Saturday night was an emotional one for Linden Breen.
The University of Maine hockey team's senior co-captain and center scored the winning goal with 1:17 left in a 4-3 victory over UMass at Alfond Arena, advancing UMass to its first NCAA tournament since the 2011-12 season. The right to participate was almost guaranteed. .
I completed my weekend sweep of UMass.
This was his 100th career point, and two of the family members who attended the celebration were his older sisters. His sister, who is nine years older than him, never had the chance to see him play at Alfond Arena.
His freshman year, fans weren't allowed to attend games due to COVID-19, and then his sister gave birth to a son with health issues.
His nephew is now 2 years old.
“It's the first time my sister and brother-in-law have left him together. It means a lot to me that they're here. It's super special. It's emotional,” said her parents and other family members. said Breen, who had several people nearby.
They were introduced during the postgame ceremony and he hugged them on the ice.
“They all mean so much to me. They all deserve to show up there (on the ice) considering how much they've supported me,” Breen said. The Black Bears, to whom the Black Bears belong, finished third in the Hockey East Division with a conference record of 14 wins, 9 losses, and a total of 22 wins, 10 wins, and 2 losses.
Regardless of what happens in the playoffs, Maine will finish with its best overall record since the 2005-06 team finished 28-12-2.
This is the first time the team has finished in the top three in the conference since tying for third place in the 2009-10 season.
The University of Maine will face the top-seeded survivor of Wednesday's qualifying round playoff game in the quarterfinals Saturday at 7 p.m. at Alfond Arena.
Their biggest opponent is arch-rival New Hampshire. Sixth-seeded UNH hosts Massachusetts Lowell on Wednesday, which it defeated by the same score over the weekend, 4-0.
Breen was the heart of this team and it was no surprise that he would score the winning goal.
Despite being small (5-foot-9, 175 pounds) and playing a physical game, he has never missed a game in four seasons. He is relentless, fearless and a player his teammates look up to.
He was the team's leading scorer last season and the year before. He tied for second place as a freshman.
He currently ranks third behind brothers Bradley and Josh Nadeau.
When the coach who scouted him, Red Gendron, suddenly passed away on April 9, 2021, it would be understandable if he decided to transfer. So are current graduate students left wing Ben Poisson, senior right wing Donavan Hall, and senior goalies Victor Ostman and Connor Androwitz.
But they believed in new head coach Ben Barr. They knew he scouted players for his three national championship teams: Union, Providence, and the University of Massachusetts.
And they look to change the culture of a program that has floundered after being one of the nation's elite programs in its heyday, including two NCAA Championships, 11 Frozen Fours and 18 NCAA Tournament appearances. I was willing to do the necessary work. 26 years from 1986-87 to 2011-12.
Over the past two summers, we have had virtually all of our players participate in six weeks of optional on-campus training to build values and create a positive culture among our players.
Breen and the other upperclassmen welcome new players and are very supportive.
To say this team is overachieving would be an understatement.
They were selected 9th out of 11 teams in the coaches' preseason poll.
They currently sit seventh in the pairwise rankings, which mimic the NCAA Tournament selection process.
The six conference tournament winners will earn an automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament along with the 10 at-large teams.
The other nine teams in the current pairwise top 10 have an average of 10.7 National Hockey League draft picks on their rosters. Seven of the schools have at least 11 of them. Boston College and Boston College lead the way with 14 each.
Maine has Bradley Nadeau (first round, Carolina Hurricanes, 30th overall pick).
“There's a lot of heart in our locker room,” Barr said. “What they've done and I hope they continue to do is not because they're better than anyone else. It's because they work so hard.”
The next step for the Black Bears is to win Saturday's quarterfinal game and advance to the Hockey East semifinals for the first time since 2011-12 at Boston's TD Garden.
It won't be easy because whoever we play against will be desperate. Their opponents must win the Hockey East Tournament to qualify for the NCAAs.
The game gives the Black Bears a chance to end a 12-game losing streak in the Hockey East playoffs dating back to the 2014-15 season, when they won Game 2 of a best-of-three series at Vermont State, 4-2. It turns out. March 7, 2015.
The third game was lost 3-2 in overtime.
A trip to TD Garden will give this team a tournament feel similar to what they would experience at an NCAA four-team regional or the Frozen Four.
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