Robert Barker/University Photography

University Librarian Anne Kenney, co-chair of the Cornell United Way campaign, cheers on the Big Red with library staff.

Robert Barker/University Photography

Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick '09, center, meets with co-captains Alyssa Gagliardi and Jessica Campbell as Vice President KyuJung Whang, Cornell United Way campaign co-chair, and James Brown, UWTC president, look on.

With two goals in the first four minutes of the first period, women’s hockey energized the more than 900 staff, faculty, students and community members who turned out for the season opener against Northeastern, Oct. 19, to support the Big Red and the 2013-14 Cornell United Way campaign.

A friend of the United Way of Tompkins County (UWTC) challenged the community with a $1 match for each person attending, and Cornell United Way Campaign ambassadors and volunteers held a raffle, with prizes compliments of Campus-to-Campus Executive Coach Service, Cornell Dining, Cornell Orchards, The Cornell Store, the Department of Athletics and Physical Education, and the Women’s Hockey team. A total of $1,927 was raised.

Before the starting lineup announcements, Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick ’09 came onto the ice with Vice President KyuJung Whang, Cornell United Way campaign co-chair; James Brown, UWTC president; and women’s hockey co-captains Alyssa Gagliardi and Jessica Campbell. Myrick praised the women’s hockey program, coached by Doug Derraugh and assisted by Dani Bilodeau, for its “standards of national athletic and academic excellence,” its establishment of “long and enduring roots with community organizations and those they serve” and its annual United Way fundraisers that have generated “thousands of dollars for local programs, and friends and neighbors from all walks of life.”

Myrick proclaimed Oct. 19 Cornell Women’s Hockey Team Day in the city of Ithaca.

Cornell won the game, 6-2.