OPENING FACE-OFF
With five regular-season games remaining on the 2009-2010 slate, Colgate is still in the midst of jockeying for position for possibly a first-round bye in the ECAC Hockey tournament.  After last weekend's two-game split with sixth-ranked Yale and Brown as well as some out of town help, the Raiders head into the 137th edition of Colgate versus Cornell in fifth place, only one point behind St. Lawrence and Rensselaer.  However, the Raiders are only three points from being in seventh as well.  Entering tonight's contest, both Colgate and Cornell each have a league game in hand against the field.  Either Colgate vaults into fourth with a victory, or Cornell ties Yale for the top spot of the standings.  Of course, a tie would put Colgate in a three-way logjam in fourth and Big Red in second by a point.  Needless to say, lots can happen in the final stretch drive.  Now that Colgate has posted its first winning season against the Ancient Eight since the 2004-05 campaign, the Raiders will turn their heads to attempting to snap an eight-game winless skid versus their arch rival.  This is the only Division I men's game being played on the evening.  The game will be broadcasted over Time Warner Cable Sports out of Syracuse.

MEET THE HEAD COACH
Don Vaughan is in his 17th year at the helm of the Colgate Raiders.  The 1984 graduate of St. Lawrence enters the campaign as the program's all-time winningest coach with a 281-265-64 mark.  On February 16, 2008, he became the all-time winningest coach with his 252nd victory as Colgate blanked Union 8-0.  On November 11, 2007, former Colgate President, Rebecca S. Chopp, announced the creation of the Donald F. Vaughan Endowed Coaching Chair for Men's Hockey.

THIS DATE IN COLGATE HISTORY
Colgate is 6-7-0 in games played on the 16th.

February 16, 2008 – Tyler Burton and Jesse Winchester each tallied three-point evenings as Colgate dismantled visiting Union 8-0 at Starr Rink.  With the win, Colgate's Don Vaughan became the winningest coach in the program's storied history.  The Raiders took command early getting first period goals from Tom Riley, Ethan Cox and Burton.  Burton finished with two goals and an assist, while Winchester dished out three assists.  Six current Colgate players figured in the scoring.  David McIntyre contributed a goal and an assist.  Mark Dekanich posted 33 saves in the shutout.

COLGATE AT A GLIMPSE
With its nine goals last weekend, Colgate's scoring offense climbed to 15th nationally (3.24). The offense is led by the trio of Austin Smith (11-22-33), David McIntyre (9-21-30) and Brian Day (17-12-29).  Junior Francois Brisebois (12-8-20) joined the trio with a point total over 20 with his two goals versus Yale, while fellow Quebecian Robbie Bourdon (8-11-19) needs only one more point to do the same.  Colgate ranks 43rd in scoring defense (3.28).  Alex Evin (7-6-3, 2.82, .906) appears to have grabbed a firm hold on the starting position between the pipes for the Raiders starting the last nine contests.  Colgate's power play ranks 35th nationally (.177) and fell to 48th on the penalty kill (.781).

COLGATE/CORNELL SERIES HISTORY
As mentioned, Tuesday's meeting will be the 136th clash between the two schools with Cornell holding a 71-54-11 advantage including an earlier 4-2 victory in Ithaca.  Big Red is 8-1-2 in its last 11 games versus Colgate.  The Raiders will be looking to snap an eight-game winless skid versus Cornell with the last victory being a 4-2 decision at Starr Rink on January 25, 2007.  Colgate has scored the opening goal in the last three meetings between the two schools. Colgate is 25-25-4 all-time at Starr Rink versus Big Red.

