The University of Maine’s hockey team will play seven of its 10 non-conference games at the Alfond Arena in Orono this coming season.
Headlining the list of non-conference games will be a two-game home series against perennial NCAA championship contender Quinnipiac on Oct. 9-10.
Quinnipiac went 27-10-3 this past season and reached the NCAA Tournament quarterfinal where it lost to North Dakota 5-0. The Bobcats won the national title in 2023 and have qualified for the tournament the past six seasons.
They won the ECAC regular season title in each of those six seasons but got upset by Clarkson in their best-of-three ECAC tourney quarterfinal series in March, two games to none.
Quinnipiac earned a come-from-behind 4-4 overtime tie, erasing a pair of three-goal deficits, and a 4-0 win over UMaine this past season in Connecticut.
The Black Bears will also entertain another ECAC team, Colgate, on Oct. 23-24; National Collegiate Hockey Conference team Miami University of Ohio on Jan. 1-2; and Atlantic Hockey America team Army for a single game on Dec. 19.
UMaine and Colgate split 3-2 decisions in Orono this past season with UMaine’s win coming in overtime.
Colgate went 13-20-4 in 2025-26, Miami posted an 18-16-2 record and Army went 12-17-6.
UMaine will play its only two road non-conference games at Holy Cross to open the season on Oct. 2-3.
The Black Bears swept the Crusaders in Orono last October, 5-2 and 6-0.
Holy Cross is coming off an 18-16-2 campaign.
The other non-conference game that has yet to be announced will see the Black Bears take on Cornell at Madison Square Garden in New York City in November.
ECAC power Cornell was 22-11-1 and lost to eventual national champ Denver 5-0 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
UMaine is coming off a disappointing 18-14-3 season after making back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances the previous two campaigns for the first time since 2006 and ’07.
The Black Bears’ 24-game Hockey East schedule will include two-game home series against UMass (Nov. 6-7), Boston College (Nov. 20-21), Providence (Jan. 8-9), UMass Lowell (Jan. 22-23) and Northeastern (Feb. 26-27), and single games against Boston University (Feb. 5) and Vermont (March 5).
They will play road series at Boston University (Oct. 30-31), Vermont (Nov. 13-14), New Hampshire (Dec. 4-5), UConn (Jan. 15-16) and Merrimack (Feb. 12-13) and single games at UMass Lowell (Dec. 11) and Providence (Jan. 30).
UMaine head coach Ben Barr likes his schedule,
“We have a lot of home games. We only have three away non-conference games and the rest of them are at home,” Barr said. “We’re being pretty financially responsible.”