announcement by the school<\/a>, they will be eligible to play again on Friday, Nov. 12.<\/p>\nGames of the Week<\/h4>\n
You’ll need coffee to follow these this weekend, unless you happen to live in Fairbanks. If you’re listening online, split time between Bruce Cech and Harry Harrington, not just out of fairness but for the sheer fun of it.<\/p>\n
No. 15 Nebraska-Omaha (5-1-0, 3-1-0 CCHA) at Alaska-Fairbanks (2-2-0, 1-1-0 CCHA)
\nFriday and Saturday, 7:05 AT, Carlson Center, Fairbanks, Alaska<\/b><\/p>\n
Who’s the dummy who picked the Mavericks to finish last in the CCHA this season? Um, that would be me, and UNO head coach Mike Kemp — a man with a good sense of humor and a low grudge capacity — is delighted in proving me wrong.<\/p>\n
“We make it a full-time job,” he told me this week. When I pointed out that I picked the Mavericks to split with the Spartans, but called the respective wins and losses on the wrong nights, he laughed some more. “It’s our mission to make you wrong.”<\/p>\n
He must know my ex. He must know all my exes. And maybe he’s a Yankee fan.<\/p>\n
How are the Mavericks erasing the memory of last season’s dismal last-place finish? “It’s kind of a combination,” says Kemp. “We have some real balanced performances from a lot of different people. Maybe there’s just a little more maturity than we had a year ago. Guys are handling situations much differently.”<\/p>\n
What kind of situations? Nothing controversial. “The pressure of the game, handling adversity, things that — incidents already this year like the Merrimack game for example, when we were up in the third and they tied in the first few minutes of the third. A year ago would have folded. This time [the UNO players] stuck to their guns and came back. Same thing with Western Michigan. Guys just knuckled down and played one-on-one hockey.”<\/p>\n
Same thing last weekend, against the Spartans. Down three goals after the first period in their 5-2 loss, the Mavericks made a game of it by scoring the next two goals in the game. In their 5-2 win, the Mavs didn’t panic when — up 4-0 late in the third — the Spartans scored two goals less than a minute apart.<\/p>\n
Kemp called the weekend in East Lansing “gratifying in the sense that in the first night [MSU] came out a very determined hockey team after their trip to Northern Michigan and most of Friday night they put us on our heels.<\/p>\n
“But with a young hockey team … the following night we took the play back and took the play to Michigan State. While we got spanked around the first night, we came back the second.”<\/p>\n
UNO’s success this season is due in part to youthful enthusiasm and the guys that Kemp says he hates to call grizzled veterans, sophomores who earned their stripes “kicking around the bottom of the league” last year, as well as leadership from upperclassmen.<\/p>\n
Those returning players “have come through the school of hard knocks,” says Kemp.<\/p>\n
And, of course, there’s Scott Parse.<\/p>\n
“It’s nice to have some people who surround Scott and complement him. Bill Thomas plays very well with Scott,” says Kemp. “The line of Scero, Marshall, Phillips has been very successful. Chris Holt has been pretty steady. We’re seeing that hoped-for maturity in him.”<\/p>\n
The sophomore Parse (3-8–11) and his linemate Thomas (4-5–9), a freshman, lead the Mavericks in scoring. Bryan Marshall, Brandon Phillips, and David Scero are freshmen as well.<\/p>\n
This week, the Mavericks travel to a place where they’ve never had success to face another young team, the UAF Nanooks. First-year head coach Tavis MacMillan says his rookie class is adjusting well to life in the CCHA.<\/p>\n
“We’re carrying 11 freshmen on our team right now, and for the most part nine are playing every night — nine or 10 for sure. They’re doing really well and what’s enabled them to adjust is that they’re very smart hockey players.”<\/p>\n
UAF has the oldest freshman class in the league, with an average age of 20.4. That’s by design, not accident; with their remote location, the Nanooks can’t compete for recruits with the Michigans and Michigan States of the world, and with the number of seniors they graduated, the Nanooks needed more seasoned players right away.<\/p>\n
“Kyle Greentree, Adam Powell, Ryan McLeod — these are guys who put up good numbers in juniors,” says MacMillan. Not surprisingly, they’re among the Nanooks leaders’ this season.<\/p>\n
