A rivalry between two of the smallest schools in D1 hockey is also one of the fiercest.
They say you never forget your first. St. Lawrence certainly hasn’t forgotten who they played their first-ever varsity game against, since it’s still their biggest rival: Clarkson.
Like many college rivalries, this one stems from proximity. Nicknamed the “Route 11 Rivalry” because of both teams’ location on US Route 11 in upstate New York, the rivalry stretches back to 1926, when Clarkson defeated St. Lawrence in the Saints’ first-ever game as a varsity program. This year, the teams marked 100 years of the rivalry. The atmosphere is enhanced by the fact that this is the only sport that either school competes in at the D1 level.
The Golden Knights were the better team early in the rivalry — it took St. Lawrence until after the World War 2 shutdown of both teams to win their first game against Clarkson — and that trend has mostly continued. The Golden Knights are one of the premier small school teams in college hockey, reaching the NCAA tournament 22 times and the Frozen Four seven times. Despite reaching the final three times, Clarkson has lost all three games, each time by multiple goals.
St. Lawrence’s postseason heartbreak looks similar, if less illustrious. The Saints have made the NCAA championship game just twice, getting blown out by Denver, 12-2, in 1961, and falling in devastating fashion in overtime to Lake Superior State in 1988, 4-3.
Against each other, Clarkson is by far the more dominant team, leading the series 136-78-12. The home and away splits indicate what a factor home ice advantage is in this series, though. St. Lawrence has won 24 more Route 11 battles at home at Appleton Arena than it has on the road. But every Route 11 Rivalry edition, whether played at Appleton or Cheel Arena, is a chippy battle that’s bound to include some barn-burner moments.
Both fan sections are highly vocal, though that has diminished somewhat since COVID. In the mid 90s, Saints fans used to shout that every Clarkson player was headed to the box “for being an a--hole.” Saints fans also delight in reminding their rival school that they suck whenever the final minute of a period is announced.
Perhaps the peak of the rivalry was in 1999, when the two teams met in the ECAC championship final. It wasn’t the first time the teams had met there, but it might have been the most dramatic. First, Clarkson only reached the final on a red-line slapshot from Willie Mitchell with 2.7 seconds left to defeat Princeton. Then, St. Lawrence had a 2-1 lead in the final before Erik Cole tied it and Ben Maidment won it in the third period. Clarkson swept both the regular season and tournament championship in the ECAC that year, but was blown out, 7-2, by Maine in the regional quarterfinal of the NCAA tournament.
Maybe the only thing both teams can agree on is that Mark Morris sucks. Morris was a coach at Clarkson from 1988-2002, and while the Golden Knights experienced plenty of success under him, Clarkson fired him after he got into an altercation with a player at practice. St. Lawrence hired Morris years later in 2016, but fired him in 2019 after an investigation revealed he had violated NCAA rules about practice time limits. There were also allegations of abusive conduct, though those were not included in the report on his firing.
Today, both St. Lawrence and Clarkson have experienced a downturn. The Golden Knights finished in the middle of the NCAA in NPI at 34th, while St. Lawrence has taken a dramatic turn for the worse, finishing 61st of 63 teams. The new era of college hockey has not been kind to either. But the tickets for the January edition of the Route 11 Rivalry still sold out in 34 minutes. The rivalry is still thriving.