset of the season. Few thought that either the team or the program could survive the departure of a legend in Ken Dryden. Players crafted their own legends and proved that Cornell hockey not only survived, but it thrived at a higher level.

The record of 29-0-0 is as immortal as if it were chiseled in stone. Fans of distant programs conjure up imagines of undeniable perfection. The Lynah Faithful know the truth. That timeless statistic was the product of very human efforts. The accomplishment was not preordained. Cornell needed to rally to win all but one of its postseason contests. Several opponents believed that they had the 1969-70 team on the ropes. Each time the collective team found a way to win each contest.

The team was not the most dominant postseason team iced on East Hill. It was the most accomplished. The members of the historic team with a perfect record were determined and their victories represent a triumph of human determination and will. They believed in each other when others did not. They gave their loyal fans reason to remain faithful when there seemed few. Hard work, strength of will, and resolve were the greatest contributors to their success.

The humility to work as a team and a yeomanly ethic made the perfect 1969-70 season distinctly Cornellian. It is fitting that only Cornell has achieved this feat. Most who venerate the team omit this human element. It has become a symbol of an unattainable goal once reached. As the roar of the Lynah Faithful continued to echo through the Adirondacks as Ned Harkness, and captains Dick Bertrand, John Hughes, and Dan Lodboa gathered for photographs, the reality of the accomplishments of a season had not been lost to legend. The Cornellians on the ice knew what delivered them to this moment when the sweat of competition and overcome odds still dampened their sweaters.

Some endings are expected. One can predict them far in advance. The end of the 1968-69 season saw such an end. Ken Dryden played his last game wearing the carnelian and white in Colorado Springs in March 1969. His famous career had ended. The 1969-70 season would experience and play stage to two endings that were unexpected when Cornell faced off in its first intercollegiate game in November 1969.

Senior forwards Dick Bertrand and John Hughes, and senior defenseman Dan Lodboa captained the 1969-70 team. These leaders were determined to improve upon the astounding 27-2-0 record of their junior season. A national championship was the goal, but a perfect season was the motivation. The team from Harkness through the sophomores that had just graduated from the freshman Big Red roster knew to reclaim ultimate glory in the season that the 1969-70 roster would need to achieve the unimaginable. It would.

Five of Cornell's top-ten point producers from the previous season returned. Brian Cornell and Pete Tufford who totaled the highest and second-highest totals of points respectively in the preceding season were lost to graduation. The team returned the highest goal scorer from the previous season in the form of 1969-70 captain John Hughes who found the back of the net 23 times in his junior campaign. Clutch goal scorer Kevin Pettit of 1969 ECAC Tournament fame returned for his second campaign with the varsity squad.

It was apparent that Cornell's offensive role-players would need to elevate their game to overcome the key losses to Cornell's attacking game. When the season came to a close, sophomore Larry Fullan from the freshman team would join the team's top point producers atop Cornell's scoring sheet. The five top point scorers who returned, John Hughes, Brian McCutcheon, Kevin Pettit, Dan Lodboa, and Garth Ryan, would rise to the challenge. Each of these Cornellians would score an average of four to five goals more over the course of the 1969-70 season than they had during the 1968-69 season.

One gaping hole remained from the 1969 postseason run. Its silhouette actually may not have been four stories, but to many it seemed as thought it might as well have been. Cornell would call upon junior Brian Cropper to tackle the task of filling the void that Dryden's departure would leave in Cornell's game behind the blue line.

Cropper was not wholly inexperienced. His role as a starter and workhorse goaltender for Cornell was no less of an unknown. The junior goaltender had been credited with two wins during the 1968-69 season. He produced a goals-against average of 2.21 and a save percentage of 0.887 during that small sample size of games. This presented many questions. Could Cropper elevate his game enough to help backstop his team to the success that Dryden had enjoyed? Could Cornell's offense increase its production enough to mask any shortcomings of a less experienced netminder?

Cornell's answer to both questions was a resounding yes.

