Over the last two seasons the Big Red of Cornell and the Crimson of Harvard have been on top of the ECAC. The two teams have played for the ECAC Championship in each of the last two seasons. This season, both the coaches and the media expect it to be the same way.
The Crimson garnered 10 first-place votes amongst the coaches and 20 first-place votes amongst the media to place first in the preseason polls. The Big Red got the remaining two first-place votes for each poll to finish second.
The Crimson won the ECAC Championship two years ago while the Big Red captured it last season, both Championships coming in overtime.
Dartmouth and Brown were consensus third- and fourth-place finishers on both polls. Clarkson placed ahead of Yale in the coaches poll, while Yale placed fifth in the media poll and Clarkson was sixth in the media poll. St. Lawrence was picked seventh by both the coaches and the media.
Colgate was a consensus pick at eight and Vermont placed ninth in the coaches poll, but tenth in the media poll. Union was picked ninth in the media poll and 11th in the coaches poll. Rensselaer was picked tenth in the coaches poll and eleventh in the media poll. Princeton rounded out both polls in the 12th position.
The preseason All-ECAC teams were identical with one exception. The coaches picked Yale defenseman Jeff Dwyer while the media picked Vermont defenseman Jaime Sifers. The other picks were a consensus as Harvard’s Noah Welch was picked on defense and Brown goaltender Yann Danis was given the nod. At the forward position was ECAC Rookie of the Year Hugh Jessiman from Dartmouth, Harvard’s Tim Pettit and Cornell’s Ryan Vesce.
The ECAC also handed out its annual Media Recognition Award to Tom Caron, the play-by-play announcer for ECAC television broadcasts.
