Safe to say, it’s been a minute since we’ve had a season with this much anticipation before games are played.
Veteran coach Scott Sandelin is every bit of that, in his 27th season. He knows the pressures that can fall on teams with high expectations. More often than not, his squads have been able to play through all of that and achieve some really significant things.
But it isn’t easy.
“I just don’t want our guys to expect that things are going to happen,” he said this week. “We got to go work for things to happen. That’s going to be the whole year.”
It starts here, with sixth-year Division I independent Long Island University. The Sharks, under second-year coach Brendan Riley, won 14 games last year and return much of their core after a lot of turnover the previous year.
(As Riley noted in our conversation, which is linked below if you missed it, a lot of that turnover last year came because of American International’s decision to move down from Division I after 2024-25. It left a lot of players in the transfer portal, and LIU was able to secure a few older players after hiring Riley, who had been AIC’s director of operations.)
This LIU team has ten sophomores and seven freshmen. They’re mostly older players, especially given the new five-in-five eligibility rules that are bound to make this sport younger overall.
UMD has 19 players back from last season. In this portal world, it’s almost unheard-of continuity. We finally get to start learning what the ceiling is for this team.
If you’re attending this game, make sure you’re in your seats in plenty of time. There’s a pregame ceremony — and I don’t believe it will be a long one — to unveil Max Plante’s Hobey Baker banner, which will sit by UMD’s national championship banners for now.
Also, if you’re heading to the pregame tailgate, I’ll be out there with associate coach Adam Krause for a pregame chat around 5:50pm.
Lines?
Lines.
UMD forwards
Plante (Victor) – Plante (Zam) – Plante (Max)
Hall – Shaugabay – Anderson
Bentz – Arnott – Kohanski
Bibby – Platter – Bechen
UMD defense
Hanson – Kleber
Cleveland – Siepmann
Pionk – Murphy
McInnis
UMD goalies
Dahlmeir – Axelsson – Sheffield
Long Island forwards
Jennersjo – Dyke – Rousseau
Bydal – Perdion – Kinch
Leighton – Lucarelli – Lambert
Cosman – Nelson – Calafiore
Andrew
Long Island defense
Benoit – Matheson
Lemiux – Powell
Classon – Valk
Long Island goalies
Duris – Renaud – Callaway
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