Detractors gathered. They began to speculate whether Cornell could produce another championship year. Most thought that Cornell's reign as perennial ECAC Champion was vulnerable to upheaval. No one outside of East Hill believed that the 1969-70 team was of national timber. The gaps were too great. The team was too inexperienced. The loss of Dryden would cripple the team. While detractors supported these narratives, Cornell fixated on one thing: the perfect beginning to what they hoped would be a perfect season.

RPI handed Dryden one of his four collegiate losses at the opening of the 1968-69 season. That loss stood as the only regular-season blemish on the 1968-69 Cornell team's record. The 1969-70 ECAC season began for Cornell against RPI at Lynah Rink. The Big Red would not allow Harkness' former team to best them again.

Lynah Rink was filled with nearly 4,500 fans when RPI braved East Hill. Many questions were answered. John Hughes scored two goals. Then, Kevin Pettit did the same. Then, Dan Lodboa joined the fun with his two markers. Bill Duthie and Brian McCutcheon found the back of the Engineers's net too. An octet of Big Red goals snapped the Engineers.

Brian Cropper's talent shone. His debut performance against an ECAC team as Cornell's starting goaltender saw him turn away 28 of 30 shots. The two tallies that he allowed were when the Engineers enjoyed a man advantage. Cornell unleashed 50 shots on RPI's netminder. It seemed that Cornell's offense and goaltending were poised for great success. The first ECAC contest of the 1969-70 season proved not to be an aberration.

The ECAC-opening contest illustrated the arrival of a new normal. Cornell outscored its opponents nearly four to one over the course of the ECAC regular season. The Big Red bested opposing goaltenders 156 times over the course of the regular season while opposing teams did the same against Cropper just 40 times. Cornell had defeated ECAC powers and archrivals Boston University and Harvard by a combined margin of 21 goals scored to eight goals allowed in four meetings.

The 1970 ECAC Tournament welcomed Cornell as the first seed for the third consecutive season. The Big Red would face Saint Lawrence in the ECAC Quarterfinals for the second time in as many years. The Larries left their oaken building in the North Country and endured Lynah Rink for another postseason.

Cornell would not prolong their visitors' suffering. Brian McCutcheon opened Cornell's scoring in the 1970 ECAC Tournament less than halfway through the first period. Cornell would tally two goals in each period. Cornell's dominance was apparent. What was noteworthy to many of the Lynah Faithful was the degree of discipline of the 1969-70 team compared to its predecessor 1968-69 squad. The ECAC had altered its rules before the 1969-70 season so that any player ejected from a game for fighting would be required to serve a one-game suspension.

St. Lawrence realized that its fate in 1970 resembled that of 1969 early in the contest. The Larries who hoped to foil Cornell's run to a fourth consecutive ECAC Championship began to attempt to draw the Big Red skaters into fights that would result in one-game suspensions. Cornell was resolute not to draw any. Cornell advanced past St. Lawrence with a final score of 6-1 with St. Lawrence souring Cropper's shutout bid with fewer than three minutes remaining.

Cornell and Harvard met for the first time in the postseason in 1969. The successful trajectories of both programs indicated that these meetings would become a common fixture in the postseason of college hockey in the East. Cornell traveled to Boston Garden in March 1970 for the second postseason installment of the Cornell-Harvard rivalry.

Harkness anticipated that the Cornell-Harvard clash would be "a sensational game, especially since both teams have been playing up to their potential lately." Harvard was coming into the contest hot after eliminating Boston College. Harvard was a team that entered the season with high expectations but had underperformed throughout the regular season. Most agreed with Harkness that the Crimson were finally producing the results of which it was capable. Harkness predicted that the field at Boston that would attempt to prevent Cornell from claiming its fourth ECAC Championship was "maybe rougher than last year."

Harvard took control of the contest against its archrival early. In uncharacteristic fashion, Harvard dominated the physical game and pushed Cornell back on its heels early. Upperclassmen guided Cornell to this point in the season. It was up to them to ensure that the success continued against their vaunted Ivy-League foe.

