ECAC championship: Cornell vs. Clarkson with NCAA tournament berth on the line

There's more than just a conference championship and an NCAA appearance on the line in Saturday's ECAC final between Cornell and Clarkson.

With Mike Schafer announcing over the summer that he would retire at the end of the season, the pressure was on the Big Red to deliver a great season. And everyone expected them to do so; they were picked first overall in the ECAC preseason coaches' poll, but fell well short, finishing just sixth. That doesn't matter now.

They've won four straight playoff games, three in which they did not have last change, and have allowed just four goals across almost 253 minutes of hockey. That's how Cornell plays when things are going well, and while they strayed from that all too frequently in the regular season, it seems like the bad days might be behind them.

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