Three teams picked among the top five in the country in Monday’s United States College Hockey Online preseason poll are included on the University of Maine’s television schedule this season.
There will be seven games televised on WVII ABC 7 and WFVX Fox 22 in Bangor, WPME Channel 35 in Portland and on Fox College Sports.
The list of games includes the Oct. 14 game against No. 2 Quinnipiac, the Nov. 5 contest against No. 5 Boston College and the Jan. 21 game against No. 4 Boston University.
The other games will be against New Hampshire on Dec. 3, American International College on Dec. 10, the University of Massachusetts on Jan. 27 and defending Hockey East tournament champion Northeastern University on Feb. 24.
UMaine will also have one game televised on the New England Sports Network, the Feb. 3 game at Providence College.
Northeastern was chosen No. 15 in the USCHO poll, which consists of 50 voters including coaches, beat writers and sports professionals.
All games start at 7:30 p.m. with the exception of the AIC game, which has a 5:30 faceoff.
Quinnipiac was the NCAA runner-up a year ago, losing to North Dakota 5-1. The Bobcats went 32-4-7 including a 4-0 home win and a come-from-behind 3-3 tie in Orono against the Black Bears.
Quinnipiac was picked to win the ECAC championship in both the coaches’ and media preseason polls. Boston College was 28-8-5 in 2015-16 and lost to Quinnipiac 3-2 in the Frozen Four semifinals in Tampa and Boston University went 21-13-5, losing to Denver 7-2 in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
Northeastern, 22-14-5, also went to the NCAA tournament and lost in the first round to North Dakota 6-2.
New Hampshire finished 11-20-6, UMass was 8-24-4 and AIC wound up 7-29-3.
Dan Hannigan will again handle the play-by-play and Mike Tuell returns as the color analyst.
In a news release, WVII/WFVX general manager Mike Palmer said, “Every year I am so very proud to announce the broadcast schedule of games, my heart grows three sizes larger. It’s a very happy time for me, and I couldn’t ask for better partners than our friends at the University of Maine and Learfield.”
Black Bear Sports Properties is a property of Learfield, which manages the multimedia rights for more than 120 colleges.
“WPME is very excited to be the only television station in southern Maine to broadcast the UMaine hockey and football games and we are wishing the Black Bears luck this season,” WPME general manager Jennifer Swain added.
The other games will be the Oct. 15 game against Albany and the Nov. 5 game against Villanova. Both games start at noon.
Hannigan will be the play-by-play man and former Black Bear star, and nine-year National Football League defensive lineman Mike DeVito will be the color analyst.