While few would argue that Western Michigan has been a perpetually a tough opponent on any given night, it has been more than a decade since the Broncos have been considered a serious contender in the CCHA. But after starting the season with four straight wins for the first time in 20 years, the icers from Kalamazoo have their eyes set on more significant prizes than the home playoff series victory over Lake Superior that is the team’s legacy from last year.

Veteran goalie Riley Gill is an experienced member of a Western Michigan club that is enjoying early-season success.

Having finally seen the pieces come together during the team’s present winning streak in addition to a 5-2-1 stretch to close out last year’s regular season which helped the Broncos earn a home-ice playoff series, the Broncos have now set their sights on making it through the next round of the playoffs to the bright lights of Joe Louis Arena and the CCHA Championship weekend.

“I don’t think we’re going to settle for anything less than being the best in this league,” sophomore J.J. Crew said. “We think we can make it to (Joe Louis Arena) and we think we can hang with anyone in this league.”

Crew has played a significant role in Western Michigan’s early-season success, leading the team with six points. Teaming up with Max Campbell and Greg Squires on what may well be one of the league’s top scoring lines, Crew opened the season with a hat trick on opening night and a 1-2-3 line in the second game against Mercyhurst before being held scoreless during the trip to Alabama-Huntsville last weekend.

Despite his absence from the scoresheet in Huntsville, Crew was happy with his performance, and is encouraged by the results he and his teammates are seeing from hard work during the summer and preseason workouts.

“I think that we’re on the right track,” Crew said. “Everyone has been working hard since the summer and we have a lot of chemistry on the ice and we’re clicking on all cylinders.”

The chemistry Crew spoke of came is evident in the team’s ability to win in different situations. With two wins coming at home and two on the road, two leading from the onset and two come-from-behind victories and a blowout coming before three one-goal games, Western Michigan has faced an interesting spectrum of game situations that will help acclimate freshmen to the sometimes unpredictable nature of the college game and give veterans like senior goaltender Riley Gill a sense of optimism this year’s team.

Gill, who has compiled a .942 save percentage and 1.67 goals against average in his three wins, has won some big games in the past and knows that the Broncos’ ability to protect their own leads and erase opponents’ advantages will serve the team well as the begin the CCHA slate, starting with a home-and-home series against Michigan State.

“The first weekend against Mercyhurst we put goals up on the board and then we won a couple of tight ones on the road this past weekend,” Gill said. “I think that we’ve proven that we can win both ways.”

After Bemidji State ran the table in the CHA Tournament and the NCAA Midwest Regional on their way to the Frozen Four last season, they lost six seniors who accounted for 38 percent of their scoring and a sophomore goaltender who turned pro early.

Fast forward to 2009-10 and the parts have changed, but the car is still purring.

A home-opening weekend sweep against Air Force was followed by a win and tie at Northern Michigan last week, and has set up the Beavers with a little momentum as they open conference action at also-off-to-a-great-start Alabama-Huntsville.

Goaltender Dan Bakela has been solid in his first collegiate action with freshman Mathieu Dugas not only winning his first game last Saturday, but picking up a shutout in the process.

“It was a great effort,” Bemidji State coach Tom Serratore said to the Bemidji Pioneer about the 5-0 Saturday win. “You look back over the course of the last 10 years since we have been Division I and you think about some of the big wins, and this ranks right up there.”

One night prior, Ben Kinne scored with 10.6 seconds remaining to help the Beavers earn a 3-3 tie.

“This is not an easy place to play,” Serratore said. “It’s tough to get one point out of Marquette let alone three. Our guys played with just a ton of jam. I’m really proud of the way our guys played.”

Over four games this season, Bemidji State has the nation’s best offensive average with 18 goals, 4.5 goals per game.

Matt Read is leading the team in scoring, but freshman Jordan George, Ryan Cramer, Chris McKelvie, Tyler Lehrke and defenseman Brad Hunt are all averaging one point per game.

“Our seniors are carrying the mail,” Serratore said. “We need our experienced players to elevate their games. Hopefully we can continue to score by committee.”

The Beavers took six of seven games last season against the Chargers including a playoff win. The one misstep was a first-game, first-series loss at Rocket Town.

FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG

• The Bemidji State-UAH series this weekend is an unusual Saturday-Sunday affair with a matinee for the finale. The Beavers liked Sundays last season going 2-0-1 with wins over UMass and Cornell.

