Coming off of a sweep of Ole Miss this past weekend, the Razorbacks welcome its biggest rival–the University of Alabama–to Springdale for a pair of games this Friday and Saturday. The puck drops at 8:30 pm on Friday night and 4:00 pm on Saturday afternoon. Individual tickets are available at the door beginning one hour before face-off.
Alabama enters the weekend with an overall 5-5-0 record, having notched wins over Georgia Tech, South Florida, and Tulane. For its part, Arkansas enters the series riding a twelve game winning streak and a two year home ice winning streak. This most recent winning streak has seen Arkansas knock off two 12-13 Nationals qualifiers in a row (Ole Miss and Marquette) and outscore its opponents by an overall margin of 82 to 14. The Hogs’ last loss this season came at the hands of the University of Oklahoma (D1) on September 21 and its last home loss was to Grand Valley State on October 14, 2011.
But records mean little when Alabama comes to town. Alabama last visited in February of 2012 when it was undefeated in conference play. For its part that season, Arkansas had one conference loss and thus needed two consecutive wins over the Tide that weekend to win the regular season conference title. Arkansas won two exceptionally close games that season (4-2 and 3-2 wins, respectively) en route to its third consecutive regular season title–a number that has since gone to four.
Alabama exacted revenge last season when, despite Arkansas having defeated Alabama in both regular season meetings, the Tide notched a 4-3 post-season win over the Razorbacks to secure a birth to Nationals. The two teams met a fourth time in the SECHC conference championship, which saw Arkansas secure its third SECHC playoff conference title after dominating the Tide 8-0.
From a historical perspective, Arkansas holds an 11-4-0 lifetime series edge over the Tide and has outscored Alabama 68-32 over those fifteen games.
2008-09
January 17, 2009: Alabama 5, Arkansas 1
January 30, 2009: Alabama 5, Arkansas 2
2009-10
October 30, 2009: Arkansas 10, Alabama 4
October 31, 2009: Arkansas 3, Alabama 0
December 19, 2009: Arkansas 5, Alabama 3
December 20, 2009: Arkansas 7, Alabama 0
February 27, 2010: Arkansas 5, Alabama 1 (SECHC Conference Semi-Final)
2010-11
November 5, 2011: Alabama 1, Arkansas 0
November 6, 2011: Arkansas 6, Alabama 4
2011-12
February 2, 2012: Arkansas 4, Alabama 2
February 3, 2012: Arkansas 3, Alabama 2
2012-13
November 10, 2012: Arkansas 6, Alabama 1
December 2, 2012: Arkansas 5, Alabama 1
February 16, 2013: Alabama 4, Arkansas 3 (South Regional Game 2)
February 24, 2013: Arkansas 8, Alabama 0 (SECHC Conference Championship)
