GRAND FORKS — A weekend non-conference sweep is going to linger in the minds of UND hockey fans for quite a while.
For Cornell defenseman Cody Haiskanen, however, the memory will last a lifetime.
Haiskanen and the Big Red finished the first weekend non-conference sweep at Ralph Engelstad Arena since 2006 with a 3-1 win over the Fighting Hawks.
"That's exactly what we're looking for," Haiskanen said. "I'm kind of at a loss for words. There's a lot of emotions. It was a roller-coaster weekend. It was a long trip.
We didn't get the job done at (Arizona State last weekend), so we had to come back and North Dakota was a top team, and it's just super exciting.
"It's best-case scenario getting two wins back here against a team like that. And on top of that, I had a bunch of family and friends in the crowd so that's, you know, just unreal and something I won't ever forget."
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Haiskanen and Cornell found out at breakfast Saturday morning that Big Red head coach Mike Schafer wouldn't be able to coach in the series finale. The official word from Cornell is that he was out with an illness.
Associate head coach Ben Syer was acting head coach for Cornell.
"You know, it was obviously a different dynamic," Haiskanen said. "But our associate coach Ben Syers has had to step in a couple of time while I've been here, and we have full confidence in him and our team, and we just know what we have to do."
One of Haiskanen's biggest impacts Saturday came early in the second period with UND on the power play.
Haiskanen broke his stick with UND in the Cornell zone and had to block two shots with his body to keep a one-goal lead for the Big Red.
"It was a scrum down low and expensive sticks break too easy sometimes," he said. "I felt like I was on an island there and the only thing I could do is really get in the way of the puck, so luckily it hit me a couple of times."
The rare sweep in Grand Forks wasn't lost on the former Fargo Davies standout.
"Someone said it has been maybe three years since they were swept at home, so that's obviously a huge accomplishment," Haiskanen said. "I'm just very proud of our guys, how we fought. We had a couple of guys — our top scorers out — and a couple of young guys had to step up ... guys who hadn't played very many minutes this year, and they did the job. We all did the job and just stuck together."
