Denver’s men’s ice hockey team defeated Cornell 5-0 on March 27 in the Loveland Regional semifinals of the 2026 NCAA Division I Men’s Hockey Championship, ending the Big Red’s season. The game was played before a crowd of 4,217 at Blue Arena.
The match saw Denver freshman goaltender Johnny Hicks stop all 24 shots he faced. Hicks has been Denver’s starter since January after Quentin Miller suffered an injury and has led his team to a 13-0-1 record with a goals-against average of 1.06 and a .960 save percentage during that stretch.
Cornell struggled offensively, unable to score for the first time in their last 56 games. Three of Denver’s four goals against Cornell’s freshman goaltender Alexis Cournoyer came from deflections, while another resulted from a turnover near their own net. Cournoyer finished with 25 saves.
“We might have peaked maybe a month too early. I’m not sure if we hit a wall a little bit with our youth, but I’m proud of our guys and the season we had,” said Casey Jones ’90, Jay R. Bloom ’77 Head Coach of Cornell Men’s Ice Hockey. “Our captains had a hard job bringing those guys together, and they’ll settle in and realize what they did and what they accomplished this year.” Junior forward and captain Ryan Walsh also commented: “I don’t think tonight’s game was indicative of how we are as a team or how the season went… Really proud of this group.”
This matchup marked the fifteenth meeting between Denver and Cornell, with Denver now leading the series nine wins to six overall and four wins to three in NCAA Tournament play.
The loss represents Cornell’s largest margin of defeat in an NCAA Tournament game since falling by five goals to UMass Lowell in Manchester in 2017.
