Never Too Early

The season still has at least three weekends left, hopefully more, but it's not too early to look ahead to next year's schedule. It's not complete, and my guesses are in italics:

Date       Opponent
Sat Oct 24 Exhibition
Fri Oct 30 Exhibition
Fri Nov 6  Dartmouth
Sat Nov 7  Harvard
Fri Nov 13 @Yale
Sat Nov 14 @Brown
Fri Nov 20 Princeton
Sat Nov 21 Quinnipiac
Sat Nov 28 BU @ MSG
Fri Dec 4  @RPI
Sat Dec 5  @Union
Sat Dec 26 Colorado College (Florida College Hockey Classic)
Sun Dec 27 Maine or Princeton (Florida College Hockey Classic)
Fri Jan 8  Colgate
Sat Jan 9  @Colgate
Fri Jan 15 @Clarkson
Sat Jan 16 @St. Lawrence
Fri Jan 22 North Dakota
Sat Jan 23 North Dakota
Fri Jan 29 St. Lawrence
Sat Jan 30 Clarkson
Fri Feb 5  @Quinnipiac
Sat Feb 6  @Princeton
Fri Feb 12 Brown
Sat Feb 13 Yale
Fri Feb 19 @Harvard
Sat Feb 20 @Dartmouth
Fri Feb 26 Union
Sat Feb 27 RPI

Not too many surprises so far. The conference schedule is basically just an inversion of this year's. A few observations:

--I'm not a huge fan of having the Harvard game right at the start of the season, since it's always more exciting when there's a lot riding on the outcome. Still, we hosted Harvard in November 2006 and it was a fun atmosphere.



--It's great to see a repeat of the Cornell vs. BU game at Madison Square Garden. Even though the team was embarrassed in front of 18,000 fans and a national TV audience when they played as MSG last season, it's a good experience for the players.

--As of right now, the team goes two months, from November 21 to January 22, without playing a game at Lynah Rink. I suspect this will change because the home and home series against Colgate seems to fit only in the January 8-9 weekend.

--The non-conference series against North Dakota in January will probably determine how great of a season we'll have. It will be an experience for NoDak to play at Lynah, and hopefully we'll get at least 3 points.

--A lot of us have complained over the past couple of seasons about how Cornell's weak out of conference schedule hurt them in the Pairwise Rankings, and therefore resulted in a lower seeding for NCAAs. There's a lot to like with this schedule. One against BU, two against NoDak, one against Colorado College, and the possibility of playing either Maine or a strong Princeton in Florida.