HOCKEY GAME CENTRAL

HAMILTON, N.Y. (10/27/10) – After a tough weekend at Lake Superior State, the Raiders will look to get back on track against Sacred Heart in the home opener on Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m. at Starr Rink.

OPENING FACEOFF
The Raiders and Sacred Heart will be playing for the seventh time since the series began in 2000-01. Colgate enters the game with a 1-2-0 overall mark after a win against Army at the Cape Cod Collegiate Classic and a pair of losses at the hands of Lake Superior State. The Pioneers came to Hamilton with a 0-3-1 record after dropping games at Union and going 0-1-1 at Canisius last weekend.

RAIDERS SWEPT ON THE ROAD
Colgate dropped to 1-2-0 on the season with two losses at the hands of Lake Superior State. Both defeats were by one goal. On Friday night, the Raiders were able to outshoot the Lakers by a 32-28 margin, but could not overcome an early second-period score by LSSU and fell 2-1. The two teams exploded for nine goals in game two with Lake Superior owning five of those goals to win 5-4. Colgate schrugged off its early season trouble on the power play with two goals with the extra skater in the loss. Senior captain Brian Day (Danvers, Mass.) had two goals and three points in the defeat to lead the way for the Raiders.

STARR RINK OPENER
The Colgate men's hockey team will be playing its 51st season in the friendly confines of Starr Rink. The rink, named after the long-time head coach of Colgate from 1932-42 and 1945-50. Under coach Vaughan the Raiders are 12-5-1 in home openers and have face Sacred Heart twice, winning both. Last season, Colgate opened with Nebraska-Omaha and settled for a 1-1 tie.

DOUBLING OR TRIPLING UP
Day netted multiple goals for the ninth time in his career with two on Saturday night in the Upper Peninsula. He leads all active skaters on the team in that category. Junior Austin Smith (Dallas, Texas) has seven two or more goal games in his career. Day also added his 26th multi-point game. Senior assistant captain Francois Brisebois (Montreal, Que.) added a career-high three assists and it was his sixth game with two or more assists and 13th with multi-points.

SHOWING NO FAVORITES
Junior Robbie Bourdon (Montreal, Que.) scored his first goal of the 2010-11 season on Saturday night with a power play goal coming in the third period. He has now scored nine goals in nine different games in his career. He has scored against seven different teams after scoring two against Brown and Yale in separate games last season.

FROM THE BLUELINE
Sophomore Thomas Larkin (Cocquio Trevisago, Italy) became the first defenseman to score this season. He tallied the first goal of the game with a great move, going backhand to his forehand to push the puck to the back of the net. Larkin led the team last season with 19 points on three goals and 16 helpers. Classmate Jeremy Price (Milton, Ont.) led all defensemen with six goals last year.

FRIGHT NIGHT FOR OPPONENTS
Colgate has played nine games on Oct. 30 or Halloween in its program history and has a 5-3-1 mark in those games. The Raiders have played six games on Halloween and have a 4-2 mark. The last time Colgate played on Oct. 31 was last season against Niagara at home and the Raiders won the game by a 4-2 score. They actually went unbeaten on the weekend with a 4-4 tie against Army the night before.

IN NEED OF AN EARLY LEAD
In both losses this season, Colgate has failed to jump ahead of its competition after the Lakers posted first period goals in both games last weekend. The Raiders have been able to erase those early deficits, but with a lead of their own they are 1-0 with the win over Army.

POWERING UP WITH THE EXTRA SKATER
Entering the Saturday night matchup the Raiders were in need of a spark on the power play. Colgate came into the game 0-for-9 with the extra man, putting 11 shots on net, but only three coming in Friday's loss. The team responded with two big goals on the man advantage in Saturday's loss and got eight shots on net. The Raiders also kept the Lakers off the board in three power play opportunities.

CLOSE BUT NOT ENOUGH
Colgate dropped its first two one-goal games of the season during last weekend. The Raiders are coming off a season with a 6-2 mark in one-goal games. They started the year with four-straight wins by a goal, including two wins over Harvard and Dartmouth to begin the ECAC Hockey season in 2009. They dropped a 7-6 overtime game at Canisius and then the 4-3 loss to St. Lawrence in the ECAC Hockey playoffs.

RAIDERS ON TV THIS SEASON
Colgate will be featured on Time Warner Sports seven times this season and once on ESPNU. The schedule is below and the first game on TV will be Nov. 19 against Brown.

TIME WARNER SPORTS
Nov. 19 vs. Brown
Nov. 20 vs. Yale
Nov. 23 at Niagara
Feb. 4 vs. St. Lawrence
Feb. 5 vs. Clarkson
Feb. 18 vs. Dartmouth *
Feb. 19 vs. Harvard
* - Subject to Change
ESPNU
Jan. 9 at Princeton

LOOKING FOR A MILESTONE
Day is nine points away from reaching the 100-point plateau as he has 48 goals and 43 assists for 91 points after a four-point weekend at LSSU. He is looking to become the 48th Colgate skater to reach the milestone. The last player to reach 100 points was David McIntyre last season as he posted 41 points to post 131 points in four years.

SILVER PUCK WEEKEND
On the weekend of Nov. 12-13 against Princeton and Quinnipiac, Colgate will be hosting its annual Silver Puck Weekend. The Silver Puck Club is the principal fundraising arm of the men's hockey program, which exists for the betterment of the men's hockey program and Colgate University as a whole. The Colgate Silver Puck Club at Colgate was founded in 1958 as a booster club for the University's varsity hockey program.

SCOUTING THE PIONEERS
Sacred Heart comes to Hamilton with a 0-3-1 mark so far this season. The Pioneers have already played ECAC Hockey competition this year as they kicked off the season at nationally-ranked Union and were outscored 16-3 in two games at the beginning of October. Atlantic Hockey foe Canisius was up next and Sacred Heart started the conference season with an 0-1-1 weekend. The Pioneers lost the first game by a 4-1 score and tallied the game-tying goal late in the third to force a 3-3 tie in the second game.

Sacred Heart has 11 players with at least one point, but the team leaders only have three points on the year. Senior Patrick Knowlton is tops in goals and points with two and three, respectively. He will be playing in his 100th game this Saturday and has a career 59 points. Senior David Berube also has three points with a goal and two assists, while junior Matt Gingera has a goal and an assist for two points for the Pioneers. Sophomore Eric Delong is tied with Berube for the lead in assists with two on the year.
In net, sophomore Steven Legatto has started all four games and has amassed an 0-3-1 record. He has allowed 19 goals on 155 shots for a save percentage of .877. Legatto has recorded a 4.83 goals against average in 236 minutes of ice time.

The Pioneers have struggled on the power play this season with just one goal in 15 opportunities for a 6.7 percent success rate. They have averaged about four power plays a contest and is earning 0.2 goals with the man advantage. The team is also having problems on the penalty kill by allowing nine goals this season in 23 opportunities for its opponents.

SERIES HISTORY
Colgate has owned the series with a perfect 6-0 mark against Sacred Heart. The teams first met back in 2000-01 with a 8-2 win at Starr Rink. The series has left Colgate's home ice only once and that came in 2003-04 when the Raiders defeated the Pioneers 7-2 on their own ice. The last meeting came back in 2007-08 with Colgate taking a 6-2 win.