After a weekend sweep of Yale and Brown at Appleton Arena, the No. 20 St. Lawrence men's hockey team hit the road on Sunday morning with a final destination of Belfast, Northern Ireland to compete in the second annual Friendship Four tournament. Other teams in the tournament this year include ECAC Hockey rival No. 4 Quinnipiac and Hockey East foes Vermont and the University of Massachusetts (UMass).

The squads will square off at The SSE Arena, home of the Belfast Giants, a professional team that competes within the Elite Ice Hockey League. The arena also hosted the inaugural Friendship Four Tournament in 2015, a four-game set that featured the ECAC's Brown University and Colgate University and Hockey East's UMass Lowell River Hawks and Northeastern Huskies.

The team's will play a traditional tournament format, with the Saints facing Quinnipiac in a neutral site conference game on Friday evening and UMass and UVM also playing a conference game in the opening game Friday afternoon. The winners of both contests will compete for the Belpot Trophy on Saturday, Nov. 26 at 7:30 p.m. (2:30 p.m. Eastern).

WEEKEND GAME SCHEDULE...
Friday, Nov. 25 at 4 p.m. (11 a.m. Eastern) – UMass vs. Vermont
Friday, Nov. 25 at 7:30 p.m. (2:30 p.m. Eastern) – St. Lawrence vs. Quinnipiac
Saturday, Nov. 26 at 4 p.m. (11 a.m. Eastern) – Consolation game
Saturday, Nov. 26 at 7:30 p.m. (2:30 p.m. Eastern) – Championship game

TV SCHEDULE...
For the second consecutive year, the American Sports Network will produce all four Friendship Four games. Full details of the tournament can be found at FriendshipFour.com.

Click on link below to find your local station:
Quinnipiac vs. St. Lawrence
Vermont vs. UMass
Friendship Four Consolation Game
Friendship Four Championship Game

Games will be available on NESN for cable subscribers that have the sports channel. Follow this link to check your local listings.

TSN will broadcast the games in Canada, and can be found locally on SportsNet New York.

ABOUT THE NO. 20 SAINTS…
The Saints are 8-4-2 overall and 5-0-1 entering the Friendship Four, including a 2-0 shutout win over Quinnipiac earlier this month. The shutout gave junior netminder Kyle Hayton the program record for career shutouts with 10.

Gavin Bayreuther is leading the team in scoring with 16 points on five goals and 11 assists, while Mike Marnell's four-goal night in a win against Brown on Saturday moved him into second on the team with 15 points (7g, 8a).

Hayton is the Saints leading goaltender again this season with an 8-3-2 record, .927 save percentage and 2.30 goals against average.

Joe Sullivan, Michael Ederer and Nolan Gluchowski have been key components of the St. Lawrence offense through the last four games, as both Sullivan and Ederer have recorded at least one point in each of those contests. Gluchowski has six points in the past four, including three assists on Saturday.

The Saints snapped a lengthy power-play goal slide against Brown on Saturday, notching four of their seven goals with the man advantage. Marnell also tallied the fifth shorthanded goal of the year for St. Lawrence, nearly doubling their total from all of last season (3) just 14 games in.

ABOUT THE NO. 4 BOBCATS…
Quinnipiac is coming off a weekend sweep of their own in ECAC Hockey contests with a 3-1 win over Cornell and 7-3 win against Colgate. The Bobcats are 9-3-1 overall and 5-1-0 in conference games, with their one loss coming to the Saints in Appleton Arena earlier this month.

Tim Clifton leads Quinnipiac in scoring with nine goals and 5 assists for 14 points, while Brogan Rafferty is right behind him with two goals and 11 assists for 13 points so far this season. Rafferty had three assists in the Bobcats' win over the Raiders on Saturday.

Chris Truehl is the primary netminder for Quinnipiac thus far, with a 7-2-1 record, 9.18 save percentage and 2.28 goals against average in 10 games played.

ABOUT THE CATAMOUNTS…
Vermont is 7-3-2 this season with a 3-2-1 mark in Hockey East. The Catamounts are coming off a 1-0-1 weekend in a series with Maine, winning Friday's contest 6-2 before skating to a 2-2 tie. The team is unbeaten through their last four games, with their last loss coming to UMass Lowell on Nov. 5.

Rob Darrar and Ross Colton are tied for the team lead in points with 8 apiece. Darrar has five goals and three assists, while Colton has four goals and four assists so far this season.

Stefanos Lekkas is the team's leading goaltender with a 6-1-2 record, .933 save percentage and 1.77 goals against average in nine games played.

ABOUT THE MINUTEMEN…
UMass, coached by former Saints head coach Greg Carvel, enter the tournament with a 3-6-1 overall record and 1-4-1 mark against Hockey East opponents. The Minutemen are coming off a 6-2 loss to the University of New Hampshire last Friday night. Their lone win in conference play came against Merrimack, 3-1 on Nov. 11.

Austin Plevy leads UMass with three goals and four assists for seven points, while Dominic Trento also has seven points for the Minutemen with a team-high seven assists. All but four skaters have recorded at least on point so far this season.

Ryan Wischow and Nic Renyard have split time in goal for UMass this season. Wischow is 2-2-1 with a .909 save percentage and 2.51 goals against average in six games played, while Renyard is 1-4-0 in five appearances with a .888 save percentage and 4.20 goals against average.

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THE SAINTS OFF THE ICE…
In addition to the tournament itself, the Saints will be spending the week experiencing Belfast with activities such as a Black Cab Tour, a trip to the Titanic museum and Thanksgiving dinner with family and St. Lawrence alumni at Winterfell Castle from the hit HBO series Games of Thrones.

Look for blog posts on saintsathletics.com from Saints' captain Alexander Dahl, assistant coach Matt Deschamps, St. Lawrence athletic director Bob Durocher, longtime radio play-by-play announcer Greg Lapinski, St. Lawrence alumna and friend of the program Carol Hill '79 and more throughout the week.

THE INAUGURAL TOURNAMENT (2015)
Last season's first Friendship Four featured Brown and Colgate from ECAC Hockey and UMass Lowell and Northeastern out of Hockey East, with UMass Lowell claiming the Belpot Trophy.

The Riverhawks beat Northeastern 3-2 in overtime in the first game to advance to the tournament championship to face Brown. They played the Bears to a 5-5 tie in the title game and went on to win 1-0 in a shootout.

Last year's iteration of the tournament was an international success, seen on television in North America and Europe, and attended by over 20,000 spectators. The event, part of Boston and Belfast's sister cities project, marked the first time that NCAA college hockey was played outside of North America.