Kevin Pettit scored the first goal of the contest despite Cornell’s loss of ground in the physical game of the 1970 ECAC Championship Semifinal. The dominating Cantabs could not be held off for long as they would score twice in the first frame. Harvard would go up 2-1 before the first intermission. This sequence represented the fastest set of goals Cornell had allowed during the entire 1969-70 season.

Cornell's defense seemed to be imploding, its checking was hapless, and Harvard was shutting down the feeble offense that the Big Red generated. Boston University fans who found themselves among the Lynah Faithful in the stands of Boston Garden wondered aloud how Cornell could have gotten this far, let alone with a perfect record. Harvard had Cornell and the hopes of the Big Red's perfect season on the ropes.

Things would not get better. Harvard scored less than two minutes into the second period. The Crimson enjoyed a two-goal advantage. Cropper was not delivering his best game. He was outside of his net when a diving Harvard forward tucked the puck into an empty net. Cropper's defensemen were providing even less stellar support.

Cornell had not been down by a two-goal margin all season.

Cornell trudged along. Its defense improved steadily. Minutes ticked by without Cornell surrendering another embarrassing margin-opening goal. Cornell began to check and grind down Harvard as was the Harkness tradition. It was not sudden, but Cornell began to become "the Cornell hockey machine" once again. John Hughes got a goal back for Cornell at 8:48 of the second period.

Lethargy and unsteadiness still plagued the improving Red skaters. Cornell had regained momentum and Harvard no longer dominated. The Crimson were poised to protect its lead for the remainder of the game. It would take something drastic to shift the game in Cornell's favor.

Something drastic happened. Cornell and Harvard were both called for penalties. Two Cornellians were sent to the box while one Cantab took up residence there. Play resumed with Harvard enjoying a four-on-three advantage. The game was about to change.

Defenseman Dan Lodboa collected the puck down low in Cornell's defensive zone. He advanced to the blue line. He would not dump it. He saw an opportunity. He split Harvard's defenders. The bested Cantabs raced after him. It was to no avail. Lodboa unleashed a directed shot through the five hole of Harvard's netminder. The tying tally was the defenseman's third shorthanded goal of the season.

Cornell's captain had gotten his team back in the game. The second intermission would not interrupt the shift in the dynamic of the game. Cornell would be up 5-3 on Harvard by the time ten minutes remained in the contest with two early tallies in the third. Harvard seemed undeterred. The Crimson were unable to respond to Cornell's improved play for much of the second and third periods. It found the resolve in the closing ten minutes.

The game was renewed with 8:49 remaining. Harvard had bested Cropper twice in 71 seconds to knot the game. The specter of overtime in the 1969 ECAC Championship Semifinal loomed. The most opportunistic team would win.

Cornell benefited from a power play in its favor in the closing eight minutes of regulation. The Big Red managed to generate sustained pressure in front of Harvard's net. Cornell cycled around the periphery. Sophomore Larry Fullan managed to penetrate down low. Steve Giuliani saw Fullan. He slapped the puck from the corner over to Fullan who netted the game-winning goal. Harvard fell to the Ivy-League upstart of Cornell in the ECAC Tournament for the second time in two years. The final score was 6-5. Cornell advanced.

Cornell would meet a relatively unknown commodity in the 1970 ECAC Championship Final. Cornell had not played against the Golden Knights during the regular season. Cornell had played Clarkson only six times during Harkness' tenure. The Golden Knights were one of the few programs to enjoy success against the legendary coach's squads. Clarkson earned a 4-2-0 record against Harkness-coached teams. One of those four losses denied Cornell an ECAC Championship in 1966 when Clarkson won its first ECAC Championship.

The 1970 ECAC Championship Final would be very unlike the semifinal contest that witnessed 11 goals scored. A contest after which Harkness remarked that Cornell's defense "played its worst game as a unit this season." Spectators who saw the beginning of the game would not predict such after the opening face-off. Clarkson struck first. Cornell waited just 39 seconds to rally. The Golden Knights added a power-play goal before the first period ended.