• Robert Morris hosts Quinnipiac this weekend in their regular season home-opening series. Last year in Quinnipiac, the two teams combined for 22 goals over a two game split. Good news for junior Nathan Longpre, who is still goalless over four games.

• Just like the early going last season, Alabama-Huntsville goaltender Cameron Talbot is among the top ten in Division I in save percentage at .942.

• One tie over four games does not look good on paper, but all three Niagara losses have been one-goal affairs. The first two involved watching early leads go away over the final 20 minutes but last week at Michigan reversed the trend with a pair of goals to close a three-goal gap. “Our third period has been our worst period, that’s the trend we were setting in the first three games,” Burkholder said to the Niagara Gazette. “To come out and play as well as we did in the third, we had some big-time body checks, and we outshot them.”

Blake Kessel has a shooting percentage that might make his brother envious. Heck, it even puts Shaquille O’Neal’s free throw percentage to shame.

Madison, Wis. native Blake Kessel returns to his hometown as the leading scorer for the New Hampshire Wildcats.

Kessel, the New Hampshire sophomore defenseman who is also the younger brother of Toronto Maple Leafs forward Phil Kessel, is off to a blistering pace on the stat sheet. Through four games, he’s tallied three goals, a team-high seven assists and is tied for the Hockey East lead with 10 points. This is after he compiled six goals and seven assists in 37 games as a freshman.

“I think I’m definitely a little more comfortable this year,” Kessel said. “I feel a bigger responsibility, and I feel I’ve got to step up after losing our seniors last year. Those guys were huge to our team. I kind of took it personally this offseason to make sure I got myself better for the team, and I feel like I’ve got to step up along with the rest of our defensive corps because we are kind of young at that spot. I proved that I can do it in the past, and last year wasn’t a bad year but it wasn’t a year I was looking for. This year, I’m hoping to continue on with the early success that I’ve had.”

Kessel’s three goals this season have come on six shots.

“I’d say I have one good shot,” Kessel said. “The other ones were questionable. Obviously, I need to put the puck on net more often. Hopefully, I’ll get more shots and continue to get more goals, but I’ll take them when they come.”

Kessel has a homecoming this weekend when UNH visits Wisconsin for a pair of games that will be mightily important for the Wildcats, who are 0-2-1 in non-conference games this season. They lost to Rensselaer in the season opener before going 0-1-1 in a home series with Miami. After this weekend, UNH’s last two non-conference contests are against Cornell and Dartmouth, so the Wildcats have little room for error against some tough opponents.

Kessel understands teams can slip out of the NCAA tournament picture by not experiencing success out of conference, and he said the team is aware of what is at stake this weekend.

“Obviously, you’ve got to look at the end of the season when those rankings come out,” Kessel said. “We want to play our best, and we feel like we do need to rebound, one way or another. This is one weekend we have to have, especially with us only having two other games besides these next two out of conference. We’ve got to really show the rest of the country who we are, and hopefully we’ll be jumping up the rankings at the end of the season.”

UNH’s early struggles outside of the league were contrasted last weekend with a pair of convincing Hockey East victories against rival Maine and Northeastern. Kessel had a goal and an assist against the Black Bears in Saturday night’s win at the Whittemore Center, and he knows a victory against Tim Whitehead’s crew is always helpful to jumpstart a run for the Wildcats.

“It sets the tone for the season, especially in Hockey East,” Kessel said. “Against a team like that, they’re always going to battle you hard, and that’s why we’ve got the great rivalry between us. But getting that win sets the stage for Hockey East and shows that we’re here to play. That little momentum will get us excited, our fans excited and get things going in the right direction.”

Boston University celebrates the lone goal of last year's Hockey East championship game.

This weekend features the first marquee home-and-home of the Hockey East season, when Boston University and UMass Lowell square off in a two-part rematch of the 2009 league championship game.

BU and Lowell, Hockey East’s top-two teams according to the preseason coaches’ poll, meet Friday at Tsongas Arena before shifting to Agganis Arena on Saturday.

“They’re the team that ended our season last year, and we’re going to want to try to get back at them,” said Lowell junior forward Scott Campbell, who has three goals and two assists this season.” They’re ranked No. 1 in Hockey East, and we want to see how we match up against them going into this weekend. Even though it’s still early, we want to judge to see where we’re at.”

