ITHACA, N.Y. — The Cornell men’s hockey team has been selected seventh in the USCHO.com preseason national poll on Monday afternoon, marking the Big Red’s third-highest placement in the preseason poll since it started in 1997.
Named the ECAC Hockey favorite by both the coaches and media last week, the Big Red is now the highest-ranked league program in one of the two national polls. Cornell was 25-6-2 last year, winning
ECAC Hockey’s Cleary Cup and the Ivy League title en route to the program’s 21st trip to the NCAA tournament. Mike Schafer, the Jay R. Bloom ’77 Head Coach of Men’s Hockey, returns to the helm for a 23rd season after winning ECAC Hockey Tim Taylor Coach of the Year honors for the fourth time in his storied career. The Big Red led the nation in team defense last season and has the entirety of its blue line and All-American goaltender Matthew Galajda returning.
Defending national champion Minnesota-Duluth (982 ranking points) has collected the No. 1 spot and 44 first-place nods from the USCHO’s 50 voters. Notre Dame (857), Ohio State (835) and Michigan (790) follow with two first-place votes apiece, and Providence (698) edged St. Cloud State (697) for No. 5. Other ECAC Hockey teams in the top 20 are Princeton (14th) and Clarkson (17th). Union, Harvard, Quinnipiac and Brown all received votes.
The only other times Cornell has been selected higher in the USCHO.com preseason poll were in 2005 (fourth) and 2012 (sixth).
The Big Red gets its season rolling with eight of its first 10 games at historic Lynah Rink, starting with a pair of exhibitions against Canadian universities Laurentian (Oct. 13) and Guelph (Oct. 21). The regular season commences with Michigan State’s visit for two games Oct. 26-27, then Cornell hosts Ivy League rival Yale on Nov. 2 to kick off the ECAC Hockey schedule. Season tickets are available now at CornellBigRedTickets.com https://cornellbigredtickets.universitytickets.com/w/packages/Packages.aspx.
USCHO.com preseason poll
Team (first-place votes) Points
1. Minnesota-Duluth (44) 982
2. Notre Dame (2) 857
3. Ohio State (2) 835
4. Michigan (2) 790
5. Providence 698
6. St. Cloud State 697
7. Cornell 676
8. Boston University 597
9. Denver 552
10. Minnesota State 488
11. North Dakota 437
12. Boston College 398
13. Minnesota 387
14. Princeton 357
15. Northeastern 345
16. Penn State 302
17. Clarkson 299
18. Michigan Tech 115
19. Western Michigan 109
20. Northern Michigan 98
Others receiving votes: Air Force 94, Union 90, Bowling Green 62, Harvard 58, Massachusetts 35, Wisconsin 27,Colorado College 23, Mass.-Lowell 20, Maine 18, Omaha 17, Canisius 14, Mercyhurst 11, Quinnipiac 8, Miami 2, Brown 1, Connecticut 1.