Cornell was stifling in the second. Clarkson scarcely could gain the zone. When North Country natives managed to cross the blue line, the offensive opportunities that they enjoyed were poor. The Cornell crowd was waiting to erupt. Sophomore Ed Ambis gave them reason to do so. Ambis tallied the game-tying goal at 12:38 of the third period. His goal ended a more than two-year drought. No American player had scored a goal for Cornell since Jim Wallace's goal against Princeton in March 1968.

Ambis fought ferociously for another goal in the third period. He would not find it. Captain John Hughes would end scoring in the 1970 ECAC Tournament. Hughes struck with just 14 seconds remaining in the game leaving the Golden Knights little chance at rebuttal. The margin of 3-2 would stand.

The victory over Clarkson that evening at Boston Garden in March 1970 symbolized the end of two eras. It would be the last ECAC Championship that Harkness would win with the Cornell hockey program. It would be the last ECAC Championship that Cornell won in its first run of consecutive Conference titles. Harkness would leave Cornell after the 1970 NCAA Tournament for the Detroit Red Wings.

His departure would not be before he helped prove to the program that the loss of one man or a group would never be fatal to the greatness of Cornell hockey. Harkness helped Cornell hockey as an institution realize that it could survive the departure of Dryden. This lesson taught the program that it could survive and flourish after Harkness' departure just a year later.

The 1970 ECAC Tournament ended with Cornell outscoring its opponents 15 goals to eight goals. John Hughes bested Clarkson netminder Bullock for the championship-clinching goal. Brian Cropper generated a goals-against average of 2.67 and a save percentage of 0.882. Cornell won its fourth consecutive ECAC Championship on March 14, 1970.

Everyone knew it would come; Dryden's senior season. Apocryphal legend states that Denver's legendary coach Murray Armstrong saw Dryden in the 1967 NCAA Tournament and lamented that "he was only a sophomore." Dryden was a sophomore no more. His time as a junior had ended. This was his ultimate season.

A very talented core surrounded Dryden and ensured his success. No individual player guaranteed the success that Cornell had enjoyed in the 1966-67 and 1967-68 seasons. However, the loss of a student-athlete who had gained near legendary status during his two previous years with the varsity squad scarcely can be overstated.

Cornell began preparations for the season with more precision and earlier than it had during the five previous season under Harkness. Harkness was consistent in claiming that his team was further in its development than it had been during the previous two championship seasons. Cornell returned nine of its top-ten scorers from the previous season. The lone departure from the 1967-68 team was captain and defenseman Stanowski who checked in as the tenth-most prolific scorer of the 1967-68 team.

The carnelian and white had a great deal to be excited about as they returned not only seasoned players, but added new talent from the freshman team. Anchoring that talent was Brian McCutcheon. He dazzled the Faithful with a hat trick in his first outing with the varsity squad during an exhibition game at Lynah Rink.

Dryden and Cornell began their 1968-69 ECAC campaign far from the way that they had hoped. Cornell's first opponent was Harkness' former team, the Engineers of RPI. RPI head coach Garry Kearns and the Engineer fans at Houston Field House were overcome with excitement and cheers of "we're number one" when Engineer Doug Hearns bested Dryden in overtime for the game-winning tally. Many within the RPI program remember the game as the victory that preserved the program in an era when its future was highly tenuous. The loss was Dryden's second loss to an ECAC program in his career. It would be the last.

Cornell rebounded with back-to-back wins against Brown and Yale by a margin of ten goals scored to three allowed. The first half of the season ended with Big Red victories over New Hampshire, Boston College, and Minnesota-Duluth. Cornell was back on track and living up to its preseason ranking as the best team in the nation.

Cornell picked up the second half of the season where it left off in December. Cornell went undefeated during the run-up to the 1969 ECAC Tournament. Cornell amassed a record of 23-1-0 before the playoffs began. The success of the 1968-69 Cornell team guaranteed it the first seed in the 1969 ECAC Tournament. The eighth-seeded St. Lawrence Saints would pose the first test for Cornell as it attempted to solidify its dominance in the ECAC further.