CORNELL IN BRIEF
Big Red heads into Tuesday's clash with a 14-7-3 record, and is tied for second in the ECAC Hockey standings with 24 points (11-4-2 in league play).  Cornell is 1-2 in its last three games. Last weekend, Big Red downed Brown 5-3 before losing an emotional 2-1 decision to Yale in overtime. The offense, which ranks 23rd nationally (3.04 gpg), centers around a pair of seniors in Blake Gallagher (15-14-29) and Colin Greening (11-14-25).  Senior netminder Ben Scrivens (14-7-3, 2.03, .929) has basically played every minute between the pipes, absent 43 minutes.  He ranks third nationally in goals against average and fourth in save percentage.  He stopped a career-high 52 in the loss to the Bulldogs Saturday evening. Defensively, Big Red allows 2.12 goals per contest, which is ranked second in the country; their power play is sixth (.221), while the penalty kill is third overall (.881).

LAST TIME VERSUS CORNELL
Blake Gallagher scored a power play goal with 5:11 left in regulation and Colin Greening added an empty net goal with four seconds left as then seventh-ranked Cornell downed Colgate 4-2, November 24 at Lynah Rink.  After a scoreless first period, Colgate opened scoring at 11:07 with a power play goal by Francois Brisebois.  Trailing 2-1 early in the third period, Nick Prockow knotted the contest with Colgate's second power play goal of the game at 1:40.  Thomas Larkin finished the game with assists on both goals.  The Raiders outshot Cornell 30-20.  Alex Evin surrendered two goals and stopped 16 shots in the loss, while Ben Scrivens turned aside 28 shots in the win for the Big Red.

COLGATE SCORING VERSUS CORNELL
A dozen Raiders have tallied at least one point versus Cornell in their collegiate careers.  Brian Day (2-1-3), David McIntyre (1-2-3) and Kevin McNamara (0-3-3) lead the offensive charge versus Big Red with Austin Smith (1-1-2), Wade Poplawski (1-1-2) and Thomas Larkin (0-2-2) round out the other Raiders to have collected multi points versus Cornell.

LAST WEEKEND IN BRIEF
Once again, Colgate posted a weekend split – this time with Yale and Brown.  Colgate fell to the sixth-ranked Bulldogs 6-3 before dumping Brown 6-2.
Francois Brisebois posted his second multi-goal game of the season with two scores, while Robbie Bourdon accounted for a goal and an assist in the loss to Yale.  Colgate trailed 5-1 in the third period before scoring two of the final three goals.  Alex Evin stopped 33 shots in the loss, including 16 in the final period.

The following night, the Raiders completed the season sweep over Brown.  Jason Williams (2-0-2) posted his first career multi-goal game and Sean Carty (1-1-2) tallied his first multi-point performance of his career in the victory.  The Raiders broke open a one goal game with four consecutive goals – two coming shorthanded in the early stages of the third period.  Brian Day finished with a three-point evening. Colgate's penalty kill was successful eight of nine times versus Brown's power play.  Alex Evin stopped 27 of 29 to get the victory.

PLAYING SHORTHANDED
Brian Day and Jason Williams scored shorthanded goals 45 seconds apart on the same penalty kill early in the third period versus Brown.  It marked the first time Colgate has posted two shorthanded goals in the same game since a 4-0 victory at Rensselaer on January 12, 2008.  Mark Anderson and Ethan Cox did the damage.  The last Time the Raiders had two shorthanded goals in the same period happened in the second when Ben Camper and Tyler Burton accomplished the feat in a 9-0 victory over Canisius at Starr Rink October 24, 2006.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE
Colgate enters Tuesday's game with Cornell at 12-12-5 overall and 9-7-1 in league action.  A year ago after 29 games, the Raiders were 8-16-5 overall and 3-11-3 in league play.  During the 2008-09 season including play-offs, Colgate's offense manufactured 89 goals.  Heading into Tuesday, the Raiders have accounted for 94.  Brian Day (17), Francois Brisebois (12), Nick Prockow (6), Matt Firman (5), Ethan Cox (3), Corbin McPherson (2) and Sean Carty (2) have more goals this year than last. The Raiders are one goal from David McIntyre and two more from Robbie Bourdon from accomplishing something they haven't done since the 2005-06 campaign – having five goal scorers with 10 or more (Kyle Wilson – 23; Tyler Burton – 22; Marc Fulton – 14; Jesse Winchester – 14 and Jon Smyth – 11).

