The Black Bears represented the University of Maine, played their home games at the Alfond Arena and were coached by Ben Barr in his 3rd season.

For the second year in a row, Maine had a significant amount of roster turnover but it was the addition of the Nadeau brothers, Bradly and Josh, that brought about the biggest change.

With wins over defending champion Quinnipiac and #1 Boston College, Maine shot up the national rankings and found themselves in the top 10 before Thanksgiving.

A sweep at the hands of Boston University briefly halted the teams ascent but Maine proceeded to win the next seven games, including the Ledyard Bank Classic, and were positioned for an NCAA tournament berth by the start of January.

Goaltending problems were compounded by a dip in scoring in February that saw the team lose five of six games and drop out of contention for a Hockey East championship.

Maine recovered at the end of the season by sweeping Massachusetts to guarantee themselves a bye into the quarterfinal round and punch their ticket to the NCAA tournament.

[2] The unambiguous win sent Maine to the semifinals where another long-time rival, BU, used a solid performance on the power play to knock out the Black Bears.

As the period wore on, Maine began to take control of the game but on one of the few established zone times for Cornell, Parker Lindauer was whistled for holding and gave the Big Red their first power play of the night.

The Big Red kept the puck in the Bears' end as much as they could, generating scoring chances when they could, but doing so primarily to prevent any shots from being directed at their own cage.

Just after the midway point of the game, Sullivan Mack deflected the puck away from Bradly Nadeau in front of his own net and broke out on an odd-man rush.