STICK SALUTE

You won’t catch any hockey mullets underneath white helmets in Ann Arbor this weekend. The Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks shaved their heads after last weekend’s series against Western Michigan. With charity in mind as always, the Mavericks — including coach Mike Kemp — agreed to shave their heads if fans met their $30,000 goal for the “Leap for the Cure” campaign they’ve been running this season. The drive concluded following Saturday’s game against Western Michigan with a post-game jersey auction, and the team raised more than $43,000 for brain cancer research at the Estabrook Cancer Center in Omaha.

BENCH MINOR

While Bowling Green netminder Nick Eno didn’t get much help from the Falcons’ offense, allowing four goals in a game on just 12 shots against Northern Michigan — even if two of them were scored on a Jared Brown breakaway and a magical dangle by Gregor Hansen — isn’t the kind of performance coach Scott Paluch was looking for in a loss that all but doomed his team to traveling in the first round of the conference tournament. That said, Paluch speaks very highly of Eno as a goaltender, and will likely trust him to redeem himself in the near future.

GREAT WEEKEND GETAWAY
Northern Michigan at Notre Dame (Fri.-Sat.)

It’s a matchup that had the potential for significance before the season started, became almost inconsequential in December, and is now very intriguing. Northern Michigan was picked to be among the league’s elite this season, faltered early on, but has come on very strong as of late. With Notre Dame shorthanded due to injuries (see this week’s notebook for more on that), the Wildcats will be taking a long look at how they match up with the top team in the conference heading into the playoffs, where they played some of their best hockey last year. A win or two by Northern Michigan would all but seal a home playoff series for them, but don’t expect the Irish to let up easily with Miami and Michigan on their tail in the title race.