This week will mark the beginning of the season for the six Ivy League schools. Yale and Princeton will open their seasons at the Capital City Classic, Cornell will play a pair with Niagara, Brown will play host to Holy Cross all the while Dartmouth and Harvard play a set of league games. Union and Rensselaer will open the conference slate on Friday in Schenectady, where Union will be looking to lick their wounds after a winless weekend and RPI will be looking to rebound after a few rough weekends.

St. Lawrence is playing a pair of games at Penn State this weekend, Thursday and Friday nights so mark your calendars for that series. I am actually watching it now, which means I am really late in writing this. Check out this week’s Three Things I Think, from earlier in the week, also check out Chris’ article on Yale and Clarkson was also our CHN team of the Week.  Ivy fans out there should check out the league preview again and the things to watch for I did in the preseason.

There are many great non-league matchups throughout the league, as it will look to improve upon its already great inter-conference record. Without further ado here are some thoughts on this weekend’s matchups.

Yale vs Princeton(Capital City Classic, Friday and Saturday (opp either Mass or Maine)

It is seemingly a tradition these days that the Tigers and Bulldogs open the season against each other in a tournament. Last season in the opener, the two tied at two but the teams embarked in different directions, as Yale finished third and Princeton in twelfth in the league standings. These games are often times fun and ugly at the same time, but Yale usually comes out fast, or it has in the past few seasons. I would put good money on the fact that Lyon will face Phinney, but that is just my gut instinct. The teams will either play Maine or UMass on Saturday night depending on results. This is a true tournament, which will field a true winner.

Prediction: 3-1 Yale

Cornell vs Niagara (Fri at NU, Cornell vs Niagara at Lynah)

Cornell opens its season with a pair against Atlantic Hockey’s, Niagara. NU struggled in a pair of games against the North Country foes early in the year, losing 9-3 in the two games. My position on Cornell has not changed, as the Big Red need to find scoring in the worst way this season to find any success. The defense and goaltending should still be strong and I assume, its opponent will have a tough time breaking through on the weekend. One should assume, that Cornell might get both goalies some action (Stewart and Gillam).

Prediction: Cornell Sweeps

Union vs RPI (Fri at Messa, Sat at HFH)

Union and RPI will officially ring in the conference slate on Friday, as the two capital region rivals face-off for its first of three games this season. Union struggled defensively, which will probably not sit well with Rick Bennett, as the Dutchmen gave up 10 goals on the weekend to Michigan and UNH. Union has failed to impress this season, despite having a lone loss. 2-1-2 isn’t a bad place to be, at this point of the season however. RPI has a win against Boston College but has struggled at near every aspect of the game since then. The Engineers have lost three games in a row and were swept by the Alaska schools two weeks ago. Kasdorf is great but he really needs to receive help or it will be another long season in Troy.

Prediction: Home teams win

Providence at Colgate (Friday and Saturday)

The defending national champions pay a visit to Colgate for a final time this weekend, as Starr Rink is in its swan-song season. The Raiders have had some interesting results so far but have yet to face a team of the quality of Providence. The Friars will enter the weekend undefeated and have an impressive win against Miami on its schedule. This could be a huge pairwise weekend for Gate, but it may be too much to handle. Gate will come in off of a sweep of RIT, where it scored nine goals in the process. The Raider defense needs some improvement this weekend to give the defending national title holders a run and I think they will. These games should be close.

Prediction: Providence Sweeps

Holy Cross at Brown (Saturday)

Brown will open its season with the Crusaders this weekend. Holy Cross has played five games so far and has struggled, with just one win in those games. That win happened in its last time out against Canisius. Brown will look to see its youngsters mold fast in the lineup and will hope for the defense to be able to limit the mistakes this season, which was often times not the case last season. I think Brown will be better than most others do because they have a decent amount of young talent that most people seem to ignore because of how young it was last season. It will be interesting to see who is in net for Bruno this weekend and for them they should be able to get a result out of this game.

Prediction: 3-2 Brown

Dartmouth vs Harvard (Sat at Thompson, Sun at Bright-Landry)

Both the Big Green and Crimson will open their seasons this weekend. This is the second straight season that the two have opened the season against each other, as they played to an entertaining 3-3 tie last year. Harvard should have no questions on offense this season, other than whether its defense will be able to contribute. Dartmouth’s losses are large and it may take experience some growing pains early, but as usual Bob Gaudet’s team will compete, be able to skate and be able to play the pro style system. The Crimson boast an 82-29-4 all-time record in official season-opening games. Harvard returns 106 of its 121 goals from last season.

Predictions: 3-3 tie on Saturday, 5-1 Harvard Sunday

Thursday, October 29th, 2015 - 10:00 pm | Blogs, ECAC, Notes, Thoughts, Ramblings