Another demanding schedule awaits the Clarkson University Women's Hockey team this season as the Golden Knights face some of the top teams in the country in 2015-16.

Winners of back-to-back ECAC Hockey regular season titles and coming off three consecutive appearances in the NCAA Tournament, Clarkson will look to build upon the challenges of the upcoming regular season campaign to make a bid for its second National Championship in three years.

Guided by eighth-year head coach Matt Desrosiers and second-year assistant coaches Meghan Duggan and Britni Smith, the Knights will face a 34-game slate, featuring the 22-game ECAC Hockey schedule. The Green and Gold, who posted their fourth straight season of 20-or-more wins in 2015-16, will play six contests against teams from last year's national playoffs and will battle archrival St. Lawrence University four times.

• 2015-16 Schedule

"I'm really excited about this upcoming season as it includes an always difficult ECAC schedule as well as some challenging games against familiar opponents, but also a couple teams that we haven't seen in a few years," stated Desrosiers. "It will be great to start our season off with an exhibition game against McGill as they always have very competitive teams. It will also give our team, especially our incoming freshmen, a chance to get back into game pace after a long offseason. That game should hopefully help prepare us for an always exciting and fast paced set of games against St. Lawrence the following weekend. Over the next few weekends we conclude the majority of our out-of-conference games against some strong teams that will help prepare us for our very demanding ECAC league games. It should be a very exciting and challenging season for us yet again."

The Knights get an early jump to the season with an exhibition contest against Canadian college foe McGill University on Saturday, September 26 in Potsdam before officially beginning their 13th season of NCAA Division I hockey. Clarkson opens the year facing St. Lawrence in back-to-back non-conference games. The Knights host the Saints on October 2 in the first of 18 regular-season games at Cheel Arena and then take on their North Country neighbor in Canton the following day.

After a mid-week game at CHA foe Syracuse University on October 6, Clarkson will face-off against the University of Vermont of Hockey East in a home-and-home series on October 9-10. The Knights then travel to New England for a weekend set against NCAA powerhouse Boston University on October 16-17 before closing out the season-opening, non-league portion of the schedule with another weekend series against a Hockey East foe when they host the University of New Hampshire on October 23-24.

The ECAC Hockey campaign opens in a big way as Clarkson makes another trip to Boston to battle last year's conference regular-season co-champion Harvard on October 30.

In other non-league games, the Knights will host Syracuse on November 10 and play UConn in a weekend series in Potsdam on November 13-14.

Playoff hockey begins on February 26 with the quarterfinal round of the ECAC Hockey Tournament. The league's championship weekend will be held on 5-6 at the campus site of the highest remaining seed in the eight-team tournament. NCAA postseason play concludes on Sunday, March 20 with the 16th Annual Frozen Four at the Whittemore Center on the campus of the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

Follow Golden Knights Hockey online with live radio broadcasts, video streaming and live stats at Clarkson Hockey Broadcast Central

Cheel Arena Box Office: 315-268-7750