Yale Daily News

Shopping period may just have ended, but the men’s hockey team already has a big test coming up — a meeting with the Killer Cs.

After hitting the splits against Alabama-Huntsville this past weekend, the Bulldogs (8-4-3, 4-4-3 ECAC) will now travel to hostile territory in upstate New York to face Colgate (9-9-4, 3-4-3) and Cornell (8-7-2, 6-4-0) in a pivotal weekend for all three teams. In addition to the opportunity to climb as high as third place in the conference with two wins, the Elis will be looking to set the tone for the rest of the season as they begin their final stretch of ECAC games.

During an early November tilt with the Big Red and the Raiders in New Haven, Yale fell by a single goal to Cornell only to come back two nights later to defeat Colgate, 6-4, in front of the home crowd. Two wins this weekend in the Empire State will mean back-to-back Bulldog victories for only the third time this season. The Ws will not come easily, however, as both of their opponents are coming off of three-point weekends against No. 10 Clarkson and St. Lawrence, one of the most challenging traveling pairs in the conference.

The Elis seem to be confident in whoever gets the nod to protect the net, as goalies Alec Richards ’09 and Billy Blase ’10 have alternated time between the pipes the past two weekends. But the Bulldogs will also need to get strong performances from all four offensive lines in order to solve Cornell’s Ben Scrivens and Colgate’s Mark Dekanich, the second- and third-ranked netminders in the ECAC, respectively.

“We’re really excited about the weekend,” forward Sean Backman ’10 said. “We expect to get four points out of it.”

— Danielle Kehl