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The University of Maine and University of New Hampshire men’s hockey teams know each other quite well. The teams have played four games against each other this year, all of them quite even.
But none of those match-ups are as big as Thursday’s.
The Black Bears (25-10-7) will take on the Wildcats (30-6-3) in the Frozen Four’s first semifinal at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn. The winner gains the right to play the Michigan Wolverines (28-10-5) or the Minnesota Golden Gophers (30-8-4) in Saturday’s national championship.
“There won’t be any secrets between us,” UMaine interim head coach Tim Whitehead said. “We’ve got our hands full with the match-up. We have a ton of respect for UNH.”
“It’s like Timmy says, there won’t be any secrets,” UNH head coach Dick Umile said in a teleconference on March 26. “Our guys know each other inside and out. It’s going to be a great hockey game to be a part of.”
Two UNH seniors, Darren Haydar and David Busch, were on the ice in Anaheim, Calif., for the 1999 National Championship game, which UMaine won in overtime, 3-2. Haydar, Busch and the whole team will be looking to exact some retribution on UMaine.
“Those two bring a lot of experience to our team,” Umile said. “They have great leadership abilities.”
But UMaine has significant reasons of its own to play and win, with leaders of its own.
“This has been a tough year to be a senior,” Whitehead said, “but our guys have handled it beautifully. Having Peter [Metcalf] around has been a huge help to me in some of those quiet moments.”
What may decide who wins is special teams. UNH has one of the most effective power plays in the country, converting on a Hockey East leading 30.1 percent of its chances. UMaine’s 24.9 percent conversion rate was second in the conference.
“When teams are so evenly matched, special teams become crucial,” Umile said. “We haven’t done anything different than we did last year, but our guys are more experienced and they work well together. But Maine’s good, too, and it’s given us problems before.”
Whitehead said UNH’s power play isn’t easy to defend.
“They have so many weapons that when you focus on one, someone else will hurt you,” he said. “But we have two hot goalies and our defense is very experienced. We can defend against their power play.”
In the previous four meetings, UNH won both games played away from Alfond Arena. The Wildcats beat UMaine 4-1 on December 1, in New Hampshire and 3-1 in the Hockey East Championship game on March 16 in Boston.
UMaine got its lone win, 6-3, against the Wildcats on February 1 at Alfond Arena. The teams tied, 2-2, the next night.
Whitehead was still undecided on his goalie when the team left for St. Paul Tuesday. UNH is likely to go with sophomore Michael Ayers. Ayers has been rotating on a game-by-game basis with senior Matt Carney. Carney played in the East Regional quarterfinal game against Cornell on March 24.
Ayers, the Hockey East goalie of the month for March, is 1-0-1 against the Black Bears this season. He made 31 saves in the Hockey East championship game. He was also in net for the 6-3 loss, but only gave up three goals before Mick Mounsey’s skate blade tore a tendon in his right wrist. Despite the pain, Ayers played the next night in a splint. He came back early from surgery with a week left in the regular season. Ayers went 3-0-0 with a 1.93 goals against average in March and is 4-0-1 with a 1.54 goals against average and .948 save percentage since coming back.
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