Dartmouth men's hockey team will appear twice on the nationally-televised Versus network when it plays at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on Jan. 6 and at Yale University on Feb. 17. Versus, which will become NBC Sports Network on Jan. 2, will air 16 live college hockey games this season, including the Hockey East postseason tournament. "We are excited to be launching our first-ever college hockey package by building a destination on Friday nights on the NBC Sports Network with many of the preeminent brands in the sport," President of Programming for NBC Sports Group Jon Miller said in a statement, according to College Hockey News. The inaugural match of the series will take place on New Year's Eve, when fourth-ranked University of Notre Dame hosts 12th-ranked Boston University. Eleven of the 16 games will take place on Friday nights, and all conferences except Atlantic Hockey will be featured at least once, according to College Hockey News.
Yale University and Princeton University's field hockey teams were both named the Ivy League Champions following weekend wins over Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania, respectively. The title is Yale's first in field hockey since 1980, while Princeton has now won the League title seven years in a row and in 17 of the past 18 years, according to the Princeton athletic department. Yale cruised to its victory over Brown, winning 7-0. The Tiger's match against Penn remained scoreless until three Princeton goals catapulted the team to the win with under 17 minutes left to play. Princeton also earned the League's automatic bid to the NCAA Championships, as it beat the Bulldogs, 3-2, on Sept. 24. Princeton's first match in the national tournament will take place on Nov. 8 against Rider University.
This weekend marked the 71st anniversary of the controversial Fifth Down Game between Dartmouth and Cornell University's football teams. In 1940, Cornell visited Dartmouth while the Big Red was riding an 18-game winning streak. With under a minute left to play and Dartmouth leading 3-0, Cornell drove the ball inside Dartmouth's 10-yard line. After three futile plays, Cornell attempted to score on the fourth down. Cornell quarterback "Pop" Scholl threw an incomplete pass, theoretically giving the ball and game to Dartmouth. After the failed fourth down, however, referee Red Friesell, who had lost count of the downs, gave Cornell an unprecedented fifth down. Cornell's offense scored a touchdown on this extra play and went on to win the game, 7-3. The referees discovered their error following the game, and in an act of sportsmanship, Cornell's athletic department concluded that the team should offer to forfeit the game to Dartmouth, which the Big Green accepted. The game is officially recorded as a 3-0 Dartmouth victory, and is believed to be the only NCAA football game whose outcome was decided off the field.
