By Lindsay Lennon<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For Big Red hockey fans\u2014and many other Cornellians throughout the NYC metro area\u2014it\u2019s a Thanksgiving tradition on par with turkey and pumpkin pie: a festive weekend game in legendary Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Saturday, November 25, the fabled arena will host Red Hot Hockey<\/a>, the spirited game that brings thousands of Lynah Faithful to Midtown every other year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike the Frozen Apple<\/a>\u2014the other biennial game in MSG, in which Cornell faces off against varying opponents\u2014Red Hot Hockey always pits the Big Red against the same team: Boston University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n (Past Frozen Apple opponents have included Yale, Harvard, Michigan, and Penn State; most recently, in 2022, it was the UConn Huskies.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt brings a wide swath of Cornellians and multiple generations of Lynah Faithful together,\u201d says Scott Pesner \u201987, vice president of the Cornell Hockey Association<\/a>, which promotes and supports Big Red men\u2019s hockey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen you have 10,000 alumni and their families and friends in one arena, it really is an amazing experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the different titles, Red Hot Hockey and the Frozen Apple have intertwined roots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After longtime hockey rivals Cornell and B.U. were split into different leagues in the 1980s\u2014ECAC and Hockey East, respectively\u2014they seldom got to face each other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The friendly foes rekindled their rivalry in 2007 with the introduction of Red Hot Hockey, drawing a sold-out crowd to MSG.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n CORNELL VS<\/strong>. BOSTON<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Saturday, November 25<\/p>\n\n\n\n Madison Square Garden<\/p>\n\n\n\n Doors open<\/strong>: 6:30 p.m. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Puck drops<\/strong>: 8 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Event registration: <\/strong>click here<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n (Among the 18,000 attendees at that debut game were hockey royalty: members of the U.S.’s 1980 Olympic championship team, winners of the “Miracle on Ice” against the Soviet Union.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Frozen Apple tradition began in 2012; that game is held in even-numbered years, with Red Hot Hockey continuing in odd-numbered ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tickets to this year’s game<\/a> are available through Cornell Athletics, and more than two dozen classes<\/a> are offering block seating (a few blocks have already sold out).<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the MSG events are decidedly New York-centric, Pesner notes, they also inspire Cornellians from far beyond the metro area to incorporate the game into their holiday travels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt brings classes and clubs together; a lot of alumni bring their children,\u201d says Pesner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCurrent students get to see that they\u2019re part of a longer history\u2014not just the Lynah Faithful, but a larger Cornell community. There\u2019s a lot of pride when you walk in and out of Madison Square Garden and everyone is wearing Cornell red.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Top: The ceremonial start to the 2009 Red Hot Hockey game. All photos by Cornell University photographers.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Published on October 27, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n Generations of Lynah Faithful will descend on Midtown Manhattan for the annual Thanksgiving weekend showdown on ice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":13655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"alumni_hub_syml_posts":[27227,17698,27170],"footnotes":""},"categories":[224],"tags":[],"cornell_year_post":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-27836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cornelliana"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Cornell](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/11\/1093_11_257-A-1024x576.jpg\")
Holiday on Ice<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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