After a shortened COVID season of 2020-21, the University of Maine men’s ice hockey team is set to officially begin their regular season when they travel to Nebraska and Baxter Arena to battle the #17 Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks Friday and Saturday night.
Nebraska-Omaha, out of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference, is already 1-1 on the season after a home split with Lake Superior State in non-league play last weekend. Maine played one tuneup exhibition game against Quinnipiac last Saturday in Exeter, New Hampshire and were thumped 7-0. The Black Bears who are now under the direction of new head coach Ben Barr, and helped the University of Massachusetts win their first national championship last spring as an associate head coach, will try to turn things around as Maine struggled to a 3-11-2 overall mark last season (3-10-2 Hockey East) which ended with an opening round HE playoff loss to UNH by a score of 7-2 in Orono. Barr was hired in May to take over after the sudden passing of Red Gendron back on April 9. Ben Guite was the interim man in charge until Barr came along, and Guite left and ended up in Portland to lead the Maine Mariners of the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL).
Some of the scoring punch up front that the Black Bears are returning include forwards Tristan Poissant, Ben Poisson, Jacob Schmidt-Svestrup, AJ Drobot, Adam Dawe, Lynden Breen, Brad Morrissey, Emil Westerlund, Donovan Villeneuve-Ho, John Mulera, Edward Lindelow, and fifth year grad student Jack Quinlivan. Dawe led all skaters with 14 points (five goals, nine assists) in the 16 games last season. The blue line also sees returning defensemen Jakub Sirota, Simon Butala, Dawson Bruneski, Kabore Dunn, Perry Winfree, Adrien Bisson, and Cam Spicer. Sirota was second on the team in points with 10 in his junior campaign (one goal, 10 assists). The newcomers include transfer forwards both from Quinnipiac in senior Grant Herbert and junior Matthew Fawcett. Keenan Suthers (fifth year student) also joins the team from Saint Lawrence University. Incoming freshman forward Trevor Renwick is also expected to find some time up front. The defense core included in the group are grad student Dominic Dockery coming over from Merrimack, and freshmen Tim Gould and David Breazeale. Sophomore Victor Ostman from Sweden is expected to start in goal. As a freshman he started 11 of the 16 contests and had a 3-6-2 record with a 3.77 goals against average and a .902 save percentage. Junior Matthew Thiessen will be the backup netminder. Thiessen went 0-5-0 last season with a 4.23 GAA and an .878 save percentage. Sophomore Connor Androlewicz who didn’t appear in a game in his freshman season with be the third string.
Barr is assisted on his staff by assistant coaches Alfie Michaud, Jason Fortier, and another former Black Bear Daniel Perez. Michaud also still serves as the goalie coach as well. Maine has a week off after their opening weekend trip to Nebraska, and returns to Alfond Arena to play in front of fans for the first time since March 2020 when they host Sacred Heart on October 22-23. Hockey East play opens the following weekend with a trip to Boston to face the Northeastern Huskies.
