Win renews excitement and expectations at UMaine

ORONO – Now that the University of Maine men’s hockey team knows what it can do, it also knows how difficult it will be to do it again.

“We all need to get a little better. Sometimes the trap is to take your foot off the pedal when you’re doing things the right way and you think things are going to continue that way. Obviously we can’t do that,” Coach Ben Barr said after last practice.

Last season was the best in a dozen years for the Black Bears, who went 23-12-2 and made the NCAA Division I tournament for the first time since 2012. Lost to Cornell 3-1 in the first round. Maine, ranked No. 12 in USCHO.com’s preseason poll, will open the season at home against American International College on Oct. 5.

The Black Bears have improved in each of Barr’s first three seasons at the helm since he was hired following the unexpected death of former coach Red Gendron in the spring of 2021. Maine went 7-22-4 and improved to 15-15 in Barr’s first season. 16-5 the next season. The 23 wins last season were the team’s highest since the 2011-12 season. Barr signed contract extension in January It pays him $425,000 this season with $15,000 annual increases through 2028.

As the team improved, a seat at Alfond Arena became the toughest ticket in the state. According to athletic department officials, there is currently a 900-person waiting list for men’s hockey season tickets; For the first time in 20 years there is a waiting list. Caleb Whittemore, assistant athletic director for ticket sales and operations, said most home games are sold out, but he expects a minimum number of basic tickets to be available for some games.

Growing up in Waterville, Kyle Bishop and his family had season tickets to Maine games in the early 2000s. As Kyle and his older brother Cam became more involved in high school hockey, the Bishops gave up their tickets due to lack of time. Last season, his father, Mattanawcook Academy football coach Brad Bishop, decided to buy a pair of season tickets again. Kyle joins his father in many games throughout the season.

“I would love to see them come back (to the NCAA tournament) again,” said Bishop, who is a physical education teacher at Hall-Dale High School in Farmingdale and also coaches the baseball team. “We love how hard they play the game.”

The Black Bears’ average home attendance in 2022-23 was 3,623; this was approximately 71% of Alfond’s capacity. Last season, as Maine ranked in the top 10 nationally in the weekly poll, average attendance was 4,981, or 97% of Alfond’s capacity.

“Honestly, we have a lot of expectations across the state and across the country. This is something we have earned. We love being the underdog. We know we are not a team loaded with 10-12 draft picks like the teams we face,” said fifth-year senior and co-captain Lynden Breen.

The only player on the roster selected by an NHL team this season is senior forward Taylor Makar, who transferred from UMass this year. A seventh-round pick by the Colorado Avalanche in 2021, he is the younger brother of Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar, who won the 2022 Norris Trophy as the NHL’s top defenseman. Maine’s only pick in the draft last season was: Bradly Nadeau, selected 30th overall by the Carolina Hurricanes In the 2023 draft.

Nadeau was Maine’s leading scorer with 19 goals and 27 assists in 37 games last season and signed with Carolina shortly after the season ended. Barr acknowledged that the Black Bears cannot replace Nadeau’s production with a single player. Nadeau’s older brother, Josh, returns after an 18-goal, 27-assist season. So are Breen (9-21-30), Harrison Scott (15-12-27), Thomas Freel (6-16-22) and defenseman Brandon Chabrier (6-6-16).

Barr also noted that recruiting doors that were closed while the team was struggling have opened for both incoming freshmen and the transfer portal. Graduate student Ross Mitton, who played four seasons at Colgate, transferred to Maine after recording 11 goals and 19 assists last season and led the Raiders in scoring. Barr feels this is his deepest team yet and now it’s just a matter of seeing which players take the step from a good player to a very good player.

“Obviously, we’ve added some players this year who were considering coming here, we probably wouldn’t have been an option for them two or three years ago. That’s nice, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen next year,” Barr said. “We’ve got to continue to get better as a program. “They need to feel like they’re getting better at it and have a chance to win every night. That’s going to be our best recruiter, and obviously this building is a huge recruiting tool for us.”

Ongoing renovations at Alfond Arena can help. Co-captain David Breazeale, a senior defenseman, said the new locker rooms, weight room and video room will be nice when completed, but the Black Bears aren’t interested in players just looking for the flashiest facilities.

“It definitely makes a difference. “Having a winning record and the excitement in Orono, the renovations and everything plays a part,” Breazeale said. “The nice thing about our program is that we have guys who come here for the right reasons, not for the fancy stuff. “We want players who come here because they want to be part of the culture here, not because they want to have the most beautiful locker room in the country.”

One of the focuses this season is to bring the same energy on the road that the team had last season at Alfond Arena, where the Black Bears went 13-2-2. Including neutral-site games and a home game at Cross Insurance Arena in Portland, Maine went 9-10 against Alfond last season. Barr said last season’s road trip, which ended with a loss to Boston University in the Hockey East semifinals and then to Cornell in the NCAA tournament, hasn’t been forgotten.

“This one sticks with you because you lost the last one. We couldn’t make enough plays, we couldn’t make enough saves. Now our goal and our job as a program is to make sure we learn from these experiences. We lost the home play-off game the year before and we learned from that. “You want to move these forward quickly,” he said.

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