The University of Maine men’s hockey team will receive a valuable barometer this weekend when it plays its home opener in year 50 of the program against perennial NCAA national championship contender Quinnipiac at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Alfond Arena in Orono.
UMaine is 1-1 after splitting a two-game series in Worcester, Massachusetts, against Atlantic Hockey America’s Holy Cross Crusaders, winning 4-1 before losing 3-2 in overtime.
The sixth-ranked Bobcats are coming off a 10-2 thrashing of New Hampshire and a 6-3 win over reigning Hockey East tournament champion Merrimack College.
They were the preseason favorites to win the ECAC title.
Saturday night will be Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center Lafayette Family Care Institute Cancer Awareness Night.
As a special remembrance of Deena Renwick, mother of former UMaine two-time alternate captain Nolan Renwick, who died of cancer in July 2025, the Black Bears will wear Number 24 jerseys, Nolan Renwick’s number, during the pre-game skate.
Those jerseys will be signed by the player who wore them and then put up for auction with all proceeds going to support the Lafayette Champion the Cure Challenge. The bidding will end at 11 p.m. Saturday.
The No. 24 jerseys will also be available at the Bear Necessities Fan Shop.
Nolan Renwick is currently playing for the ECHL’s Maine Mariners.
This will be the fifth consecutive year the Black Bears and Bobcats have met for a two-game nonconference series and the Black Bears hold a 4-3-1 advantage.
Quinnipiac rallied from 3-0 and 4-1 deficits to earn a 4-4 tie and a shootout win thanks to two extra-attacker goals in their first meeting a year ago before Quinnipiac blanked the Black Bears 4-0 in the second game in Hamden, Connecticut.
The previous year in Orono, UMaine earned 2-1 and 6-5 (overtime) victories.
UMaine leads the all-time series 12-10-2 including an 8-5-1 record at Alfond Arena.
Head coach Rand Pecknold’s Bobcats have won the last six ECAC regular season championships and have gone to the NCAA Tournament the last seven campaigns. They won the NCAA title in 2023.
They went 27-10-3 last season with a 5-2 win over Providence in the Sioux Falls Regional followed by a 5-0 loss to North Dakota.
They have returned nine of their top 10 scorers led by right wing Ethan Wyttenbach, who was the Tim Taylor National Rookie of the Year and a first team East All-American. He had 25 goals and 34 assists and his 59 points tied the program record.
He was chosen to the league’s All-Preseason team along with teammate Elliott Groenewold, who was selected the league’s best Defensive Defenseman last season. He was a first team All-ECAC selection with seven goals and 13 assists in 40 games and a plus-39 rating in plus-minus, which was the highest mark by a Quinnipiac defenseman in over 20 years.
Players receive a plus-one if they are on the ice when their team scores an even-strength or shorthanded goal and a minus-one if the opponent scores one.
And Wyttenbach and Groenewold didn’t waste any time putting their footprint on the 2026-27 season with a team-high four points apiece last weekend. Wyttenbach was one of five Bobcats with two goals, and he also had two assists while Groenewold had four assists.
Quinnipiac has five returnees who had at least 34 points a year ago in Wyttenbach, left wing Antonin Verreault (16 goals, 24 assists), centers Markus Vidicek (20 goals, 15 assists) and Chris Pelosi (18 goals, 16 assists) and left wing Mason Marcellus (8 goals, 26 assists).
Matej Marinov and Dylan Silverstein, who combined to start all 40 games, have both left, leaving newcomers Rorke Applebee, a transfer from Lake Superior State, and freshman Christian Kirsch to man the nets and each earned a win last weekend.
UMaine head coach Ben Barr is embracing the challenge.
“They are always one of the best teams in the nation, and this may be one of the best teams they have ever had,” Barr said. “What a great opportunity for us to play a team like this, especially at home. It should be a lot of fun. We’ll see what we have.”
UMaine has 15 newcomers and 12 of them made their UMaine debuts last weekend.
Two of those newcomers, Robert Morris transfer left wing Tanner Klimpke (2 goals, 1 assist) and Bemidji State transfer defenseman Isa Parekh (1 goal, 2 assists) are two of UMaine’s top point-getters, along with sophomore defenseman Lukas Peterson (3 assists).
“It’s going to be a challenge and I’m excited for it,” said Klimpke. “I’m looking forward to seeing what this rink is all about. It will be sweet. I’ve heard there is no other place like it. The energy, everything is unbelievable.”
“We definitely get a lift when we come on the ice here,” said Barr. “This is the best place to play in college hockey.”
He said they are going to have to play a tight-checking game and be disciplined.
“They are extremely skilled and we don’t want to give them tons of power play looks,” said Barr. “When we have the puck, we have to be poised with it and hold onto it. We can’t give them anything free. We have to make good decisions. We can’t panic with the puck.”
“They are definitely a good team and they’re highly-ranked,” said UMaine graduate student left wing and captain Owen Fowler. “But we are going to play our game and we will go into the weekend with some confidence.”
One of the things they need to work on is getting pucks to the net and doing a better job capitalizing on their scoring chances at the net front.
“We need to be dogs around the net,” said Fowler, who added that it doesn’t matter how pucks go into the net as long as they go in.
“If you keep getting pucks to the net, they’re going to go in. You have to trust the process,” he said.