Maine men's hockey deserves a top seeds in the NCAA tournament

Maine David Breazeale celebrates with the trophy after the Black Bears Uconn, 5-2, in the Hockey East-final on Friday in Boston. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald

Orono shortly after 3 p.m. on Sunday, when the hockey team of the University of Main Mens saw who and where it opened the NCAA tournament on Friday, the Black Bears did not shrink. They stayed on their seats for a man. No applause, not even a polite wave hole. The Black Bears regard their upcoming visit to Allentown, Pennsylvania, as a business trip.

Maine (24-7-6), arranged no. 3 in the pairing rankings used by the NCAA to determine and sow the tournament field, earned the best seed in the regional regional of Allentown and will be confronted with number 4 Penn State (20-13-4), the guest team for the region. The playing time is planned on Friday at 8:30 PM and the game will be broadcast on ESPN 2.

Just went to take care of our company. Go there and keep doing what was doing. Trust the process, keep playing Black Bear Hockey, said Harrison Scott, protagonist Maines with 18 goals and 17 assists for 35 points.

The other side of the Allentown bracket has a few teams with which the black bears are known. Uconn, who defeated Maine 5-2 on Friday to win the Hockey East title, will take on Quinnipiac, a team that beat Maine twice in a few goal games in Alfond Arena in October. Maine sends a victory in the Allentown Regional Tournament to the Frozen Four in St. Louis, 10-12 April.

Penn State finished the regular season in fifth place in the Big ten and fell to Ohio State last week in the semi -final of the conference. Coach Ben Barr van Maine said he should study on the Nittany Lions.

Clearly a really good team. I didn't see them play. Actually played a home game for them, so it should be a really good challenge. It should be nice, Barr said.

Penn State is Maine First Big to opponent in almost a decade. On October 9, 2015, the Black Bears skated to a 3-3 season opening against Michigan State in Portlands Cross Arena. Maine played Notre Dame, currently a member of the Big ten, when the Fighting Irish participated in Hockey East.

I don't know much about them. I don't think we have played a Big Ten team since I visited this school. You know, I have friends who are in the Big, and you have conversations, said Lynden Breen, one of the captains of Maines. You know they have a lot of talent. From what I have heard, they have a lot of firepower in front and they are not afraid to make plays. We play many teams in Hockey East that play in the same way.

After having gone for 12 years between NCAA Tournament performances, this Maine is a second consecutive trip to the tournament. The black bears are in the top five in pairs during most of the second half of the season, so the team knew it had locked up a place, even before the automatic offer won with the Hockey East Championship. With that in mind, Barr did not spend much time speculating about where and when his team would play.

Playing a host team that will certainly have a strong next fan does not concern the black bears. Barr pointed to Denvers who ran to the national title last season, who started with a double overtime victory over host Umass in Springfield, Mass.

To be honest, I didn't think about it. I fell asleep early (Saturday) night asleep. This time of year you will just play wherever you are going to play, said Barr. Denver won last year and they had to come to Springfield as the number one overall seed. Go play your game at this time of the year.

Just like Breen, Senior Nolan Renwick, who scored the game-winning goal in double extension to beat Northeastern in the semi-final of Hockey East on Thursday, is not related to a Big Ten team in his career. Renwick said he is enthusiastic about the chance. Last season, in which Maine lost his last two games, first in the semi -final of Hockey East at Boston University, then in the first round of the NCAA tournament to Cornell, was a chance to learn, he said.

Last year we were pretty raw at those moments. You could see it, especially in that (hockey east) semi -final game last year when we lost in the garden, and the first regional competition. We didn't know what we could expect and it didn't go our way, Renwick said. This year, especially our experienced boys, we knew how to deal with the pressure and expectations that come in those moments. Those experiences, especially the latter two games in the garden, those experiences will help us a lot in this first regional game.

Maine is one of the six teams from Hockey East to make the field of 16 teams, the most through every conference in the tournament. Together with the Black Bears and UConn in Allentown, Boston College and Providence, NH Boston College will be confronted with Bentley in the first round, while the brothers will compete against Denver. Umass goes to Fargo, North Dakota, for a first round match against Minnesota. Boston University plays Ohio State in Toledo, Ohio.

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