UMass hosts New Hampshire at the Mullins Center on Friday before heading to Boston College on Sunday afternoon.
UMass will host New Hampshire on Friday before heading to Boston College on SundayAMHERST — November is a big month for University of Massachusetts hockey coach John Micheletto. For the sixth year in a row, he’ll grow a mustache in support of “Movember,” a movement to promote research for and awareness of prostate cancer. Most of his players will join him.
Perhaps mustache solidarity will change UMass’ luck.
As the calendar flips forward, UMass is 1-3 overall and 0-3 in Hockey East after twice watching multi-goal leads evaporate at home against ranked opponents. Most recently a 2-0 second-period lead against Boston University became a 3-2 loss this past Saturday.
“It was a 20-minute lapse that cost us again,” senior forward Kevin Czepiel said. “In this league, you can’t give up for five minutes and relax or someone is going to kill you.”
It’s a league, as Czepiel pointed out, in which points come at a serious premium. The difference between sixth place and ninth place was two points last year. Second and fifth were separated by four points.
While no game this early in the season is a “must win,” as UMass prepares for No. 9 New Hampshire and a rematch with No. 1 Boston College, pressure to get on the board is mounting.
“Obviously when you don’t have points, you feel the pressure, and everything starts to weigh on you a little bit more,” Czepiel said. “We’re trying to keep that swag. Championship teams don’t let one game faze them, they don’t let two games faze them.“
To get in the win column, Micheletto knows his team has to directly address the lost leads against Boston College and Boston University.
“I always view it as the pink elephant in the room thing,” Micheletto said. “The two games were different ... both valuable things to address and look at. The first one was more of a physical thing and the second was more of a mental thing.”
Czepiel said simply that UMass must continue to push once it gets a lead.
“(We) maybe try to defend the lead instead of just stepping on the gas and stepping on their throat,” Czepiel said. “It’s not so much that our minds wander; I think it’s just making sure that we stay with the plan from start to finish no matter what the game situation.”
While the Minutemen have stumbled early, the traditionally slow-starting Wildcats have raced out to a 4-0-1 overall record, scoring four goals in each game save for a scoreless tie Saturday against Northeastern.
“UNH has been hot; they obviously feel like they have something to prove because they’ve not typically been a great team getting out of the gate,” Micheletto said. “They’ve really focused on their early season this year, and it’s proven to pay dividends. They’re playing with a lot of confidence.”
UMass will get a day off Saturday before a Sunday matinee at its own personal house of horrors: Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, where the Minutemen have lost 12 straight dating back to Nov. 17, 2007. In addition, the current group of UMass seniors has watched all of its three seasons end there in the Hockey East playoffs.
All of that on top of what happened on Oct. 12, when UMass turned a 3-0 lead into a 5-4 overtime loss to Boston College at the Mullins Center, offers a mountain to climb at the end of the weekend.
But even if it’s Everest, the Minutemen are trying to stay focused on the task at hand.
“The reality is that we’re preparing for UNH,” Micheletto said. “We’re preparing for one game at this point, and then come Saturday morning, we’ll start preparing for BC.”
Friday’s game against New Hampshire begins at 7 p.m. at the Mullins Center.