Big Green Open Home Schedule Against Yale and Brown This Weekend

Game 4 // Dartmouth (1-1-1, 1-1-1) vs. Yale (1-1-2, 0-1-1)				Game 5 // Dartmouth (1-1-1, 1-1-1) vs. Brown (1-2-0, 0-2-0)

Date: Friday, Nov. 14, 2014 // Time: 7:05 PM Location: Hanover, N.H. // Arena: Thompson Arena All-Time Series: 89-107-15 // Streak: 1-0-1 Last Meeting: Feb. 22, 2014 // T, 3-3/OT (Hanover)				Date: Saturday, Nov. 15, 2014 // Time: 7:05 PM Location: Hanover, N.H. // Arena: Thompson Arena All-Time Series: 77-65-8 // Streak: 1-0-0 Last Meeting: Feb. 21, 2014 // W, 2-1/OT (Hanover)
Yale Media				Brown Media
TV: None // Radio: WFRD 99.3 FM (99Rock) // PBP: Chris Garrett Online: Ivy League Digital Network Live Stats: DartmouthSports.com Twitter: @Dartmouth_MIH Digital Press Box // Gameday Central DARTMOUTH NOTES // YALE PREVIEW/NOTES Ticket Information				TV: None // Radio: WFRD 99.3 FM (99Rock) // PBP: Chris Garrett Online: Ivy League Digital Network Live Stats: DartmouthSports.com Twitter: @Dartmouth_MIH Digital Press Box // Gameday Central DARTMOUTH NOTES // BROWN PREVIEW/NOTES Ticket Information

THIS WEEKEND
The Dartmouth men's hockey team will open the home portion of its 2014-15 regular season schedule this weekend as it plays host to Yale and Brown on Friday and Saturday. Both games are scheduled for 7:05 puck drops.

LAST TIME OUT
The Big Green split the weekend in the Capital District with a 4-3 overtime win at No. 8 Union on Friday night and a last-minute 2-1 defeat at Rensselaer the following evening.

SCOUTING YALE
The Bulldogs come to Hanover for the Dartmouth home opener, bringing with them a 1-1-2 overall mark and an 0-1-1 record against ECAC opponents. Yale began the season by winning the Liberty Invitational in Newark with a shootout victory (officially a 2-2 tie) against Princeton and a 2-1 win against UConn. Last weekend, the Bulldogs skated to another 2-2 draw, this time in New Haven against league foe Clarkson. The following night, St. Lawrence posted a 4-0 shutout of the Elis despite the home team holding a 32-19 edge in shots. So far, it has be sophomore and Chicago Blackhawks draft pick John Hayden leading the offense with four points on one goal and three assists. Sophomore Alex Lyon has started all four games, posting a .918 save percentage and a 2.29 goals-against average, but was pulled against the Saints after allowing three goals on eight shots.

AGAINST THE BULLDOGS
Dartmouth took the season series with Yale in 2013-14, defeating the then-defending national champion, 4-1, in New Haven in December and earning a 3-3 tie late in the year in Hanover. Troy Crema had two goals and Brandon McNally had three assists in the road win, while Andy Simpson's blast from the blueline with 1:36 left in regulation helped the Green earn a league point in the game played at Thompson on Feb. 22.

SCOUTING BROWN
After opening the season with a 4-2 win at Army on Oct. 31, the Bears dropped their first two ECAC Hockey contests of the season last weekend at home to St. Lawrence (5-2) and Clarkson (2-1). In both outings, Brown fell behind by two early and were unable to pull off the comeback. SLU scored three times in the third period to put them away, while the Golden Knights managed to stave off a late surge by the home team for the one-goal victory on Saturday. Senior Massimo Lamacchia has a goal and two assists for the team lead in scoring while 13 players in all have at least one point in the first three games. Sophomore Tyler Steel has been the Bears' go-to netminder this year, playing in each game thus far, posting a 3.03 goals against average and an .899 save percentage.

AGAINST BROWN
The Bears will be making their second of four appearances in Hanover this season as they played a scrimmage against the Big Green on Oct. 26. In the last regular season matchup of these two programs, Tyler Sikura scored a power-play goal 51 seconds into overtime for Dartmouth's third straight win and a rebuttal from Brown's 3-2 OT win in Providence against the Big Green on Dec. 7. The Bears also won a non-conference meeting on Oct. 26, 2013 as part of the Liberty Invitational in Newark.

EPIC COMEBACK
Trailing 3-0 to the eighth-ranked team in the nation and defending national champion, the Big Green pulled off an amazing 4-3 come-from-behind overtime win Friday night at Union's Messa Rink. Eric Robinson, Tyler Sikura and Brad Schierhorn scored in regulation and Tim O'Brien potted the winner 3:22 into the extra session to cap the comeback. Schierhorn's goal to tie things up came with 49.9 seconds remaining in regulation.

