Saints Announce 2008-09 Schedule

CANTON, N.Y. -- Three teams which made the 2008 NCAA tournament field including two of the top four seeds are among the non-ECAC teams on St. Lawrence University's 2008-09 men's ice hockey schedule.

The Saints will open their season at the University of Michigan, which went 32-6-4 last season and was the number one overall seed in the tournament, playing in Ann Arbor on October 10 and 11 to open the season. The Saints will play at RIT and Niagara, also an NCAA tournament team, on Oct. 17-18 and will play their third NCAA entry from a year ago on Oct. 26 when the University of New Hampshire visits Appleton Arena for the Saints home opener in a 3 p.m. matinee

The Saints will also play UMass.-Amherst, Boston University, Vermont, Ferris State and Clarkson in non-league games during the 2008-09 season and could either meet Vermont a second time or Colgate in the second game of the Sheraton Bank Classic at Vermont on January 2-3. SLU will play at UMass on Nov. 28 and at Boston University on the 29th, meeting the Terriers in Boston for the first time since 1997-98. Vermont will visit Canton on Dec. 13 and could be a second round opponent in the Sheraton Bank Classic. SLU will play Ferris in the early game on Jan. 2 with Vermont taking on Colgate in game two.

The Saints and Clarkson will play back-to-back games twice during the 2008-09 season with the first set non-league games and the second counting in the ECAC standings. SLU will play at Clarkson on Jan. 9 in the first of the two non-league meetings with Clarkson at SLU on the 10th and the Golden Knights will visit the Saints on Feb. 6 for the first league game with the return match the next night in Potsdam.

The Saints open the 2008-09 league season with Yale and Brown at Appleton Arena on Nov. 7 and 8 and travel to Dartmouth and Harvard the next weekend. The Saints will host Princeton and Quinnipiac with the Quinnipiac game a 4 p.m. start on Nov. 21-22. The Saints will conclude pre-holiday ECAC play with games at Colgate and Cornell on Dec. 5-6.

Post-holiday ECAC play resumes with a trip to Brown and Yale on Jan. 16-17 and then the Saints will enjoy a five-game home stand with Rensselaer and Union visiting Appleton on Jan. 23-24 and Cornell and Colgate coming to Canton on Jan. 30 and 31 before the home league game with Clarkson on the 6th of February.

The Saints will play at Quinnipiac and Princeton with the Princeton game a 4 p.m. Saturday on Feb. 13-14, host Harvard and Dartmouth on Feb. 20-21 and conclude the regular season at Union and Rensselaer on Feb. 27-28.

Adjustments to the schedule could happen if Saint games are selected as part of ESPNU's college hockey broadcast package. Two Saint games, including the first-ever ESPNU college hockey telecast, were carried by that network last season.