The University of Maine’s men’s team isn’t the only Black Bear ice hockey squad that will play a recent national champion this season.
The UMaine women’s team will entertain the 2022-23 national champion, the University of Wisconsin, on Thanksgiving weekend.
Head coach Mark Johnson’s Badgers, national runners-up last season, will take on the Black Bears at 6 p.m. Friday, Nov. 29 and at 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 30 at the Alfond Arena in Orono.
The UMaine men’s team will entertain defending national champion Denver on Jan. 3-4 after hosting 2022-23 titlist Quinnipiac on Oct. 18-19.
Johnson, the leading scorer for the 1980 gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic team who went on to play in 669 regular season games in the NHL, has guided the Badgers to an NCAA-leading seven national titles and 11 championship game appearances in his 21 seasons behind the bench.
Ohio State beat Wisconsin 1-0 in last year’s final, a year after the Badgers had beaten OSU by the same score in the title contest.
The son of Hockey Hall of Fame coach Bob Johnson, Mark is a four-time national coach of the year.
Mark Johnson, who will turn 67 on Sunday, has been inducted into four Halls of Fame including the International Ice Hockey Federation and United States Hockey halls.
As a coach at Wisconsin, he compiled a remarkable winning percentage of 81.8 percent (629-119-53) and he captured NCAA championships in 2006, ’07, ’09, ’11, ’19 and ’21 in addition to ’23.
He is the winningest coach in women’s college hockey history.
Ten of his Badger teams have won at least 31 games including a current 10-season stretch of at least 26 wins in a season, excluding the shortened Covid-19 season in 2020-21 when they went 17-3-1.
He also coached the 2010 U.S. women’s Olympic team to a silver medal.
UMaine head women’s head hockey coach Molly Engstrom played on that team and was chosen the tournament’s best defenseman.
She also played for Johnson at Wisconsin.
The Badgers were chosen the preseason favorite to win the Western Collegiate Hockey Association in the league’s coaches poll.
They return six of their top seven scorers off last year’s 35-6 team including Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award top-three finalists Kirsten Simms and Casey O’Brien and top-10 finalist Caroline Harvey.
Simms was the nation’s leading Division I scorer with 75 points on 33 goals and 42 assists in 39 games; O’Brien tallied 23 goals and 50 assists for 73 points in 41 contests and Harvey, a defenseman, had 5-30-35 in 32 games.
They were all first team All-Americans.
Simms was selected the WCHA’s preseason Player of the Year and was joined by Harvey on the preseason All-WCHA team.
UMaine graduate student defenseman and captain Elise Morphy and senior forward Mira Seregely are looking forward to the series.
“I wish it was tomorrow,” said Morphy. “I can’t wait. I played with some of their girls in high school. I like how they play.”
Seregely said she’s excited about the matchup.
“It’s a great opportunity for us to see what we can do and show people what we can do. But it’s going to be very tough,” she said.
The Black Bears also have another 2023-24 NCAA semifinalist on their schedule as they will travel to Hamilton, New York, to take on ECAC champion Colgate which lost to Wisconsin 3-1 in their semifinal at the Whittemore Center in Durham, N.H.
Colgate went 32-7-1 a year ago including an 8-2 win over UMaine in Pittsburgh.
The Black Bears play an exhibition game at 4 p.m. Sunday at the University of New Hampshire.