The Terriers claimed last season’s Hockey East championship by a 1-0 margin before they won the national title in Washington D.C. The River Hawks needed to pull off an upset to qualify for the NCAA Tournament, but the defeat left them out of the picture, which was tougher to swallow because they were one of the hottest teams in the country in March.

BU has entered the 2009-10 season knowing it will get every team’s best effort, but that will have a whole new meaning against the revenge-driven River Hawks.

“They’re obviously going to be pumped up,” said BU sophomore defenseman David Warsofsky, who assisted Brandon Yip’s goal in the Hockey East championship. “It’s a big game for them, kind of to get a little revenge on us from last year. The win last weekend we got against Michigan boosted our confidence a little bit, so I think we’ll be ready to match [the River Hawks].

“Once you get on the ice, it’s kind of a regular game. We know we’re going to get everyone’s best game. Yeah, there might be a little more on the line because we knocked them out last year, but in the end, it’s just another game for all of us.”

It wasn’t just last year, though. The Terriers defeated the River Hawks in three games in the first round of the 2008 Hockey East playoffs. While the 2009 championship was predictably competitive, the 2008 series wasn’t expected to be close at all. Part of that series helped Lowell establish some of the grit it displayed all of last season and through the opening weeks of this season. It’s also fueled Lowell’s fire for its games against the Terriers, as the two teams have developed a growing rivalry.

Both teams areimpressed by the other’s passion and talent, and there is a good amount of mutual respect between the sides. Warsofsky and Campbell also remember last year’s league championship very similarly.

“[I remember] just how hard the guys battled,” Campbell said. “BU had our number. They were such a dominant powerhouse all year. But the way the guys battled, we went down 1-0 and we just kept coming. [Our] guys had a no-quit attitude, and hopefully that’s something we can continue to build on going through this year with most of the guys coming back.”

“It was a hard-fought game,” Warsofsky said. “Nothing came easy that game. Lowell’s a great team. They come hard every shift. They have four lines that can really work, and they get solid goaltending. I just remember it wasn’t an easy game, and I don’t think this weekend is going to be any different.”

And don’t think the River Hawks are looking at this weekend as two regular old games. They aren’t hiding from their history with Boston University.

“From the past two years, BU has been the team that has ended our season both years,” Campbell said. “We are starting to get a pretty good rivalry with them. We’re always looking forward to BU games because they’re always up-tempo, they’re always exciting and a lot of fun to play in. I think this weekend will be no different.”

MARC CHEVERIE
Denver
Jr. | G | Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia

His Statistics: 2 GP, 2 shutouts, 60 saves.

His Impact: It was a weekend of historic proportions for the Pioneers and for Cheverie, who whitewashed Minnesota on back-to-back nights—the first time that has happened to the Gophers since 1930—with identical 30-save efforts. In doing so, Cheverie extended his personal shutout streak to 203:19, second in the DU hockey annals behind Peter Mannino’s run of 208:42 without allowing a goal.

Cheverie has three shutouts this season—he also blanked Ohio State on Oct. 15—and seven for his career. Minnesota has been the victim of Cheverie’s perfection on three separate occasions. In addition to the shutouts this past weekend, he was also the goalie of record in a 4-0 win over the Gophers at Magness Arena on Nov. 22, 2008.

Heading into the Pioneers’ weekend series with Minnesota State, Cheverie leads the nation in shutouts, is tied for first in wins with four, ranks second with a .966 save percentage, and is fourth with a 1.00 goals against average.

His Runners-Up: Blake Kessel (New Hampshire); John Kruse (Air Force); Jerry Kuhn (Western Michigan); Chris McKelvie (Bemidji State); Brandon Pirri (Rensselaer); Bill Sweatt (Colorado College)

The INCH Player of the Week is presented by The INCH Shop

This past weekend was fairly enjoyable for hockey fans in Colorado. In addition to Denver’s series sweep at Minnesota, Colorado College took two games from visiting Michigan Tech. The Tigers were paced by senior forward Bill Sweatt, who in the two games piled up 1-6—7. Up the road a spell, Air Force got off the schneid with a pair of wins over RIT at Cadet Ice Arena. Rookie forward John Kruse led the Falcons with 1-5—6 and a plus-minus rating of +4. (As an aside, INCH hopes Kruse has designs on being a fighter pilot, and gets tagged with the nickname “Maverick.” We feel the need for speed.)

