ITHACA, N.Y. — The men's hockey team has earned a No. 1 seed for a regional of the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2003, learning on Sunday that it will be the top seed of the Northeast Region and face Boston University in the first round at 1 p.m. Saturday at DCU Center in Worcester, Mass. The game will air live on ESPNews.The rivalry between Cornell and Boston University, which originated in the pre-Hockey East days of ECAC Hockey, has been rekindled in the last decade thanks to the addition of the biennial Red Hot Hockey series at Madison Square Garden in New York. The teams will now meet in the NCAA tournament for the first time since the national championship game in 1972.

The winner of the Cornell-BU game will face the winner of the region's other semifinal, pitting second-seeded Michigan against third-seeded Northeastern at 4 p.m. Saturday. The regional final is slated for 4 p.m. Sunday. For more information on the regional, click here. The winner of that game then earns a berth in the Frozen Four from April 5-7 at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn.



Cornell will be making its 21st all-time appearance in the NCAA tournament and chasing its third national title. The Big Red won the Cleary Cup by finishing atop the ECAC Hockey regular-season standings with a 17-3-2 record in league play before a 4-1 loss to eventual champion Princeton in the semifinals of the league tournament on Friday in Lake Placid.



This is Cornell's second consecutive appearance in the NCAA tournament after it was eliminated by Mass.-Lowell in the first round of the last year's Northeast Region semifinals in Manchester, N.H. The last time the Big Red won an NCAA game was 2012, when it defeated top-seeded Michigan in overtime in Green Bay, Wis. The Big Red last reached the Frozen Four in 2003, and its two national championships came in 1967 and 1970.