DOWN IN THE THIRD
Prior to Game 3 of last year's ECAC Hockey Quarterfinal victory against RPI, the Big Green had not won a game when trailing entering the third period in nearly 26 months. That night in Troy, they erased a 4-2 deficit after 40 minutes to win 5-4 and move on to the next round of the postseason. Dartmouth managed to duplicate the feat just 20 minutes down the road this weekend against the Dutchmen by turning a 3-1 game entering the third period into the 4-3 overtime win in just the second game of the season.

TOP PLAY
The Schierhorn goal was recognized by NCAA.com as No. 1 Play of the Week. A Charles Grant series of saves in a 1-0 win at Cornell and Sikura's OT winner against Brown were both named the No. 4 plays in consecutive weeks last February.

FIVE WITH TWO
Against Union, Dartmouth's veteran players put together a solid offensive effort as five Big Green players registered two points in the win. Sikura (1-1—2), Robinson (1-1—2), Schierhorn (1-1—2), Beamish (0-2—2) and Brett Patterson (0-2—2) all had a pair of points in the comeback. The lone Dartmouth player to get on the scoresheet without multiple points was O'Brien, who scored the winning goal.

FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING
Tim O'Brien's goal at 3:22 of OT not only snapped an 0-6-1 skid in Schenectady dating back to 2011-12 for the Green and White, it was also the first win in 10 overtime games with Union. Entering the contest, Dartmouth was 0-2-7 in program history against the Dutchmen when the games needed an extra period of play.

3-POINT WEEKENDS
Beamish scored his first of the season on a first-period power play at RPI on Saturday night. Assisting on the play were Sikura and Patterson, giving each member of the trio a three-point weekend. Patterson was the only one not to score a goal, though, as he dished out three helpers in the two-game trip.

PENALTY KILLERS
Though just three games into the season, Dartmouth has demonstrated to be one of the most disciplined teams in the nation with just an average of three penalties taken per game. As impressive as their self-discipline has been, the penalty kill has been equal or more so, remaining a perfect 6-for-6 after this weekend. The Big Green and Harvard (8-for-8) remain the only two teams in the nation who have yet to allow a PPG.

POWER-PLAY PROWESS
The Dartmouth power play is 2-for-9 to rank 15th in the country with a 22.2% success rate. Eric Robinson's goal at 18:01 of the second period against Union sparked the comeback and came after a Michael Pontarelli cross checking call. Beamish scored the other man-advantage marker the following night at Rensselaer's Houston Field House. The team finished last season 37th in the nation on the power play, posting a 16.5% (22-133) figure.

HOME OPENERS
The Big Green are 8-8-1 in home openers under head coach Bob Gaudet '81 — a figure that oddly enough is also the same as regular-season openers prior to this year. Only twice in that 17-year stretch has Yale been the opponent in Dartmouth's first game at Thompson. In 2000-01, Yale won, 5-4, and most recently in 2012-13, it was a 7-4 win for the home team.

TURNING IT AROUND AT THOMPSON
The Green will look to return to their winning ways at Thompson in 2014-15 after a 3-7-3 mark in their home building last season. The team will play 17 home games in its own facility this winter, including six of the seven scheduled non-conference contests. The team was 12-5-1 at home in 2012-13 and 7-7-2 during the 2011-12 campaign.

THOMPSON TURNS 39
Dartmouth's Rupert C. Thompson Arena will begin its 39th season of hosting competition with this weekend's game. The venue opened its doors in November 1975 when the Big Green skated to a 3-3 tie with the US Olympic Team. Designed by renowned architect Pier Luigi Nervi (designer of the complex used to host the 1960 Rome Summer Olympics), construction began on the venue in 1973. Thompson Arena's design has been replicated by numerous facilities built in the decades since in an effort to capture a similar feel of Dartmouth's home rink.

AGAINST THE BEST
In the last three seasons, Dartmouth is 2-1-1 against defending national champions following the win against Union on Saturday. The Big Green were 1-0-1 against Yale last season. In 2012-13, Dartmouth was bested, 6-3, at No. 1 Boston College when the Eagles were defending their 2012 national title won in Tampa.

FOLLOW ALONG
Fans can follow all the action this weekend with live stats on DartmouthSports.com. Live high definition video streams of all Big Green home games this season will be broadcast on the Ivy League Digital Network. For live in-game updates, fans are encouraged to follow the team's official twitter account: @Dartmouth_MIH.

ECAC HOCKEY WEEKLY RADIO SHOWEric Robinson was a guest of Bernie Corbett in the latest installment of "This Week in ECAC Hockey." The fifth-year senior talked about returning from injury, his linemates and internal expectations for 2014-15.

WHAT'S AHEAD?
There is a short break between Saturday's game with Brown and the next Dartmouth game. The Big Green will play host to Harvard on Tuesday night at home for a 7:05 puck drop inside Thompson.

GAME NOTES:

Schedules