Although it hasn’t yet been formally announced, all indications are that next summer’s NHL Entry Draft will be held at Staples Center in Los Angeles, home of the Kings. We know that the North American geographic footprint for the NHL is significantly larger than that of college hockey, but it was nice for college hockey fans and media to consider nearby locales such as Montreal, Ottawa, and Columbus in recent years.

“They outworked us at times but I think we deserved at least one this weekend.”—Minnesota captain Tony Lucia, to Roman Augustovitz of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune following Denver’s second shutout of the weekend at Mariucci Arena Saturday.

When Lucia the younger says “one”, is he referring to a win or a goal?

INCH has stood by without comment for two weeks, but in this, the third week of absurdity, we are compelled to shed our cloak of silence. What, we ask, is up with one renegade pollster consistently going off the board with his/her first-place vote in the national polls?

It started two weeks ago when Boston College garnered a lone no. 1 mention in both the USA Hockey Magazine/USA Today and USCHO.com/CBS College Sports rankings. Last week, another Hockey East school, Vermont, earned a sole no. 1 vote in both polls. This week, Yale got the outlier in the polls.

Don’t get us wrong; we’re certainly open to radical thinking when it comes to voting in the national polls. Perhaps the voter in question can only give his/her top spot to institutions located in one of the 13 original colonies. We’ll know that’s the case should Old Dominion gets a first-place vote. But this pattern is odd, to say the least.

Obviously, we don’t know the identity of this person (or people). We don’t even know if it’s the same person responsible for the lone vote each week. We’d love to hear this particular voter’s rationale, however. One thing we can tell you is that it’s not us. INCH casts a vote in the USA Hockey Magazine/USA Today poll every week. The ballot we submit aligns with the top 15 teams in that week’s INCH Power Rankings.

@ThatKevinSmith: Via @nerdbastards “If Gozer the Gozerian asked you to choose the form of your destructor, what would it be?” Gretzky, circa ‘84 Oilers.

The successful writer/director (”Clerks”, “Chasing Amy”, etc.) is a big hockey fan, a bigger New Jersey Devils fan, and an even bigger Gretzky fan. A prolific Tweeter, Smith will soon start production on “Hit Somebody”, a hockey-themed flick based on the Warren Zevon song of the same name.

One-and-23. Ouch.

Atlantic Hockey has stumbled out of the gate this season, winning just one out of 24 non-league contests over the first two weekends. It certainly leaves a sour taste for a league that would like to make more inroads in terms of visibility and top-talent recruitment.

Remember how Air Force jumped out to a 13-0 start last season? That vaulted the Falcons toward a top-10 ranking and raised the consciousness of the league. This year: 0-4-0.

Rochester Institute of Technology got off to a ho-hum start last season and then turned blazing hot in the second half, again making voters consider the Tigers for top-20 consideration. This year: 0-3-0.

Mercyhurst got off to a horrid start but the Lakers found a solution in goal and started filling up the net on the other end, becoming the second-most prolific scoring team in the nation. This year: neck-and-neck with Air Force at 0-4-0.

Throw in an 0-3-0 for Army and 0-2-0 for Bentley, Connecticut and Holy Cross. Only Canisius (1-3) has managed a victory: a 1-0 shutout of Ferris State securing an opening-weekend split.

Air Force, an NCAA quarterfinal squad last season, traveled to Bemidji State and bowed 3-1 and 7-3 to the Beavers, a Final Four squad. Former CHA partner Alabama-Huntsville visited last weekend and posted a pair of 4-2 victories.

Coach Frank Serratore was not happy but saw some progress in the second UAH meeting.

“In my opinion, the better team won tonight,’’ Serratore said of the Saturday contest. “Last night I thought we shot ourselves in the foot but not tonight. They got the lead and then battled back after losing the lead. They did it without scoring a power-play goal. They did it the old-fashioned way. We took some steps in the right direction this weekend. We scrapped and fought hard. We are a struggling team right now and we just have to go back to work and stick together to get through it.’’

RIT has dropped three close contests. Colgate prevailed 3-2 in an Oct. 10 game played before 7,421 fans at Blue Cross Arena in Rochester. The Tigers headed to the North Country next, falling 3-1 at St. Lawrence (the Saints got an empty net goal) and 5-3 at Clarkson.

