Team Notes: No. 18 Colgate Continues League Road Trip

HAMILTON, N.Y. – The 18th-ranked Colgate men's hockey team will be back on the road this weekend for league games at No. 14/17 Dartmouth and Harvard.

The Raiders head to New Hampshire to take on the Big Green on Friday night at 7 p.m. at Thompson Arena, followed by a trip to Boston for a 7 p.m. matchup on Saturday at Harvard. Fans can view all the necessary links, including live video and live audio, by logging onto the Men's Hockey Game Central page.

THIS WEEK: LEAGUE ROAD TRIP CONTINUES AT #14/17 DARTMOUTH & HARVARD
The open to the ECAC Hockey season continues the following weekend with another long road trip for the Raiders as they head to New England again for games at Harvard and 17th-ranked Dartmouth. The Big Green swept both conference matchups last weekend against Quinnipiac and Princeton and then jumped into national polls at No. 17. Harvard went 0-1-1 with a loss to the Tigers and a tie versus the Bobcats. Colgate and Dartmouth played four times last year with the Big Green taking three of the four matchups and they lead one of the closely contested series in ECAC Hockey with a 42-41-5 record against Colgate. Harvard and the Raiders split the series last year and the series is 3-2-0 in favor of the Crimson over the last five games.

LAST WEEK: DON VAUGHAN GETS WIN #300
Colgate kicked off its 51st season in ECAC Hockey with a 5-3 win over Brown on Friday night and then dropped a tough 2-0 decision to ninth-ranked Yale in a battle of ranked teams. Against the Bears, Austin Smith scored two shorthanded goals and Kevin McNamara had a goal and an assist and the Raiders got win No. 300 for head coach Don Vaughan. Eric Mihalik moved to 4-1-0 by making 33 saves in net. The next night at Yale, Colgate was shutout by the Bulldogs for the second-straight game as Yale bate the Raiders 2-0 after a 4-0 win in the ECAC Hockey Semifinals last year. Smith had his nine-game point streak snapped by the Bulldogs. He finishes the streak with 14 points on nine goals and five assists.

NEXT WEEK: SILVER PUCK WEEKEND VS. #19 QUINNIPIAC & PRINCETON
The Raiders will host 19th-ranked Quinnipiac on Friday night and Princeton on Saturday for Colgate's annual Silver Puck Weekend. The Raiders will return to Starr Rink for the first time in two weeks and this season they are 1-2-0 at home. Next weekend will start a run of six of the next seven games at home, all the way until the new year. The 19th-ranked Bobcats have gotten off to a hot start at 7-3-1, but had a 0-1-1 conference weekend to earn one point. Princeton went 1-1-0 in its first two games with a win over Harvard and a loss at Dartmouth. The Tigers are 1-3-1 on the season and have yet to play a game at Hobey Baker Rink.

ALUMNI TAILGATE AT HARVARD
The Colgate Club of Boston will be holding its annual Harvard Tailgate next weekend when the Raiders take on the Crimson. The reception will be will be from 5:30 - 9:30 p.m. at the Mezzanine of the Gordon Track & Tennis Center, located adjacent to the rink. Please join fellow alumni, parents, and friends as Colgate faces off against Harvard. To sign up, log on to www.colgateconnect.org/harvardhockey.

UPCOMING FOOD DRIVE
The Colgate men's hockey team will be hosting its annual food drive for the Hamilton Food Cupboard next weekend. Considering it will be the final weekend prior to Thanksgiving, the Raiders are accepting all non-perishable food before the game. Canned food items and other non-perishable food items will help replenish the stock at the Hamilton Food Cupboard. Fans will receive free admission for donating five non-perishable food items.

GOALS FOR GOOD RESULTS FROM THE WEEKEND
After one weekend, Colgate University is in the lead having raised $175 for the Brendan Borek High Tides Memorial Fund. Quinnipiac University is currently in second place. The Bobcats raised $44 for the Ronald McDonald House of Connecticut. Brown finished the weekend in third place. They raised $40 for the Thomas E. Smith Fight to Cure Paralysis.

