Anyone taking a government course at one of the six Ivy League schools is no doubt familiar with the concept of a “blank slate.”
Developed by the English philosopher John Locke, it’s the idea that humans are born with an empty mind that is filled up with knowledge and ideas as they move through life. It’s also something that many of the Ivy League’s hockey coaches have likely experienced firsthand this fall as they worked with their teams in preparation for the start of the season.
This weekend will be the first time that the six Ivy League hockey schools – Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale – play a meaningful hockey game in over a year and a half. That long layoff started when the sports world shut down at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 and continued when the Ivy League canceled all sports last season.
As a result of graduations and transfers, many of the Ivy League teams start the season with a drastically different look compared to the last time they took the ice.
“I really feel like we’re starting over and building from the ground up again,” Cornell coach Mike Schafer said.
The Big Red were the No. 1 team in the country in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic ended the season, but enter this year with only 13 players with collegiate experience.
None of Cornell’s three goalies have played in a NCAA game. It’s the first time Cornell has entered a season with no collegiate experience in goal since 1984 – when Schafer was a sophomore defenseman for the Big Red. Senior Nate McDonald and freshmen Ian Shane and Joe Howe will compete for the starting goalie job this season.
“One thing that is consistent over time, when you’re involved in the game long enough, you know that somebody will step up,” Schafer said of the Big Red’s goaltending situation. “You just don’t know who it is going to be. We have three great kids that are working really hard to prove themselves and I’m sure one of them will rise to the occasion.”
Like Cornell, Yale also enters the season with a large group of newcomers. Only nine of the Bulldogs’ 24 players have appeared in an NCAA game.
“I don’t have a choice,” Bulldogs coach Keith Allain said. “The past is the past and we’re looking forward. This is the first time in my career that I’ll have 13 freshmen and sophomores, guys that have never played in a college hockey game.”
The opening of the season is an extra challenge for first-year Dartmouth coach Reid Cashman, as all 28 players on the Big Green are new to Cashman and his staff.
“We will take baby steps, we’ll put in our base, and then we’ll just build as the year goes. There’s just no way to incorporate everything you want to be as a team from Day 1.”
Harvard is one of the few Ivy teams that wasn’t entirely gutted entering this year, as the Crimson return Mitchell Gibson in goal along with four of its top seven scorers from 2019-20. Even with a lot of familiar faces back, there’s still more excitement than usual entering this season for Harvard.
“Obviously, we’re all understanding of the circumstances that led to that situation,” Crimson coach Ted Donato said of not playing last year. “I think for us, were just very excited to be back in school full-time and be around the team and to be back playing the game we love. There’s a certain energy and excitement around the team early on that had been a really breath of fresh air.
“Everybody is really excited to kick the season off.”