The clash between Cornell and the Saints pitted the program that had set itself above all other programs in the ECAC with winning two ECAC Championships against the program that won the inaugural ECAC Championship. The game resulted in Cornell's second-ever shutout in the ECAC Tournament.

The Lynah Faithful welcomed St. Lawrence to Lynah Rink. The seniors would bid adieu to their raucous fans in spectacular fashion. Brian Cornell sprained his ankle during the contest and was forced to leave the game. Even though the night served to commemorate the seniors and the success that they had brought Cornell, it was sophomore Kevin Pettit who scored two power-play goals and junior Dan Lodboa who propelled Cornell to a 3-0 victory. Dryden was flawless with a shutout on 32 shots during his final performance in front of the Lynah Faithful.

A familiar foe awaited Cornell at Boston Garden. It would be the fourth consecutive meeting of Boston University and Cornell in the postseason. The teams had met in the 1967 ECAC Championship Final, 1967 NCAA Tournament Final, and the 1968 ECAC Championship Semifinal. All three of those contests had been decided in Cornell's favor. The fourth meeting yielded the same result.

Brian Cornell announced that he would return to the Big Red's lineup during the run-up to the semifinal clash. The media buzzed with the story that he was chasing Doug Ferguson's single-season point record. Doug Ferguson had amassed 71 points during the 1965-66 season when he captained the Big Red to an ECAC Championship Final appearance. Brian Cornell with 70 points headed to Boston Garden as captain with hopes of doing more than one better than had Doug Ferguson.

Cornell's offense was lethargic at times during the ECAC Championships weekend in 1969. Dryden lived up to his legend during his last stand at Boston Garden. Dan Lodboa and Bruce Pattison provided the needed reinforcement for Dryden behind the blue line.

Boston University and Cornell held each other in check for the first 16 minutes of the 1969 ECAC Championship Semifinal. The nearly 2,000 Lynah Faithful who made the trip to Boston Garden for the Friday clash would not need to wait much longer to learn if Brian Cornell would equal the season point total of Doug Ferguson. Dan Lodboa took a blast of a shot that Brian Cornell directed into the Terriers's net for a 1-0 lead and Brian Cornell's 71st point of the 1968-69 season.

Cornell would leave the ice for the second intermission with a 2-0 leads. Dryden would be called upon to make 17 saves in the second period alone. His defensemen and he were more than equal to all of Boston University's threats. Boston University's McCann rose to the challenge of a goalie duel with Dryden in the third period.

The Terriers were not about to go quietly. Boston University's Herb Wakabayashi and Serge Bily connected to best Dryden at 3:08 of the third period. McCann stood tall and held off the Red onslaught. The valiant efforts of the Terriers's netminder left Cornell desperate. Cornell forwards began to press and Cornell defensemen began to pinch. The "Cornell hockey machine" surrendered several dangerous opportunities. Wakabayashi found Eddie Wright in front of the Cornell net that was left spatially vacant save for Dryden due to Cornell's overzealous offense.

Boston University knotted the game. The contingent of nearly 11,000 fans in Boston Garden that Terrier fans dominated erupted. The eruption was taxing on the Cornell squad that faced a new game with less than ten minutes remaining in the third period. Harkness needed to call his timeout. He needed his skaters to rededicate to their playoff precision rather than a foolhardy "playoff psyche."

The partisan Boston University fans were obliged to help the visitors from East Hill. Harkness would not need to call his timeout. A deluge of detritus rained down upon the ice. Terrier fans in their glee of getting the game-tying tally against the unsolvable Dryden had tossed arena garbage and paraphernalia on the ice.

The rink crew went to removing the litter from the ice. Harkness took advantage of the time to right the course of his squad.

Cornell regained its composure in all zones of the ice. Cornell could not solve McCann in regulation, but Cornell's commitment to defense reemerged. Cornell had fought back from the ropes. The next tally would win the game.

Cornell had played only one game in overtime in the ECAC Tournament. Cornell lost that game to Brown in March 1965. Cornell would not wait long to prove that overtime was not where Cornell's hopes of dominance went to die.

