New Hampshire coach Mike Souza has had a front-row seat to the rivalry between his school and state-line rival Maine for the better part of three decades, both as a player and a coach.
Going back to the 1999 season as a player, when Maine and UNH were the toast of Hockey East, if not the entire nation, Souza fondly remembers the chase for the conference regular-season title coming down to a weekend series against the Black Bears (UNH won both games by scores of 6-1 and 4-1).
He also remembers the next meeting between the two schools, which came in the NCAA championship in Anaheim, Calif., with Maine winning a 3-2 overtime thriller.
“I would have just as well lost that (regular-season) weekend and won a few weekends later out in California,” Souza said. “But for me, that (season) was a lot of fun.”
Together the iconic programs have combined for seven Hockey East regular-season championships and 10 conference tournament titles. Each team has beaten the other once in the tourney final.
Since then, the programs have fallen on hard times. Each has suffered six losing seasons since 2014, and neither has made the NCAA tournament field in a decade, with UNH’s last appearance coming in 2013 and the Black Bears’ in 2012.
Lest fans of either school become needlessly depressed, however, there have been signs — especially since the calendar turned to 2023 — that the tide is turning at both universities after slow starts to the season.
A pair of losses at Union of ECAC Hockey to close out 2022 left the Wildcats reeling at 4-16-1, and still without a conference win. Since then, UNH is 7-2 with six wins against teams ranked at the time in the USCHO.com poll. The Wildcats (11-18-1, 6-13-1 Hockey East) have won four straight, including a home sweep of No. 14 Connecticut by scores of 4-1 and 3-2 (OT).
The Black Bears (currently 13-13-3, 7-9-2) were also crying the blues on the last day of 2022 with a shootout loss at Colgate (ECAC Hockey). That put Maine at 6-9-2. In 2023, Maine is 7-4-1 and unbeaten in four of its last five, including a weekend sweep at home of Providence, ranked 17th at the time. The Black Bears are coming off a weekend where they beat Boston College 3-1 at Conte Forum then skated to a 1-1 tie at UMass-Lowell before losing a shootout.
The decades-long rivalry between UNH and Maine will add another chapter this Friday and Saturday night as they meet for a pair of games at the Whittemore Center. Both are set for a 7 p.m. puck drop with Friday night’s game airing on NESN.
“When UNH and Maine are good, I think it’s good for our league,” Souza said. “It’s certainly good for college hockey.”
Souza said his team’s precarious position in the standings is his focus, not necessarily the rivalry with Maine.
“I want to make sure our guys are ready to go,” Souza said. “That’s my sole focus.”
The Wildcats and Black Bears are separated by five points in the Hockey East standings and are jockeying for home ice in the rapidly approaching opening round of the conference tournament, a single-elimination affair that begins March 8.
The Black Bears now sit seventh, six points back of Providence with two games in hand, while UNH is ninth, one spot out of home-ice advantage in the first round.
“I think it’s going to be as hard-fought a series as we’ve played all year,” Maine coach Ben Barr said this week in an interview with WZON radio. “(UNH) is very similar to us — the first half of the year, they lost games they probably should have won. (They’re) a good hockey team. They’re playing their best hockey. This is going to be every bit as hard as any game we’ve played on the road this year.”
