Carelton Preview

The Golden Knights open the 2010-11 season today with an exhibition game against Carleton University from Ottawa, Ontario, at 4 p.m. at Cheel Arena.

Clarkson held its first official practice of the season yesterday morning and also announced its captains for the season. Junior defenseman Mark Borowiecki will be the team captain, with senior forward Brandon DeFazio and junior forward Jake Morley, an Ogdensburg native, serving as assistant captains.

About Carleton

The Ravens program is relatively new and the original head coach of the team was former Clarkson interim head coach Fred Parker. Parker was let go by the university at the end of last season and the program is now led by Marty Johnston. One of the team's assistants is former National Hockey League player Shaun Van Allen.

Carleton has already played three games this season and is still looking for its first victory. The Ravens played McGill twice in mid-September and lost 5-3 and 6-3. Last night St. Lawrence University handed the Ravens a 5-1 loss.

Remembering 2008-09

Clarkson is coming off of two tough seasons and you could point back to an exhibition game against Carleton on Nov. 1, 2008, as where the bad times began.

Clarkson was 1-1-2 heading into that game and coming off an impressive weekend against Colorado College, where the Golden Knights had earned two ties.

But Carleton rallied from a 3-2 deficit and scored three goals in the final four minutes of the third period to skate away with a 5-3 victory.

After that game Clarkson beat Brown 3-1, but then proceeded to fall into a stretch where it went 0-9-2.

Odds and Ends

It's probably best not to put too much stock in an exhibition game, especially one that starts a season. Last year proves a good example as Clarkson cruised to a 6-1 win over Toronto, but eventually wound up having one of the worst seasons in the program's history. SLU only beat Toronto 2-1 the following day, but wound up reaching the ECAC Hockey semifinals.

Clarkson will probably be wearing its new green jerseys in today's game as Carleton does not have its dark jerseys yet. SLU wore its red jerseys at home last night.

The Clarkson University athletic department suffered a loss yesterday morning when the school's equipment manager, John Bradshaw, died of a heart attack. Bradshaw had been a penalty box official at men's hockey games and also worked in the scoring booth.