The women’s hockey team will open the ECAC playoffs at home for the first time ever this weekend, when it hosts the eighth-seeded Colgate Raiders. The Red hold the No. 1 overall seed after its dramatic surge to overtake Clarkson atop the ECAC standings on the last weekend of the season. The Red (15-8-6, 14-2-6 ECAC) is currently 1-0-1 versus the Raiders (12-18-4, 8-10-4 ECAC) on the season thus far.

The best-of-three series opens up this afternoon at 3:30 p.m.; Game 2 will be tomorrow afternoon at 2 p.m., and if necessary, Game 3 will be Sunday at 2 p.m. All three games will be played at Lynah Rink. History in the making: After clinching its first-ever ECAC regular season title, the women’s hockey team will seek to sweep Colgate in what is the team’s first postseason homestand in history. - By: Esther Hoffman

Because the two schools are traveling partners, the Red and Raiders played each other home-and-home back on Jan. 22 and 23. The first game at Colgate was an evenly matched contest that resulted in a 3-3 tie. However the Red poured it on the next night at Lynah, shutting out the Raiders, 6-0. The Red attributed the vastly different results simply to better preparation.

“I think we were just more prepared for the second game against them,” said sophomore forward Chelsea Karpenko, who is third on the team with 24 points. “We weren’t quite as ready as we should have been; it was a good wakeup call for us, and we came out the next night ready to play.”

Something that makes the Raiders unique and unlike any other team in ECAC, is their use of the “torpedo system.” It is a system made famous by the Swedish men’s national team, where instead of the traditional three forwards and two defensemen, there are two torpedoes, two halfbacks and one defenseman.

“Colgate’s not like any other team that we’ve played,” said senior forward Melanie Jue, who is sixth on the Red with 15 points on the season. “We have to be aware [of] the change of play and come out firing on all cylinders.”

Both teams come into the weekend with momentum. The Raiders won their final two games of the regular season to squeak into the playoffs one point ahead of Dartmouth. The Red went 5-0-1 over its last three weekends to overtake Clarkson for the top spot in the ECAC. The momentum has given the Red an extra sense of confidence, but as a team it is downplaying any type of advantage it will provide in the playoffs.

“We’ve been playing well down the stretch, and taking the ECAC title was definitely huge for us,” Karpenko said. “We just want to take all the positives out [of the regular season] and learn from the negatives to get better going forward.”

“It’s definitely good to come into the playoffs riding a good wave,” Jue added. “I think that’s definitely going to help us, but like I said we’re a team that takes it one game at a time and one shift at a time. It’s great that we won our games to close out the season, but in general I don’t think it’s going to make too much of a difference on our team mentality.”