There was a time during the middle of the 2021-22 season when the Colgate University men’s hockey team did everything right but was not producing wins.
Once the Raiders started maturing on the ice, their confidence grew. So did the victories. Colgate finished the regular season winning nine of its last 12 games, including three by shootout.
Colgate carried the momentum into the ECAC Hockey tournament, where as a fifth seed it won best-of-three series over No. 12 seed Yale and fourth seed Cornell to reach the semifinals, before falling 3-1 to top-seeded Quinnipiac at Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid. It was Colgate’s first semifinal appearance since 2015, which also was the last time the Raiders played for the ECAC championship.
So far this season, Colgate is 2-4. The Raiders split series at Merrimack and Arizona State and lost the opening series to Northern Michigan at home.
With a veteran group returning, Colgate head coach Don Vaughan is hoping his team, which finished with 18-18-4 overall and 9-9-4 in the ECAC, can carry over its end of the season success into this year.
