A few teams that won or shared their conference’s frequent period title and gained NCAA Match berths — including the event champions — emphasize the checklist of non-convention opponents on the College of Maine’s men’s ice hockey routine this coming time.
There will be 11 non-convention games to go with 24 Hockey East contests.
The non-convention game titles offer a mixture of 3 teams that ended up amid the top 20 in the Pairwise Rankings prior to the NCAA Event, a position program that mimics the course of action utilized by the NCAA Tournament to select its at-significant groups.
Four other groups were rated 31 or underneath among the the 59 Division I groups.
It is a difficult timetable, UMaine head coach Ben Barr said. UMaine completed 7-22-4 in the course of Barr’s to start with period and was tied for 51st in the Pairwise Rankings. UMaine finished last in Hockey East with a 5-17-2 history.
“Every video game is heading to be tough,” Barr reported. “We will have 15 new men. It will consider a whilst for them to mix in.”
The a few groups that gained or shared typical time championships are the University of Denver — which gained the NCAA Division I title right after sharing the Nationwide Collegiate Hockey Meeting normal year championship with North Dakota — ECAC winner Quinnipiac College (Connecticut) and Atlantic Hockey Affiliation champ American Global Faculty (Massachusetts).
Denver, Quinnipiac and AIC had been rated fourth, eighth and 20th between 59 Division I faculties in the Pairwise Rankings, although New York faculties Colgate and Canisius were being 31st and 39th, respectively, and the United States Air Power Academy and Bentley (Massachusetts) ended up tied for 43rd.
A further opponent, Alaska-Anchorage, just resurrected its system after a two-calendar year hiatus.
UMaine will open in opposition to Air Drive in Colorado Springs in the annual Ice Breaker Tournament on Oct. 7 right before traveling to Denver to just take on the Pioneers the future night time.
Denver concluded its year with a 31-9-1 report and conquer UMass Lowell (3-2), Minnesota-Duluth (2-1), Michigan (3-2) and Minnesota State (5-1) in the NCAA Event to get paid the school’s ninth countrywide championship.
The Ice Breaker Match games are exempt, indicating they do not depend toward the 34 regular time online games Division I groups are permitted to engage in.
Barr claimed the Ice Breaker Event will provide him and his staff members with an “interesting measuring stick” to see in which his crew stands.
UMaine will host Quinnipiac on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 22-23.
Quinnpiac wound up 32-7-3 and conquer St. Cloud Point out 5-4 in its to start with NCAA tourney recreation just before dropping to Michigan in the quarterfinals 7-4.
The Quinnipiac series will be intriguing since the Black Bears were being thumped by the Bobcats 7- in an exhibition recreation very last year.
“We will see how much we have appear in a yr,” Barr said.
UMaine will perform single game titles towards AIC and its fellow AHA associates Canisius (16-16-3 final year) and Bentley (14-20-2).
UMaine will pay a visit to Bentley on Saturday, Oct. 15, and will host AIC on Saturday, Nov. 26, and Canisius on Saturday, Dec. 10.
AIC concluded at 22-13-3 and Michigan ousted AIC 5-3 in its very first spherical sport.
The Black Bears also have a pair of two-recreation non-conference sequence.
They will vacation to perform ECAC crew Colgate University on Dec. 30-31 and will experience Alaska-Anchorage at home on Jan. 6-7.
Colgate was 18-18-4 last season and misplaced to Quinnipiac in the ECAC semifinals.
Alaska-Anchorage, which is now a Division I independent, was 4-25-7 through the 2019-20 season when it was in the Western Collegiate Hockey Affiliation.
Barr expects Hockey East to be “strong again” and stated there was a lot of parity a 12 months back with a number of excellent groups even even though all three NCAA Event teams — Northeastern, UMass and UMass Lowell — misplaced their to start with-round video games.
UMaine will host Northeastern University on Oct. 28-29 for its to start with Hockey East collection.
UMaine will participate in UMass Lowell, Merrimack, Boston Faculty and Boston College three instances every single and the other 6 Hockey East educational facilities two times.
UMaine is also scheduled to play an exhibition match against the viewing College of Prince Edward Island on Oct. 1.
The league will have two new coaches as Boston Higher education grad Greg Brown returns to lead the Eagles just after replacing retired Hall of Fame mentor Jerry York and Jay Pandolfo will return to Boston College, his alma mater, following Albie O’Connell received fired.
The one-elimination Hockey East Match begins March 8.