I-90 Rivalry



The I-90 Rivalry is a rivalry I made up between Syracuse and RIT who play in the CHA and are separated by New York State's Interstate 90.

Since the two teams play in the same conference, they play two home and two away games each against one another. The Derby winner is decided by the team with the best record with the only tiebreaker being goal differential. In the event of a tie, the team that currently has the title retains it.

Syracuse University
Syracuse University started play as a Division I team in the 2008-2009 season. They had no previous Division III experience and joined the CHA immediately instead of playing a season as an independent.

They have enjoyed a fair amount of success in conference play, but has never won a regular season title and had not won the CHA tournament until the 2018-2019 season. Syracuse had lost six CHA title games previously, four of them to Mercyhurst. The Lakers have eliminated Syracuse from 7 of 10 CHA tournaments.

Rochester Institute of Technology
RIT joined the CHA in the 2012-2013 season after appearing in two straight Division III national championship games and winning the title in 2012. Like Syracuse, they also immediately joined the CHA.

Despite making the jump from Division III, the Tigers had immediate success going 16-16-5 and 20-15-3 overall and finishing 3rd in the conference in both of their first two seasons. They won the 2014 CHA championhip over Mercyhurst becoming just the second team in 13 years to defeat the Lakers in the CHA postseason.

Postseason Meetings
The teams met in the postseason in 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2018 with Syracuse having won 3 of the 4 matchups. Syracuse has been the better seed and thus the team with the last-change each time. The semifinals and finals of the CHA tournament were played at a host school until the 2014-2016 season, after which the entire tournament has been played at Buffalo, New York's HarborCenter. Thus despite being the better seed each time, Syracuse has never played RIT in the posteseason at home.

2013 CHA Semifinals
Second-seeded Syracuse defeated third-seeded RIT 2-1 in overtime.

2015 CHA Championship
Sixth-seeded RIT defeated second-seeded Syracuse 2-1 in double-overtime. This game was notable as it was the first year that the CHA had an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament which was awarded to the conference tournament's winner. Neither RIT nor Syracuse had made the Division I NCAA tournament previously.

2017 CHA Semifinals
Second-seeded Syracuse defeated fifth-seeded RIT 4-0.

2018 CHA Quarterfinals
Third-seeded Syracuse defeats sixth-seeded RIT 5-1.