WEED WACKERS
Since blanking Dartmouth 1-0 on February 14, 2009 at Thompson Arena, Colgate's success against the Ancient Eight has been impressive.  During this stretch, the Raiders are 8-2-2 in games played against Ivy League competition.  The only slip up was a 4-2 loss to Cornell in Ithaca on November 24 and a 6-3 loss to sixth-ranked Yale, February 12 at Starr Rink.  During the stretch, Colgate has two wins versus Brown, Princeton and Dartmouth and one each versus Yale and Harvard. The Raiders are 6-2-1 versus the Ivy League this year including posting the first season sweeps of Princeton and Brown since the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons respectively.  This weekend, Colgate will attempt for two more sweeps.  Friday, the Raiders will be in search of their first sweep of Dartmouth since 1999-2000 and the following night Harvard since 2004-05.

ALEXANDER THE GREAT
For the first time in his career, Alex Evin was named the ECAC Hockey goalie of the week, February 7.  The sophomore received the honor after going 1-1 between the pipes at Princeton and Quinnipiac.  He stopped 57 of 60 shots fired upon the net for a .950 save percentage.  In his last nine starts, he is 5-3-1 and has stopped 251 of 272 shots for a .9228 save percentage.  During this recent stretch, his goals against average has dipped from 3.48 to 2.82 and his save percentage is up from .885 to .906.

CONTINUING THE CLIMB
With his career-high four-point evening versus Harvard, David McIntyre became the 48th player in the program's history to surpass the 100-point milestone.  With his two points last weekend versus Yale and Brown, he stands tied for 27th overall with former Colgate standout and Raider assistant coach Andrew Dickson.  McIntyre is two points from surpassing Steve Riggs and Dave MacKenzie for 25th.  After that, Clarkson's assistant coach, Greg Drechsel is next on the list.  The Bramalea, Ontario native collected 130 points in his career for the Raiders.  He is in 24th on the all-time list.

GEE WILLIE
With his two appearances versus Yale and Brown last weekend, Jason Williams has now appeared in 146 career games, which is seventh on the all-time Colgate games appeared chart. An appearance tonight versus Cornell would move him into a tie for sixth with former teammate Nick St. Pierre, while three more appearances would tie him with Jason Fredricks for fifth. David McIntyre (144) is tied eighth all-time, while Ethan Cox (143) is tied for ninth on the list with Rob Brown. Tyler Burton holds the all-time record with 158 games.

ROOKIE BLUELINERS
Freshmen defensemen Thomas Larkin and Jeremy Price have three goals on the season.  That is tied for eighth with J.R. Bria on the single-season list goals by a freshman blueliner.  One more would move them into a tie for fifth all-time with David Sloane, Mike Campaner and Mike Dosdall.  Larkin is only one assist and one point away from moving into the top 10 in school history for single season totals in those categories for a freshman blueliner.

FRESHMEN IMPACT
After 29 games, the Colgate freshmen have integrated themselves rather well as far as posting points. Including the combined performances versus Yale and Brown, the freshman class has posted 60 points, or 2.07 points per game (19 goals, 41 assists). Earlier, there was a four-game stretch where a freshman collected his first collegiate goal of his career. Kurtis Bartliff netted his first goal in the 1-1 tie with nationally ranked Nebraska-Omaha, while Christian Long found the back of the next the following night against the Mavericks. Against UMass-Lowell, it was Robbie Bourdon's turn to light the lamp and then it was Jeremy Price opening the scoring versus Army.  Bourdon (8-11-19) and defenseman Thomas Larkin (3-12-15) lead the scoring charge for the first year players.

