Michigan State University Athletics
Icers Play Green-White Exhibition Sunday
10/2/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Ice Hockey
Oct. 2, 2010
East Lansing, Mich. - Michigan State kicks off the 2010-11 season with an intra-squad exhibition contest on Sunday at 4 p.m. at Munn Ice Arena. Admission is $4.00 for adults, $2.00 for MSU students, and children under five are free.
• Sunday's "game" will be played as two 25-minute periods. At the conclusion of those two periods, each team member will take a turn with a shootout attempt.
• MSU's first external competiton will come on Friday night, when the team hosts the Mustangs of Western Ontario. Gametime is 7 p.m.
• The Spartans will not play their first official game until Thursday, Oct. 14. MSU will welcome Hockey East entry Maine to Munn Ice Arena for a two-game set. Maine is led by 2010 Hobey finalist and Detroit Red Wings prospect Gustav Nyquist.
• Sophomore blueliner Torey Krug has been named the 44th captain of Spartan Hockey by a pre-season vote of varsity team members. Krug is the first solo sophomore captain, and the first second-year player since Don McSween to wear a C on his sweater. Krug was a member of the CCHA All-Rookie team a season ago, and shared MSU Rookie of the Year honors with classmate Derek Grant. Krug's alternate captains are senior Dustin Gazley and junior Trevor Nill.
• The 2010-11 CCHA Pre-Season poll was announced on Wednesday, Sept. 29, and Michigan State was picked fourth by the conference coaches and third by the league's media.
• For the third time in four years, the coaches and media disagree over who should own the No. 1 position in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association's annual preseason polls. The conference's 11 head coaches ranked defending playoff champion Michigan first, while 75 media members named defending regular-season champion Miami as the preseason favorite.
• The Spartans return 19 players from a 19-13-5 team a season ago, including Second Team All-CCHA selection Drew Palmisano.
• Rick Comley is beginning his 38th season behind the bench of a college hockey program. He starts his ninth season at MSU. With 768 victories, Comley ranks among the top five coaches all-time in wins and top three among active coaches. • Michigan State finished the 2009-10 CCHA season in second place. MSU's improvement of eight spots in the league standings from the previous season tied the all-time best jump from one year to another in conference history (Ferris State was ninth in the 2002-03 season, then captured the league title a season later.) Michigan State finished in a tie for 10th in 2008-09, but was the 11th seed in the playoffs due to losing the tiebreaker.
• A year ago, Michigan State was picked eighth and ninth in the pre-season polls by the media and coaches, respectively. Michigan State was the CCHA team in 2009-10 which finished the most spots ahead of its preseason projection.
• 17 letterwinners return to the Spartan roster this fall. MSU is quite "middle-classes" heavy - the roster features just two seniors and five freshmen on a roster of 26 student-athletes. The Spartans lost four players to graduation and three would-be seniors to professional hockey in the off-season.
• The Spartans have six home games in the month of October, and play eight of their first 10 games at Munn Ice Arena. MSU has just one home game in December, three in January, and four in February.
• A sellout crowd of more than 110,000 fans are expected at the Dec. 11 "Big Chill at the Big House" in Ann Arbor. This will be the second outdoor hockey game played between MSU and archrival UM, both with world-record-setting attendance.
• MSU Hockey's Shoot for a Cure initiative will begin its fourth hockey season in 2010-11. Started in January 2008 by former Spartan skater Justin Abdelkader, Shoot for a Cure helps raise money for the fight against children's cancer. Through silent auctions, Chuck-a-Puck at home games, a summer Skate with the Pros event and other fundraising activities throughout the last three years, Shoot for a Cure has raised more than $33,000 for children's cancer charities. Money has gone to Sparrow Hospital and to Brandon's Defense Foundation. On Sept. 16, Abdelkader and Drew Miller were on hand to present the Sparrow Hospital Foundation with a check for more than $22,000 that was raised through several MSU Athletics initiatives. Spartan hockey fans in particular are thanked for their generous support of the Shoot for a Cure initiative.
