Looking ahead: Yale schedule for next season

Yale hasn't finalized its seven non-league games for next season, but there will be a few changes on tap.

First, the Rivalry on Ice game at Madison Square Garden has been put on hold. Yale is still interested in playing Harvard at the Garden in a third regular season game, just not annually. The Bulldogs would like to hold the event every other season or perhaps every third season.

Also gone is the post-Christmas exhibition game with the Russian Red Stars, who won't be making a U.S. tour this year for the first time in six years.

Yale will once again open with Princeton, a non-league game, as part of the tournament formerly known as the Liberty Hockey Invitational. But that event has a new sponsor and a new location. Trenton's Sun National Bank Center, with its hockey capacity of 7,605. The first two installments of the tournament had been at Newark's Prudential Center, home of the New Jersey Devils.

Here's the non-league schedule to date:

Exhibition with the University of New Brunswick at Ingalls Rink, date to be determined between Oct. 23-25.
Oct. 30: vs. Princeton at Trenton, N.J.
Oct. 31: vs. Maine or Vermont at Trenton, N.J.
Nov. 28: at Providence
Dec. 11: Boston University
Jan. 5: at UMass

Yale is also close to finalizing a two-year, four-game deal with Arizona State that would include a two-game set in Tempe, Ariz. on Jan. 8-9 and two games in New Haven in 2016-17. The contract is expected to be completed by next week.

Arizona State, one of the nation's best club teams, will begin its elevation to Division I status in the fall by playing a mix of club and Division I competition. By 2016-17, the Sun Devils will play as a D-I independent, expected to join a conference by the following season.

Yale had planned on participating in a tournament in Las Vegas that also included Arizona State. Organizers were forced to postpone the event, leaving the Bulldogs with two open dates, kick-starting talks with Arizona State.

The Bulldogs are also working on filling the void left by the Russians with a second exhibition (classified as a scrimmage, per NCAA rules.)