The high-flying Tigers – who ranked second in the nation in goals per game last season – have managed just six so far, and the power play has been somewhat anemic at 1-for-13.

“We are doing a lot of good things, but not getting rewarded,’’ RIT coach Wayne Wilson said. “We went into two tough arenas and fired nearly 90 shots in two games. We have come a long way in the last few years. Now we just have to finish our chances and stay positive.’’

Mercyhurst coach Rick Gotkin has always liked the travel miles, it seems. The Lakers headed to Alaska for the second season in a row and came away with a 5-3 loss to Alaska Anchorage and 5-1 setback to Alaska. An eight-game season-opening road trip continued with a lost weekend at Western Michigan as the Broncos prevailed 5-1 and 4-3.

The Lakers flip the compass from west to east the next two weekends with trips to Army and Bentley.

Bentley had a strong showing in a pair of 3-2 losses to No. 20 Northeastern and No. 18 Quinnipiac. Canisius fell to 1-3 with a pair of losses at Lake Superior State, 5-4 and 3-0. The shutout loss snapped a school-record string of 45 consecutive games with a goal.

One good thing about those conference games coming up this weekend: Atlantic Hockey is virtually guaranteed of more than doubling that woeful win total from the first two weeks.

Aaron Volkening's grip on the goaltending position at Air Force seems to have weakened in the first two weeks of the season.

The Iron Horse sits – Air Force senior goalie Andrew Volkening played the entire 2008-09 season. A preseason All-America candidate, Volkening has started all four games this season but has been pulled twice in favor of sophomore Stephen Caple.

Volkening has absorbed all four losses thus far. His goals against is a un-Volkening-like 5.91 and his save percentage is a tick over 80 percent. Heading into the season his career numbers were 2.08 and .914.

Caple, from Rice Lake, Wisc., has looked impressive. He has stopped 16 of 17 shots in 57-plus minutes.

Before this season the last time Volkening had been pulled from a game was Dec. 29, 2007, against Boston College in the Dodge Holiday Classic in Minneapolis, when he gave up three goals in the opening 15-plus minutes. Ian Harper finished the contest.

Volkening played all the minutes over the final 22 games of that season and 41 games last season.

It’s March in October – RIT and Air Force are two solid contenders for the Atlantic Hockey title this season, and the clubs will open league play this weekend in Colorado Springs. The teams are 10-10-2 in 22 career meetings, and Air Force holds a slight 8-7-2 edge since the two schools joined Atlantic Hockey in 2005.

“We get right into conference play with a tough opponent in Air Force, so we must be sharp,’’ said RIT coach Wayne Wilson.

Home cooking – Canisius will play nine of its first 12 and 14 of its first 21 games at home this season. The Golden Griffins open a four-game homestand when Holy Cross visits for afternoon games on Saturday and Sunday. A decided scheduling advantage, though, may be muted somewhat because three-time league champ Air Force visits over Halloween weekend and Mercyhurst pops in for a Nov. 7 game.

The headline of this piece doesn’t refer to the prowess any member of the INCH family has as a deejay, though, if asked, we’re more than happy to dust off our Eric B. and Rakim vinyl and take a turn on the wheels of steel. Instead, it refers to the picks for this week’s most intriguing matchups—a pair of single games pitting CCHA and Hockey East powers against one another and two conference series.

Junior goaltender John Muse allowed four goals on 16 shots in Boston College's season-opening loss at Vermont Sunday.

Boston College at Notre Dame (Friday): Notre Dame has won four of the last five games in this series with the lone loss coming to Boston College in the 2008 Frozen Four championship game in Denver. The Fighting Irish were shaky in series splits with Alabama-Huntsville and Providence, but shut out a listless Boston University team at Agganis Arena Tuesday. Listlessness must be spreading like H1N1 in the Hub of Hockey, because the Eagles looked as much in a season-opening loss at Vermont Sunday.

The most intriguing matchup in this contest pits the Irish forwards, who’ve yet to fire on all cylinders, against a young BC defensive corps that struggled against UVM. Notre Dame defenseman Teddy Ruth, who hasn’t played this season because of a lower body injury, will not dress against the Eagles.