NATIONALLY SPEAKING
As of February 14, Colgate had a strong presence in national statistical categories as six skaters were ranked among the top 50 in the country.   They are as follows …

Austin Smith – T21 in assists per game (0.76), T33 in points per game (1.14); T30 in shorthanded goals (1), T27 in game winning goals (3)
Brian Day – T11 in goals per game (0.63), T31 power play goals (6), 47th in points per game (1.07)
Thomas Larkin – 49th in points per game for a defenseman (0.58) and 36th in points per game for a rookie (0.58)
David McIntyre – 23rd in assists per game (0.75) and T47 in points per game (1.07)
Robbie Bourdon – T27 in game winning goals (3) and T19 in points per game for a rookie (0.70)
Jason Williams – T6 in shorthanded goals (2)
Alex Evin – 41st in goals against average (2.82), 44th in save percentage (.906), 35th in win percentage (.531)

PENALTY KILL SHOWING IMPROVEMENT
After allowing five goals in 11 penalty kills in two games to Notre Dame and Niagara to kick off the New Year at the Shillelagh Tournament in Chicago, Colgate has settled down to kill off 43 of its last 53 (.811) penalties in its last 10 games.  Colgate held Princeton scoreless in four power play opportunities, which was the second time since the start of the New Year that the Raiders penalty kill unit has held the opposition's power play scoreless.  Colgate stopped Robert Morris all five times in a 3-3 tie on January 23.

A RECAP OF THE OVERTIME STREAK
Colgate entered the 2009-2010 campaign having played seven consecutive overtime games, which dated back to the end of 2008-09 season.  The Raiders went 3-2-2 down the stretch in these games – the two losses coming to Quinnipiac in a best of three series in a first round ECAC Hockey Tournament clash in Hamden, Conn.  The streak began at home with a 2-2 tie versus Union on February 20.  Colgate would go on to beat Rensselaer (2-1); tie Brown 3-3 in Providence and then upset #11 Yale (3-2) in front of a national TV audience in New Haven all before the meetings with the Bobcats.  Quinnipiac won the opener 3-2; then Colgate rallied from a two-goal deficit late in the game for a 5-4 victory to force a third game.  The Bobcats prevailed 4-3 in the final game of the series.  The Raiders stretched the streak to eight with a 4-4 tie at Niagara last Friday evening, but was broken the following night in a 3-2 regulation victory at RIT. It was Colgate's first regulation victory since a 1-0 defeat of Dartmouth on Valentines Day at Thompson Arena.

SHOULD OVERTIME HAPPEN
If it happens, eyes need to focus on two of Colgate's best ever goal scorers in overtime in David McIntyre and Austin Smith.  McIntyre is tied for second all-time with three overtime game winners.  He needs one more to tie Jon Smyth for first.  One of McIntyre's goals lifted Colgate by Clarkson in the third and final game of an ECAC Hockey quarterfinal as the Raiders advanced to the Final Four as the seventh seed.  Smith is tied for sixth having scored two overtime winners as a freshman last season versus Lake Superior State and Quinnipiac.  McIntyre has six overtime points (3 goals, 3 assist) and five of them came last season.  The only game he didn't record a point in a game winner in overtime was Colgate's 5-4 victory over Quinnipiac in the second game of the three-game series.

GETTING DRAFTY
Colgate has six NHL draft picks on its 2009-2010 roster.  David McIntyre was drafted in the fifth round of the 2006 Draft by the Dallas Stars.  Last year, his rights were traded twice in two months and now stands property of the New Jersey Devils.  Corbin McPherson (New Jersey, 3rd, 2007), Brian Day (New York Islanders, 6th, 2006), Austin Smith (Dallas Stars, 5th, 2007), Jeremy Price (Vancouver Canucks, 4th, 2009), and Thomas Larkin (Columbus Blue Jackets, 5th, 2009) round out the Raiders' draft picks.