Top-5  
Colgate          $175
Quinnipiac      $44
Brown             $40
Rensselaer     $6
Yale                $3

Goals For Good is excited about the start to ECAC Hockey play and getting this initiative rolling. “Despite launching late on Thursday afternoon, there was still a good response from fans around the league.” Kevin McNamara, Goals For Good Founder and a Colgate University senior captain on the men's hockey team, said in regards to the first weekend of Goals For Good. “Everyone that is involved with Goals For Good is very optimistic about continuing to get more and more schools' fans involved and raising money for some important causes.”

COLGATE BY THE NUMBERS
2004 - Last time Colgate had tri-captains.
   300 - Career wins for Raiders head coach Don Vaughan.
   147 - Votes received by Colgate in the USCHO.com National Poll.
     17 - Players on the Raiders with at least one point.
     13 - Active coaches that have reached 300 wins.
     11 - Teams with points in ECAC Hockey after weekend.
     10 - Colgate picked to finish 10th in both ECAC Hockey Preseason Polls.
     10 - Games left against current nationally-ranked teams.
       8 - Raiders that have multi-point games this year.
       7 - Power play goals in the last seven games.
       5 - Newcomers on this year's squad.
       5 - One-goal games this season.
       4 - Straight weeks in USCHO.com Poll.
       4 - Power play goals against Niagara on Oct. 28, most in a single game since 2009.
       4 - Wins when leading after two periods.
       3 - Overtime games this season (2-0-1).
       3 - Shorthanded goals this season (all by A. Smith).
       2 - Wins over nationally-ranked teams.

RAIDERS RANKED
Colgate is ranked for the fourth-consecutive week, coming in at 18th in the nation for the second-straight week. Colgate sits at 5-3-1 on the season with two wins over ranked opponents. The Raiders are one of five teams in ECAC Hockey to be in the top-20 as Union sits at No. 9 and Yale is at 13, followed by Dartmouth at 17, Colgate at 18 and Quinnipiac at 19. Colgate gained 11 points in the poll after the weekend split and remained at the 18th spot and will play its fifth ranked team this year on Friday night at Dartmouth.

COACH VAUGHAN HITS #300 MILESTONE
Head coach Don Vaughan became the 39th coach in the history of Division I Men's Hockey to earn 300 wins after a 5-3 win at Brown. He became the fourth active ECAC Hockey head coach to join the club as his former boss Joe Marsh at SLU, Cornell's Mike Shafer and Dartmouth's Bob Gaudet. It will be the second time this year that Coach Vaughan faces another 300-win coach as Gaudet and Vaughan compete against each other on Friday night. Vaughan coached against Dean Blais of Nebraska-Omaha, who has over 300 wins, and won 4-3.

CONFERENCE PARITY
ECAC Hockey showed it has great parity from top to bottom after the first weekend of league play. Every team, but Rensselaer earned at least one point and only two teams, Dartmouth and Union, swept both games to earn four points. Quinnipiac and Princeton have played more games than any school with three contests. The Bobcats have three points, while Princeton is one of seven teams in the conference to have two points. Harvard is the only team with one point.

SMITH OFF TO CAREER START
Austin Smith is off to his best point-scoring start in his career with nine goals and four helpers for 13 points. He has scored a point in 8-of-9 games this season and has four multi-point games and three multi-goal games. Two of his goals have come on the power play and he has two gamewinners and a game-tying and three shorthanded goal in the first nine games. He was named ECAC Hockey Player of the Week for his four points over the weekend against Niagara.

HOLDING A LEAD
The Raiders have gone into the third period with a lead in four games this season and have won all four games. In three of the four games, the lead has only been one-goal. The lone game that Colgate had more than a one-goal lead was against Niagara in a 7-6 overtime win on Oct. 28. That lead is important for the Raiders as they are 1-3-1 when tied or losing after two, with the lone win coming against Miami when the game was tied 1-1 after 40 minutes. They have come back once this season when down going into the third period as they force a 2-2 tie with two goals in the third period against Army. Scoring three or more goals has been huge for Colgate as the Raiders are 5-1-0 when that happens.