Denver at Minnesota (Friday-Saturday): In this very space last week prior to its series at North Dakota, it was mentioned that Minnesota was a great unknown that could win by six goals or lose by the same margin. Two games into the season, I don’t know that we have any greater handle on the Gophers other than the fact that goaltenders Alex Kangas and Kent Patterson were pretty sharp.

The Pioneers won’t have standout center Joe Colborne in the lineup—he broke a finger in a loss to Ohio State last week. Also, DU coach George Gwozdecky tells Mike Chambers of the Denver Post that he plans to rotate goalies Marc Cheverie and Adam Murray for the third straight series.

Michigan at Boston University (Saturday): Offense shouldn’t be a problem for these teams, but it has thus far. The Terriers, a few days removed from being shut out by Notre Dame, have two goals in two games. The Wolverines, meanwhile, have nine goals in three games. Keep an eye on a pair of talented forwards who’ve yet to get untracked-or is it on track? Because untracked would seem to indicate derailment, and that ain’t good. Semantics aside, Michigan’s Louie Caporusso, who scored 24 goals and 49 points last season, has bagels thus far. BU’s Nick Bonino scored 50 points as a rookie; he, too, is scoreless.

RIT at Air Force (Friday-Saturday): Atlantic Hockey’s preseason favorites enter the weekend with a combined 0-7 record (to be fair, the league’s 10 teams are 1-23-0 thus far.) Air Force, which started last season with 13 straight wins, is 0-4, its longest losing streak in more than two years. Senior goalie Andrew Volkening has been abysmal as evidenced by his 5.91 GAA and .805 save percentage. RIT, meanwhile, has three narrow losses to ECAC Hockey opponents. In those three games the Tigers have fired a combined 119 shots on target, but have scored just six goals. That a shooting percentage of a little better than five percent.

Also: An offensive explosion could be in the works in Oxford—Miami and Michigan State have each played four games and scored a combined 34 goals … Is there a trio of forwards in the country better than Minnesota Duluth’s Justin Fontaine, Jack Connolly, and Mike Connolly? They’ll meet a St. Cloud State team that has yet to click offensively … UMass Lowell readies for a rugged stretch to open its Hockey East slate (Northeastern, Boston University, at Boston University, at Vermont, New Hampshire) with a non-conference match against Colgate at Tsongas Arena … Exhibitions for Ivies Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Princeton this weekend.

"An above-average game" is how Wisconsin goaltender Brett Bennett described his Badger debut, a 3-2 loss to Colorado College last Friday.

Prior to Wisconsin’s season opener, Madison’s famed State Street was jumping with an interesting mix of humanity clad in combinations of red, white, black, and gold. Alumni by the thousands came back to the Isthmus to celebrate the school’s homecoming, where they were greeted by foes in bumblebee colors—Iowa in football and Colorado College on the ice.

And at the Kohl Center, a show that was supposed to be new Badger goalie Brett Bennett’s triumphant return to the college game was stolen by a little-known rookie from the Front Range.

Bennett, a junior from the Buffalo suburbs, won 16 games for Boston University two seasons ago before he was released from the team. After a season in the USHL, Bennett made the sequel version of his college hockey debut at the Kohl Center and was relatively solid throughout with 23 saves.

“It was an above-average game, but I think there’s more to come,” said Bennett. “I think I’m better than that.”

On that Friday, he was not the best goalie on the ice. CC freshman Joe Howe turned aside 39 shots, keeping the Tigers close during the first half of the game when the Badgers appeared poised for a blowout and allowing CC to rally for a 3-2 win.

“Obviously, Joe Howe was our best player,” Tigers coach Scott Owens said, recalling an opening 40 minutes in which the Badgers had a 26-14 edge in shots. “That thing could have been 2-0 or 3-0 after one, and it wasn’t—it was 1-0.”

Howe, from suburban Minneapolis, hadn’t before played at the Kohl Center, but had been clued in by high school friends now going to Wisconsin that he’d face immediate hostility from the arena’s raucous student section.

“We came in and said we can’t let that affect us,” said Howe, who earned WCHA Rookie of the Week honors in helping the Tigers to a road win and a tie. “Teammates did a good job of blocking a lot of shots and letting me see a lot of shots too.”

