The Clarkson Golden Knights are composed of 20 teams representing

Clarkson University Clarkson University is a private research university with its main campus in Potsdam, New York. Clarkson has additional graduate programs and research facilities in the New York Capital District. It was established in 1896 and enrolled over 4 ...

in intercollegiate athletics, including men and women's alpine skiing, basketball, cross country, ice hockey, lacrosse, nordic skiing, soccer, and swimming. Men's sports include baseball and golf. Women's sports include softball and volleyball. The Golden Knights compete in the

NCAA Division III NCAA Division III (D-III) is the lowest division of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States. D-III consists of athletic programs at colleges and universities that do not offer athletic scholarships to student- ...

and are members of the

Liberty League The Liberty League is an intercollegiate athletic conference which competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III. Member schools are all located in the state of New York. History It was founded in 1995 as the ...

for all sports except ice hockey, which competes in

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest division of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athlet ...

, as a member of

ECAC Hockey ECAC Hockey is one of the six conferences that compete in NCAA Division I college ice hockey, ice hockey. The conference used to be affiliated with the Eastern College Athletic Conference, a consortium of over 300 colleges in the eastern United ...

History

While Clarkson is an

school, both the men's and women's

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

teams compete in Division I, with both teams playing in the ECAC. The men's team is a traditional power in the ECAC. They have won 6 ECAC Tournament Championships, most recently in

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

. Clarkson's most recent NCAA tournament was as the number three seed in the 2008 NCAA East regional, where they knocked off St. Cloud State 2–1 to advance to the second round. The Golden Knights were then defeated by national number one seed, Michigan, 2–0. The women's team is far younger, beginning play in 2003, than the men's team, although they too have become an ECAC power. The team has appeared in every tournament since entering the ECAC in 2004 and have appeared in three NCAA tournaments, most recently winning the 2018 edition, the third NCAA title won by the school, the third NCAA ice hockey title won by a school in St. Lawrence County, and the third Division I NCAA championship won by a school from the North Country.

Club sports

Other non-varsity clubs include men's and women's ice hockey, men's lacrosse, men's and women's

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

, men's soccer, men's

bowling Bowling is a Throwing sports#Target sports, target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a bowling ball, ball toward Bowling pin, pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). Most references to ''bowling'' are ...

, combined men's and women's

crew A crew is a body or a group of people who work at a common activity, generally in a structured or hierarchy, hierarchical organization. A location in which a crew works is called a crewyard or a workyard. The word has nautical resonances: the ta ...

, and

ultimate frisbee Ultimate frisbee (officially simply called ultimate) is a non-contact team sport played with a disc flung by hand. Ultimate was developed in 1968 by Joel Silver, Buzzy Hellring, and Jonny Hines in Maplewood, New Jersey. Although ultimate rese ...

. Clarkson's combined men's and women's club

racquetball Racquetball is a racquet sport and a team sport played with a hollow rubber ball on an indoor or outdoor court. Joseph Sobek invented the modern sport of racquetball in 1950, adding a stringed racquet to paddleball in order to increase vel ...

team won the Division II title at the USRA National Tournament in 2005. In 2010, the school started a club football team.

Facilities

Cheel Arena opened on October 26, 1991, is the 3,000-seat multi-purpose University's

arena An arena is a large enclosed venue, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theatre, Music, musical performances or Sport, sporting events. It comprises a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for specta ...

. It is named after Helen Snell Cheel, a long-time benefactor of Clarkson University, who provided a major gift towards the project. Cheel Arena is home to the Clarkson Golden Knights men's and women's

hockey ''Hockey'' is a family of List of stick sports, stick sports where two opposing teams use hockey sticks to propel a ball or disk into a goal. There are many types of hockey, and the individual sports vary in rules, numbers of players, apparel, ...

programs, which play at the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

Division I level. Ice is maintained throughout a large portion of the year for campus and community usage ranging from intramural hockey and

broomball Broomball is a both a recreational and organized competitive winter sport, winter and ball sport played on ice or snow. It is played either indoors or outdoors, depending on the climate and location. It is most popularly played in Canada and the ...

, Section X High School Championships, and figure skating. When the ice is removed, the facility is used for Clarkson's graduation and other local events. Cheel Arena typically hosts a concert every April featuring several music and comedy acts, presented by Clarkson Union Board.

Mascot

"The Golden Knight" is the university's hockey

mascot A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, sports team, university society, society, military unit, or brand, brand name. Mascots are als ...

, which can be seen at hockey games waving the Clarkson flag.

References

External links