“Troy Newton, Aaron Lee, Ryan Muspratt, these are such smart hockey players that it doesn’t matter what team we’re playing, I’m very comfortable with them on the ice.”<\/p>\n
Like Kemp, MacMillan thinks of his sophomores as old campaigners. “Greentree, Emmerson, Burnett — I refer to them as the older line.” Even though Greentree is a rookie, the line is older; Greentree was born in 1983 and Jordan Emmerson and Lucas Burnett in 1982 — two 22-year-old sophomores and a 21-year-old “rookie.”<\/p>\n
The Nanooks are 2-2-0 in D-I play, all games on the road. Last weekend, UAF beat British Columbia twice at home in exhibitions, but MacMillan was not happy with Saturday’s 5-3 decision.<\/p>\n
“We played okay, but they came in with a game plan and they knew we were faster and had more skill. We allowed them to stay in that game because we forced the play.”<\/p>\n
Conversely, MacMillan said he was pleased with the way the Nanooks played in 5-2 loss to Alaska-Anchorage the week before.<\/p>\n
“We played really well that night but we just couldn’t beat Lawson,” he says — that’s UAA freshman goaltender Nathan Lawson. “I thought we played pretty well that night. You go into Anchorage’s rink and outshoot them 38-20, you’re doing something right.”<\/p>\n
MacMillan said the win in Lawson Arena against WMU two weeks ago was huge for the Nanooks “especially with such a young team.”<\/p>\n
“I remember going into Western as an assistant coach and a player. There was the energy with which they play and their student section. I thought our energy was great at Western and that’s what helped us. In the past, even in games that we won, I would say they outplayed us. <\/p>\n
“Going into Anchorage is the same way. There’s such a huge buzz behind that series. We don’t have to create it; the state creates it. We don’t have to tell the freshmen how important that series is. Everybody knows it before they come in. It’s the two biggest teams in the state, and to go in there and play so well was great.<\/p>\n
“Our biggest concern as a coaching staff this season is our performance, and our performance has been great. We’ll add up the wins and losses at the end of the season.”<\/p>\n
Here’s a by-the-numbers look at the series. The stats are overall.<\/p>\n
\n- Goals per game: UNO 4.33 (second); UAF 4.40 (first)<\/li>\n
- Goals allowed per game: UNO 2.83 (tie fourth); UAF 2.60 (third)<\/li>\n
- Power play: UNO 20.5% (tie fourth); UAF 20.6% (second)<\/li>\n
- Penalty kill: UNO 77.5% (12th); UAF 92.3% (first)<\/li>\n
- Top scorer: UNO Scott Parse (3-8–11); UAF Kelly Czuy (2-5–7)<\/li>\n
- Top ‘tender: UNO Chris Holt (2.82 GAA, .899 SV%); UAF Wylie Rogers (0.00 GAA, 1.000 SV%)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Keith Bartusch (3.71 GAA, .857 SV%) has played three games to Rogers’ one; Roger shut out UAA 6-0 in his only appearance for UAF this season.<\/p>\n
The Nanooks are 8-0-4 against the Mavericks all-time at home. “Everybody wants to make a big deal about our home record against UNO, but I don’t,” says MacMillan. “They’ve got a very skilled team and their coming in here with some confidence. It’s going to be another war. It’s going to be another battle. It’s a clich\u00e9, but every weekend is just another challenge within your league.”<\/p>\n
“Obviously, we’re going someplace where we haven’t had success,” says Kemp. “It’s something we’re concerned with. Certainly UAF is a different team than they were a year ago with the number of people they graduated. With Aaron Voros going pro, they are a different club. He was a force and guys on that team really responded to him.”<\/p>\n
Picks:<\/b> Okay, so not being able to see this series in person is another good reason for disliking my Ohio residency this week. Both teams are young, both are fast — but UAF is faster, given the training on the Olympic sheet. Although UAF skates more rookies, the Nanooks are actually older and slightly more experienced. History tells me to pick a sweep, but — as Kemp says — there has to be a first time for everything. Oh, and Maverick Nation, make note of the word spanked<\/i> in this column. It was Kemp’s, not mine. UAF 5-4, UNO 5-4<\/b> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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