Maybe it’s the thought of playing Wisconsin that brings out the best in RIT’s hockey team. More likely, it’s just a bit of luck, fate, or a combination of both, but for just the second time since the school’s transition to Division I hockey, the Tigers have beaten ranked teams in back to back games.
The first was during the 2009-10 season with wins over Denver and New Hampshire in the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament. The magical run ended with an 8-1 loss to Wisconsin.
Now, nearly two seasons later the Tigers are coming off of wins over #11 Ferris State and #16 Lake Superior State, and who do they face next?
“Wisconsin,” Mark Cornacchia, a senior forward who was a sophomore when RIT made history with their run to the national semifinals. “It’s come full circle, two years down the road I’m sure any one of us (members of the 09-10 team) would love to get another shot at them, and when we saw them on the schedule we were excited.”
Things have certainly changed for the Tigers since the last meeting. The school has become a desired opponent for major college teams, many of which are happy to host the Tigers at their rinks. Take Wisconsin for example, the Badgers actually reached out to RIT to see if the school would be interested in a rematch of the Frozen Four.
“I think it’s a good opportunity, and for me I wanted to do it to get ourselves into a tougher environment,” Wilson said. “There will be somewhere between ten to fourteen thousand fans at the game.”
If so, that would most likely be the largest regular season crowd that RIT has ever played in front of, eclipsing the 10,556 mark set each of the past two years during the school’s Brick City Homecoming games at Blue Cross Arena.
Just one more sign of how far this program has come over the past few years.
“We used to walk though airports and people would see us and say ‘what’s RIT?’” Cornacchia laughs. “The on-going joke was that we were Rhode Island Tech. Now, you walk through airports, even when I’m back home in Toronto people bring it up.”
Thus they head for Wisconsin thinking that they can take at least one, if not both of the games with the Badgers this weekend.
“We have confidence in ourselves and know that anybody can beat anybody on a given night in Division I. We have the physical tools to do it; we just have to be mentally prepared for a team like Wisconsin.”
The Badgers record is a bit deceiving. Despite owning an overall mark of just 7-9-2, Wisconsin recently spilt a series with Minnesota-Duluth, the top-ranked team in this week’s US College Hockey Online Poll.
“We were surprised, having watched tape to see where they are,” Wilson noted. “They’ve had their ups and downs and maybe we’ll get them on a good night. We know they’re going to be a good team and we don’t want them turning things around on us.”
There is one more Rochester connection to this game aside from the fact that RIT is one of the two teams playing in the weekend’s games. Mark Zengerle, a sophomore forward is one of Wisconsin’s top players and hails from Rochester. In 18 games this season Zengerle has notched 27 points (8 G, 19 A). Wilson described his style of play in one word.
“Outstanding.”
