Cornell men's hockey is primed to take to the ice away against RPI, in an NBC sports network-televised game, before traveling to face Union. The Red is anxious to get back on the ice to try to overcome its trouble this past weekend, when it lost two games to Colgate and fell in the standings. For the first time since Nov. 11, Cornell is not first place in the ECAC league.

Excitement and nerves run high for the Red as the men's hockey team gets ready to enter its first official contest of the season against Mercyhurst on Saturday night.

The women's hockey team will send nine players to a summer Canadian U22 National Team selection camp, while its male counterparts are hitting up the pros.

Driving back to Ithaca from Brown University (where we saw Emma Watson!), it is painful not to second guess what might have been Friday night against Yale. We can only imagine the team feels the same way.

For the men’s hockey team, it seems like there’s just something about Yale. The No. 12 Bulldogs won all three contests between the two teams last season, including a 5-0 rout in the ECAC Hockey championship game. And despite the No. 3 Red’s hot start to the season, Yale outskated Cornell once again on Friday in New Haven, Conn., and came away with a 4-2 win. The Red took out its frustration the next night in a 6-0 thrashing of Brown.

Anyone who picked up the Daily Sun yesterday would have had a tough time missing the quartet of headlines on the front page warning of the impending doom facing Cornell as a result of the nation’s recent economic downturn. Inexplicably missing from yesterday’s outcry — the cancellation of intramural ice hockey.

It is undeniable that the latest casualty to campus-wide budget cuts — intramural ice hockey — is the headliner of a long list of “things-administrators-have-decided-are-less-important-than-other-things-and-will-no-longer-be-funded.” And yet, I only found out about this a couple of days ago.

While celebrating Senior Night, the last regular season game of the year, with a 5-2 win over Union, the men’s hockey team also ensured that it will return to Lynah Rink once more this season for a quarterfinal matchup in the ECAC Hockey tournament. With the victory, Cornell is guaranteed a first-round bye in the tournament and no lower than the No. 3 seed in the conference tournament.

On a night to recognize the eight graduating seniors on the Cornell roster, it was rising junior center Riley Nash who put on an offensive show. He racked up two goals and two assists and seemed to be at the center of most of the Red’s chances on offense.

After being picked 21st overall by the Edmonton Oilers in the 2007 NHL entry draft, rising junior Riley Nash came to Cornell in the face of big expectations. In his rookie season, Nash did not disappoint his coaches, teammates or the Lynah Faithful, as he performed exceptionally well in all aspects of the game.

Nash’s line of 12 goals and 20 points in 36 games in 2007-08 was good enough to earn him several honors and awards, including Ivy League Rookie of the Year and ECAC Hockey Freshman of the Year. Coming into this season, Nash is expected to provide even greater production for the Red.

Athletically speaking, Cornell may have one of the most unfortunate academic calendars.

Like many young sports fans, I grew up mesmerized by the college basketball tournament every March. I got so excited, so wrapped up in the story lines of the various schools I might not have even heard of before. I literally spent time just sitting in my living room, or lying on my bed, imagining what it would be like to be a student at any one of these Cinderella schools — wondering what it would be like to be surrounded by such energy and enthusiasm.

Last year, Ray Sawada ’08 was a co-captain of head coach Mike Schafer’s Cornell hockey team that lost to Harvard in the ECAC Hockey tournament semifinals. This year, Sawada, the 52nd overall draft pick in the 2004 NHL entry draft, found himself playing for the Dallas Stars, alongside professional hockey all-stars like Mike Modano, Marty Turco and Brenden Morrow.

For most of the 2008-09 hockey season, Sawada was skating for the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League. Sawada has so far netted five goals and 10 assists in 49 games for the Moose, a team that is currently in first place in the AHL.