Oddly, Wisconsin’s new goalie coach might have felt a sense of pride in watching Howe’s performance. Madison native Jeff Sanger, a four-year letterwinner in goal for the Tigers earlier this decade, admitted he was a little shocked after getting the Badger job to learn that his first opponent would be the one he knew best.

“When I first got offered the position and I saw [the schedule], it was one of those ‘oh my God’ feelings,” Sanger said. “It was tough after playing at CC for four years. I told them if I was in Colorado Springs and had an opportunity to coach CC, I would. But I’m in Madison with a chance to coach UW, so it is what it is.”

For decades, the Badgers have generally been known for riding one very good goalie for much of a season, but this will likely be a season of departure in Madison, with another junior, Scott Gudmandson, in the mix for the starting job. Gudmandson started the Saturday match with the Tigers, stopping 31 shots (to 26 for Howe) in a 1-1 overtime tie. The new goalie coach advised Bennett to forget the past and focus on the battle to earn favor with head coach Mike Eaves.

“I don’t know what the history was at BU; I just know that here he’s got to work his butt off,” Sanger said. “He’s competing against Scott Gudmandson, who’s a great goaltender as well, so it’s going to be a battle throughout the year and nobody can feel comfortable. They’re not set on one guy. Somebody’s going to have to take the torch and run with it.”

In Colorado Springs, meanwhile, it appears that Howe’s run with the Tigers’ goaltending torch is well underway.

As hard as it was to believe how far Michigan State sunk into the depths of the CCHA standings last year, it seemed even harder to conceive a bounce back to contender status so quickly after the graduation of goaltender Jeff Lerg, the program’s cornerstone.

But through two weekends of the regular season, the buzz seems to be back around East Lansing and coach Rick Comley’s smiles have returned during his weekly press conferences. The Spartans swept Clarkson convincingly on opening weekend and split a hard-fought series on the road at Maine’s not-so-welcoming Alfond Arena this past weekend.

A key to Michigan State’s speedy recovery has been the play of a freshman class led by forward Derek Grant, who won the CCHA’s first rookie of the week award for this season, and blue liners Zach Josepher and Torey Krug, who have helped fill in some of the large chinks in last year’s Spartan armor. Having opened the season well against Clarkson provided a glimpse of just how potent a class this may be and, better yet, that potential withstood the test of a relentless and hostile crowd in Orono.

“They did great,” Comley said of his freshman class during his weekly meeting with reporters Tuesday. “I think it was a good trip for them, good bonding. It’s always good to get away for three or four days and they handled the atmosphere very well. The atmosphere at Maine is as good or second to none as far as noise in the building. And that crowd, boy, they have a purpose coming into that building.”

As trying of an environment as that can be for freshman who are just finding their college hockey legs, it wasn’t any easier on sophomore netminder Drew Palmisano—the brave soul charged with softening the blow levied by Lerg’s graduation.

Michigan State goaltender Drew Palmisano successfully battled Maine— and team's rabid fans—in Orono last weekend.

“You drive up to the building at five o’clock and there are 1,000 students lined up outside,” Comley said. “They’re there for the warm-up, they taunt your goaltender all through the warm-up. They’re throwing foam pucks on the ice to mix in with the regular pucks so your kids never know what they’re shooting. You know, it’s just non-stop.

“I thought Palmisano did a good job in dealing with that, because for four of the six periods, he’s just surrounded because they have a balcony at that end of the rinks. It’s as good of a college crowd as I’ve been around.”

It may be too early to call the Spartans a threat to revive visions of the impenetrable top four in the CCHA that reigned for several seasons prior to last year, but the development of Grant and his classmates and the (so far) steady Palmisano behind them give Comley hope. Add in the revived Corey Tropp, who has returned from last year’s season-ending suspension with nine points in four games, and Jeff Petry, who may just be better than he was during his dazzling freshman season, and MSU might just have the supporting cast to give opponents headaches.

When asked just how important a win or two in this weekend’s series at top-ranked Miami would be, Comley was confident that it would officially mean his program is back on track.

“I don’t know [about a] program win,” Comley said. “But I think it’s another key step on the road back to being competitive at the level that we want to be at, which I think we’re going to be before it’s all said and done … You know, I’m very much encouraged by this team and where I think it can get to. I like how they play hard, I like the areas of the ice that we can play in, we don’t get outmuscled now, we win faceoffs, we compete and we can score goals.”