Until last year, the University of Maine men’s hockey program hadn’t had the opportunity to play in front of a large tournament crowd at a neutral venue since the 2011-12 season. Then they reached the Hockey East semifinals at the TD Garden and the NCAA Springfield Regional a year ago.
They lost to Boston University 4-1 in the Hockey East semi and to Cornell 3-1 in the first round of the Springfield Regional.
But they gained some valuable experience in that kind of atmosphere, and it showed last week.
On Thursday, the Black Bears outlasted Northeastern 4-3 in double overtime in their Hockey East semifinal. And on Friday, they beat UConn 5-2 in the championship game at the TD Garden in Boston to claim their first Hockey East tournament championship since 2004.
They are hoping that experience will be beneficial in the NCAA Tournament’s Allentown Regional on Friday night when the top seeded Black Bears, 24-7-6, take on No. 4 seed Penn State, 20-13-4, at 8:30 at the PPL Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
UMaine senior center and alternate captain Nolan Renwick said it has been “extremely valuable” playing in those four games at neutral sites the past two years.
“Playing in those games, especially at the Garden in front of 17,000 fans, helps you get comfortable in those high-pressure situations where everything is on the line,” said Renwick. “You have to be able to stay calm and stay composed in those situations.”
UMaine graduate student center and co-captain Lynden Breen said gaining that experience is “good from a leadership perspective” for the older guys on the team.
“We have a group this year with so many guys who want to be big-time players and be in big-time moments and I don’t think we were quite there last year,” Breen said.
He thought the team may have been “a little shell-shocked” the previous year.
“This year and last weekend showed we have a lot of guys who want to be those big-time players and that’s going to help us,” added Breen.
Senior center and alternate captain Harrison Scott — who scored the goal against Cornell and had a game-high eight shots on goal, four more than anyone else on either team — said they are building more off last week’s games.
“It’s a different group and we’re relying on our culture and how deep we are as a team,” said Scott. “We have three lines, four lines buzzing and I don’t think a lot of teams can say they have that, especially scoring-wise. We’re excited.”
Ten players who played in the Cornell game also played in the UConn championship contest last Friday.
“We now know what to expect this year and, hopefully, we will come out on top,” said sophomore right winger Josh Nadeau.
