M. hockey travels to upstate New York this weekend

After last weekend's embarrassing loss at the hands of then-winless Yale, the men's hockey team faces No. 13 Colgate tonight in Hamilton, N.Y., and No. 12 Cornell on Saturday night in Ithaca, N.Y., in two Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Hockey League contests. This weekend will mark the first time Princeton (4-5-1 overall, 4-4-0 ECACHL) has faced ranked opponents this season. The games will also be the last two in a stretch of 10 consecutive ECACHL games.

"What we need to do," sophomore forward Grant Goeckner-Zoeller said, "and what we have been working on is focusing on our game, playing our system. We had a little slip in the Yale game, and this weekend is important for us to play the way we are supposed to."

Power plays will be key to the outcomes of both games, which bodes well for Princeton. The Tigers were 3-for-8 on the power play last weekend raising their overall efficiency to just under 28 percent, tops in the nation. That still may not help them against traditional powerhouse Cornell.

"Cornell is known as a very big and disciplined team," Goeckner-Zoeller said. "They have become a dominant team in the ECACHL in the past, and with Colgate winning the league last year, this weekend should be a good test for us."

Sparked by junior forward Dustin Sproat, senior defenseman Luc Paquin and Goeckner-Zoeller, the Princeton offense ranks second in the ECACHL and eighth in the nation. The team scores an average of 3.5 goals per game.

Tonight's game is the second game for Princeton on its current six-game road trip. Thus far, the Tigers have played twice as many league games as Colgate (10-4, 3-1-0) and sit only two points ahead of them in the standings.

Colgate has won 10 games this season, one of only four teams in the nation to do so thus far and is coming off a weekend sweep of Mercyhurst. Some notable league wins have come over Harvard, Brown and Dartmouth.

"Colgate had a very good season last year and beat us in two close games," Goeckner-Zoeller said. "However, we are not worried about what the other teams are doing. We are just worried about what we can do, the things we have control over."

When the two teams met in February of last season at Colgate, the host Raiders came away with a 4-2 victory.

Colgate is unbeaten in its last five games against the Tigers, posting a record of 3-0-2 over that stretch. The last time Princeton beat Colgate was a 2-1 home win in 2001.

Cornell (5-2-2, 2-1-1) blanked Canisius in its last game, 3-0, and has beaten Army, Sacred Heart, Harvard and Brown this season. Before its last win, Cornell had been 0-2-2 in its four previous games against Michigan State, Vermont and Dartmouth. Princeton has lost seven straight contests against Cornell and last beat them on Feb. 9, 2001, in Baker Rink.

Princeton's offensive attack will be heavily relied on against Cornell's physical presence. Sproat, Paquin and Goeckner-Zoeller are tied for seventh in the nation in scoring with 1.5 points per game. Paquin also ranks first in the nation in assists per game with 1.33.