Black Bears Split Season-Opening Series at UNH

The University of Maine men's hockey team left Durham, New Hampshire with a share of the results after the UNH Wildcats won Saturday night's contest 6-2.

A night after the Wildcats couldn't buy a goal, UNH put five shots past Maine goalie Matt Thiessen following the sophomore's heroics in Friday's season-opener.

Jacob Schmidt-Svejstrup opened his scoring campaign with the game's first goal less than five minutes into the contest to give the Black Bears the early lead. After three unanswered UNH goals, Emil Westerland found the back of the net for the first time this season to bring Maine within a goal through two periods of play.

Due to the rule change of Hockey East adopting the shootout format, the Black Bears will actually leave New Hampshire trailing the Wildcats in the conference standings with UNH earning three points from the weekend while Maine bagged a pair.

Next up on the schedule for the Black Bears is a single game at UMass Lowell on Saturday, Dec. 19. That contest, which begins at 6 p.m., will not count toward the Hockey East standings and instead is simply a regular season contest.

Head coach Red Gendron will make his weekly appearance on The Drive this Wednesday (12/16) to recap this weekend's results and preview the upcoming match-up vs. the River Hawks.