After Bye Week, #9 UMD Men’s Hockey to Return to Action at Miami of Ohio

UMD is 9th when it comes to the NCAA Percentage Index, which is the formula used to select at-large teams and seed the NCAA tournament.

DULUTH, Minn.- After having last weekend off, the 9th ranked UMD men’s hockey team is back in action this upcoming Friday at Miami of Ohio.

The Bulldogs are still in good shape when it comes to national tournament hopes.

UMD is 9th when it comes to the NCAA Percentage Index, which is the formula used to select at-large teams and seed the NCAA tournament.

Bulldog head coach Scott Sandelin isn’t looking that far ahead though as he and his team are focused on the RedHawks and the RedHawks only.

“They’re an extremely hard team to play against from what I’ve watched. You know, they’ve got some very talented players. I don’t know a lot of their players. I mean, I know that Morozov is a very talented player amongst some other guys. I’ve seen the deputy kid play, and goaltender’s been good. But, you know, again, it’s gonna be certainly a very hard, physical, you know, fight for every inch on the rink type weekend, and, you know, we’ve got to be prepared for that,” said Sandelin.

The Bulldogs will hit the ice with heavy hearts as they continue to mourn the passing of long-time volunteer Dale “Hoagie” Haagenson.

Sandelin said they want to play their best hockey the rest of the way to honor him.

“Play our game, compete, win hockey games for him, you know, keep him in the back of our minds. He fought so hard the last couple weeks. We’ll honor him in a couple different ways too, But, yeah, just hopefully we can, you know, finish the year off the right way, and do some damage in the playoffs. And we can all kind of honor him that way by doing what he certainly would want us to do, is to hopefully get back to the tournament, or potentially the Frozen Four,” added Sandelin.

An earlier start time on Friday as puck drop is at 4:30 PM.