Cornell leapt on the puck early in the extra frame. Boston University had possession of the puck behind its own net. A Terrier forward attempted to pass the puck up ice from behind the net. The pass did not connect. Pettit intercepted the pass between the face-off circles in front of the resilient McCann. The Boston University netminder was not up to the task. Pettit ended the game 31 seconds into overtime with a final score of 3-2.

The 1969 ECAC Championship Final hosted the first postseason clash between Cornell and Harvard. The rivalry that existed between Boston University and Cornell that had been played out the previous evening was between two sports programs that had developed animosity on the ice. The Cornell-Harvard rivalry had been played for nearly six decades and involved institutional as well as athletic animosity between the respective universities. Harvard held a 17-13-0 all-time record against Cornell. Cornell had not lost to the Crimson since December 1966.

Cornell had outscored the Crimson by a ratio of two to one during the 1968-69 season. The game at Boston Garden on March 8, 1969 seemed as though it would go similarly. Cornell dominated early and took a 2-0 lead in the opening minutes of the game. Taking an easy and early lead against Cornell's Ivy-League archrival was detrimental to Cornell's discipline. Cornell committed several penalties and afforded the Crimson a chance to battle back into the game.

Cornell killed off the first of the series of penalties with relative ease. Harvard struck iron on that power-play opportunity, but Cornell's defense and Dryden were up to the challenge in front of the crowd of 11,000 at Boston Garden. The second penalty of the series was called against critical Cornell defenseman Dan Lodboa.

Cornell killed that penalty. A Harvard forward took a questionable hit on Cornell's Ted Coviello. The Big Red objected. An on-ice brawl ensued. When the bodies and emotions abated momentarily, it was Cornell that would be forced to skate lacking a man. It would not be long until another penalty was called against Cornell. Dryden and three of his Red skaters would need to kill off a two-man Cantab advantage.

The spectacular penalty killing of Cornell, especially the athletics of Dryden, won over the crowd at Boston Garden. However, as the partisan support in the arena began to favor Cornell, the ice began to tilt in Harvard's favor. Cornell successfully killed of the two-man advantage and the remaining penalty after it. Harvard redirected a rebound behind a committed Dryden that put the Crimson on the scoreboard. The remaining six minutes of the second period would expire without any further scoring.

Cornell was clinging to a 2-1 lead as the third period began. Harvard dominated. The clenching grip of the Big Red was not strong enough. The Crimson tied the game less than two minutes into the final stanza. Again a rebound bested Dryden.

Cornell needed to regroup but no downfall of debris would give Harkness the opportunity to remotivate his team. The Red skaters would need to do it on their own. On the ice. Dryden committed to playing a flawless game for however long the game may last. Cornell's defense began to play responsibly.

Cornell's break came on a Big Red rush on Harvard's net. Brian Cornell, Pete Tufford, and Kevin Pettit were on the rush. The scramble resulted in Harvard's netminder, Bruce Durno, losing his stick. Cornell was relentless. This was the time for "the Cornell hockey machine" to strike and deny Ivy-League archrival Harvard its first ECAC Championship. Durno warded off many salvos from the pressing and opportunistic Red.

A fortuitous rebound found itself on the tape of Pettit's stick. The sophomore buried the puck in the right corner of the net out of reach of a diving Durno. The goal would stand. Pettit scored his second game-winning goal in as many days. Cornell would win its third ECAC Championship by defeating Harvard in the first postseason meeting between the Big Red and the Crimson.

The importance of the win was captured well in Dryden's reactions after the game. The usually dispassionate and levelheaded Dryden atypically skated the length of the ice to join his celebrating teammates after Pettit's goal with 2:53 remaining in the game. Dryden remarked he "was [] glad that he got that one. I sure didn't want another overtime."

An empty-net tally from Brian Cornell made the final score 4-2.

Kevin Pettit notched the championship-winning goal. Dryden produced his best performance in the ECAC Tournament with a goals-against average of 1.33 and save percentage of 0.963. Cornell outscored its opponents ten goals to four goals during the 1969 ECAC Tournament. Cornell extended its dominance over the Conference with an unprecedented third ECAC Championship.