WHAT'S ON TAP: The University of North Dakota women's hockey returns to regular-season action hosting Hockey East's Maine Black Bears in a Friday/Saturday series with both games starting at 1:07 p.m. The games are a being held on the Olympic sheet of the Ralph Englestad Arena.
MEDIA INFORMATION: Most Fighting Sioux regular season home hockey games can be heard on 1440 AM ("The Fan") and on stations across the Fighting Sioux Radio Network (excluding Dec. 13 against Minnesota) with broadcaster Darrin Looker calling the action. A webcast and live stats will be available at FightingSioux.com
SCOUTING REPORT: The Black Bears are currently in seventh place in Hockey East with a record of 1-5-2-1 (3-9-2 overall) ... In two games against WCHA opponents this season, Minnesota State won both games against the Black Bears in Orono, Maine, by scores of 5-2 and 2-1 ... Maine played a single game on Tuesday against eighth-ranked Boston University and skated to a 1-1 tie ... The Black Bears split their last series against eighth-ranked Northeastern, losing the first game 5-1 before winning the finale 1-0 ... Brittany Ott made 28 saves in the shutout win and split time in net this season with Candice Currier, combining for a .910 save-percentage and a 2.89 goals against average ... The Black Bears are giving up 2.93 goals per game while scoring 2.29 ... Junior Jennie Gallo leads the team in goals (5-4-9) while senior Jenna Oulette is the squad's points leader (5-8-13).
COACHING STAFF: The Black Bears are led by head coach Dan Lichterman who is in his third season as head coach at Maine. Lichterman led Maine to a record of 5-23-5 in the 2008-09 season and has a career record of 9-38-7 ... Since he took over in 2007-08, five individual program records have fallen ... Prior to coaching at Maine, Lichterman was the assistant coach at Minnesota State.
THE ALL-TIME SERIES: UND is 1-5-0 all-time against the Black Bears, splitting its two games last year. The Sioux opened its regular season campaign against Maine a year ago, getting edged in the opener 3-2, although out shooting the Black Bears 48-18, but rebounded with a 7-3 victory in the finale.
LAST ACTION: UND played an exhibition game on Saturday against the Manitoba Maple Leafs where the Sioux combined for 23 points in the game with 14 of them coming by way of freshman. Holly Perkins (Soldotha, Alaska) led the way with two goals and two assists while Allison Parizek (Minot, N.D.) had two goals and an assist and Ashley Furia (Sedalia, Colo.) and Jessica Harren (Woodbury, Minn.) added two points a piece.
The Fighting Sioux skated to a series split against the Ohio State Buckeyes (Nov. 6-7) at the Ralph Englestad Arena in a series where two contrasting styles met. The Buckeyes came into the series with the second most goals scored but had also given up the most goals against in the league, while the Sioux had not scored a lot of goals or given up many.
The first game got off to a quick start and looked like it would suit the Buckeyes playing style, but eight different Sioux collected points and they edged OSU 5-4. Sara Dagenais, Alyssa Wiebe (2), Kelsey Ketcher and Ashley Furia scored the Sioux goals with Ketcher's being her first collegiate goal and the game-winner.
Defenses showed up in the series finale as neither team would earn 20 shots on goal in the game. The Buckeyes although were better able to take advantage of limited scoring chances as they answered back with a 3-1 win and series split. Ashley Furia scored the lone goal for the Sioux and her second in as many nights.
GAME TIME CHANGE: The University of North Dakota athletics department announced a time change for the November 27-28 women's hockey games versus Maine. The originally scheduled game times of 2:07 p.m. have been moved up to 1:07 p.m. at the Ralph Engelstad Arena. Games are being held in the olympic rink.
