TROY, N.Y. - The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) men's hockey team will play 36 games during the 2016-17 season, including 17 at the Houston Field House. Among those are contests against Ohio State, UMass-Lowell and national runner-up Quinnipiac.

In total, Rensselaer plays at least one team from five of the six conferences and 10 games against teams that played in the 2016 NCAA Tournament, including a trip to national champion North Dakota.

RPI's first game is on Sunday, October 2, when it hosts McGill University of Montreal, Que., in an exhibition game at the Field House (4pm). The regular season opener is five days later, October 7, at Maine. After finishing the two-game series the following day, the Engineers travel to Grand Forks, N.D., to face North Dakota for a single game on October 15.

Rensselaer returns to Troy for its home opening weekend when it hosts Atlantic Hockey foes Niagara (Oct. 21) and RIT (Oct. 22). The Engineers then kick-off ECAC Hockey play at home against area-rival Union (Oct. 28) on Black Friday. The home-and-home series with the Dutchmen concludes the following day (Oct. 29) in Schenectady.

A string of 10 consecutive games in the Capital Region continues with a six-game homestand, beginning with Brown (Nov. 4) and Yale (No. 5). North Country-rivals Clarkson (Nov. 11) and St. Lawrence (Nov. 12) come to town next, followed by a two-game, non-league series with Ohio State (Nov. 18-19).

RPI then embarks on an eight-game road trip, starting at New Hampshire on a Tuesday (Nov. 22). Following a trip to Arizona State for two non-league contests (Nov. 25-26), the Engineers play all five of their December games away from the Houston Field House. ECAC Hockey games at Quinnipiac (Dec. 2) and Princeton (Dec. 3) are followed by a trip to Yale (Dec. 9) and Brown (Dec. 10). Rensselaer closes out the calendar year at Harvard (Dec. 30).

January opens with a home game against UMass-Lowell (Jan. 3), followed by a non-conference match-up with Clarkson at historic Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid, N.Y. (Jan. 7). RPI is then home to Harvard (Jan. 13) and Dartmouth (Jan. 14), before taking part in the fifth Mayor's Cup Game at the Times Union Center (Jan. 19).

RPI, which is coached by Seth Appert, alternates away and home weekends from that point on with six of the final 10 games being on the road. Among the four home games are is one against Cornell on Saturday, February 4, and the 40th Annual Big Red Freakout! and Senior Night on February 18 against Quinnipiac.

The ECAC Hockey Playoffs begin on March 3 and run through March 18 with the championship game in Lake Placid.