SMITH JOINS 50-50 CLUB
Smith became the 32nd player in Colgate hockey history to reach the 50-50 club with 50 goals and 50 assists in a career. He reached the milestone with the overtime gamewinner against Niagara on Oct. 28 in the 7-6 win. He currently has 116 career points with 52 goals and 64 helpers. He passed current NHLer Jesse Winchester '08 for 32nd on the all-time scoring list after his two shorties at Brown.

SCOUTING THE BIG GREEN
Dartmouth enters Friday night's matchup with a 3-1-0 overall record and a 2-0-0 mark conference play. The Big Green is one of only two teams to earn two points after the first league weekend. Dartmouth will be playing at home for the third-straight weekend and has yet to play on the road. They hosted the Ivy Shootout to start the year and beat Brown 2-1 and then lost to Yale. The Big Green opened conference play with wins over Quinnipiac and Princeton, scoring five goals in each game.

Just like the Raiders, Dartmouth has spread around its scoring with 17 skaters with at least one point. Dustin Walsh leads the way with seven points on two goals and five assists and had a great weekend with two goals and three assists for five points in the two games. Tyler Sikura, a rookie for the Big Green, has been a good pick up with four points on two goals and two assists. Eric Robinson and rookie Brandon McNally are tied with Sikura with four points as each has a goal and three assists. The Big Green is heavy on both ends of its roster with 10 seniors and nine rookies.

Dartmouth has big depth between the pipes with James Mello, who was a preseason all-league selection, and former Ivy League Rookie of Year Jody O'Neill. Mello has earned all four starts this season and has a 3-1-0 record. He has given up 10 goals on 125 shots for a .920 save percentage. He also has a 2.51 goals against average in the four games. O'Neill has yet play this season and only played in five games last season and went 2-2-0.

SERIES HISTORY
The Dartmouth-Colgate series is one of the most competitive in the country and the Big Green is ahead by one at 42-41-5. The series has gone to overtime 13 times with Colgate holding a 5-3-5 advantage. These two teams played the longest game in Colgate history as it was just over 121 minutes long with Kyle Wilson '06 scoring the gamewinner in 2003 in a 4-3 win. The series began in 1928-29 with Dartmouth winning 9-1 in Hamilton. The teams played four times last season with Dartmouth winning three of the four with the Raiders' lone win coming at home towards the end of the year. The two teams have played four times in one season three times, including five times in 2002-03.

SCOUTING THE CRIMSON
Harvard opened its season last weekend with home games against Princeton and Quinnipiac. The Crimson dropped the opener to the Tigers and then rebounded to get one point with a tie against the Bobcats. Harvard was the last team in the nation to play a game. The Crimson is coming off a 12-21-1 season and a 7-14-1 mark in conference play.

Alex Killorn had a good start to his senior season with two goals and an assist for three points in his first weekend of the year. One of his two goals came on the power play. Alex Fallstrom also started off well with three points on three assists. Overall, the Crimson averaged 2.5 goals in the two games and its highest output came in a 4-3 loss to Princeton in the season opener. Harvard is a young team that features no players that have played 100 games, although Killorn will most likely be playing in his 100th game on Saturday against Colgate and his is the only player with more than 50 points in his career. The Crimson has six seniors, but none of them have played 100 games.

In goal, Raphael Girard and rookie Steve Michalek split duties last weekend. Girard earned the tie with Quinnipiac, making 24 saves on 26 shots. Michalek got the start in the season opener and the Minnesota Wild draft pick made 34 stops, but gave up four goals to take the loss.

SERIES HISTORY
Colgate and Harvard will be facing each other for the 73rd time since the first meeting back in 1960-61, which was the opening season of ECAC Hockey. The Crimson hold a 45-21-6 advantage in the series, but the matchup has been even as of late with Colgate holding a slim 3-2-2 advantage in the last seven meetings. The two teams have played 10 overtime contests with Harvard owning a 4-1-5 record in those games.