University of Maine men’s hockey coach Red Gendron has a challenging nonconference schedule that includes five teams that won at least 18 games last season.
The school on Wednesday released its schedule, and it includes the season-opening Ice Breaker Tournament at the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland, the Capital City Classic tourney in Trenton, New Jersey, and four consecutive games against archrival New Hampshire spread over 26 days in December.
Maine will play 22 Hockey East games including home-and-home series against UMass Lowell (Nov. 13-15), UNH (Dec. 4-5) and NCAA finalist Boston University (Jan. 22-23, 2016).
Maine hosts two-game series with Vermont (Nov. 20-21), Connecticut (Jan. 15-16, 2016), defending NCAA titlist Providence (Feb. 5-6, 2016) and Merrimack (Feb. 19-20, 2016) and travels for two-game sets at Boston College (Nov. 6-7), Massachusetts (Jan. 29-30, 2016), Notre Dame (Feb. 12-13, 2016) and Northeastern (Feb. 26-27, 2016).
Maine will again play nonconference games against UNH (19-19-2) in Portland (Dec. 29) and in Manchester, New Hampshire (Dec. 30).
All but two of Maine’s potential nonleague opponents won 17 or more games. Only Princeton from the ECAC (4-23-3), which will visit Maine Nov. 27-28, and Hockey East rival UMass (11-23-2), Maine’s opponent in the first round of the Capital City Classic, failed to reach the 17-win plateau.
Maine opens against Big 10 team Michigan State (17-16-2) in the Ice Breaker before facing Frozen Four semifinalist North Dakota (29-10-3) the next night. North Dakota, which has made the NCAA Tournament 13 consecutive years, will be guided by first-year coach Brad Berry, who replaced Dave Hakstol. Hakstol became the head coach of the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers.
Michigan State will feature senior defenseman Travis Walsh, son of the late Black Bears head coach Shawn Walsh.
Yale (18-10-5), which won the NCAA title in 2012-13 with Gendron as an assistant coach under Keith Allain, and Princeton are the other teams in the Capital City Classic.
Colgate, which went 22-12-4 and lost to Harvard 4-2 in the ECAC championship game, will come to Orono for a pair on Jan. 8-9, 2016.
Maine will visit Union College (19-18-2), the 2013-14 NCAA champs, for a pair Oct. 16-17.
Union swept the Black Bears in Orono last season.
The Black Bears will play a home-and-home series with Quinnipiac (23-12-4) from the ECAC with an Oct. 20 date in Hamden, Connecticut, and a Jan. 20 rematch in Orono.
Maine also will play an exhibition game against perennial Canadian national championship contender New Brunswick on Oct. 23 in Orono.
That will be Maine’s only appearance at the Alfond Arena until a Nov. 15 game against UMass Lowell. That will kick off a stretch of six straight games at Alfond Arena.
The Black Bears also have six consecutive home games in January.
“I like our schedule. It’s tough,” said Gendron. “We want to play the best teams we can at the University of Maine. It seems like a pretty strong schedule. It will help us grow.”
Maine opens the season with six road games and four neutral-ice tournament games, and Gendron said that can be advantageous.
“If it’s done properly, it can be very good for team bonding,” said Gendron, who will be in his third season at the helm. “That’s the positive side to playing a lot of road games early.”
He pointed out that former coach Tim Whitehead scheduled the appearance in the Capital City Classic.
“We’re pretty excited about it,” Gendron said.
“The rink is beautiful,” he added.
Maine is coming off a 14-22-3 season and a 10th place finish in Hockey East (8-12-2).