Just before the opening face-off

Hockey
Joe Meloni

The Massachusetts hockey team improved its neutral site record to 1-2-1 with Friday’s triumph over Clarkson. Today’s foray with Maine will enter the recordbooks as a neutral site game, but the blue and white swarms situated on eitherside of the ice should provide the Black Bears with a distinct advantage.

Maine’s faithful turned out in expectedly enormous numbers and are making theirpresence felt, ditto for the Black Bear marching band.For some reason the UMass marching band doesn’t send a contingent to hockeygames like they do for basketball games. This has led some to Minutemen to question whether or not they have the support of the entire university.

At the press conference following yesterday’s game, senior captain Matt Anderson discussed how much of an advantage Clarkson had with the presence of its marching band here in Rochester.

“Having a loud fan base from Clarkson, it gets pretty loud and we didn’t have our band. We never have a band for that matter,” Anderson said. “What a big plus it is to have a fan base like that and to have a band like that create some noise for you. There’s some momentum swings and I’m almost sure of thefact that in the near future that that’s going to be going on at the Mullins Center.”