Weekend preview: 1.29.10

Coming to the University of New Hampshire from Denver, Colorado, freshman defenseman Brett Kostolansky had never been to Merrimack College before he and the Wildcats traveled to play there in late November. He’d certainly heard about J. Thom Lawler Arena before he took the ice there, and he knew to expect a unique venue compared with the mostly modern facilities across Hockey East. But still, what he saw made an impression.

“It’s definitely different,” he said of the high-school-sized barn in North Andover – though he could just as well have been describing the hockey team that inhabits it.

The word different almost doesn’t do justice to the discrepancy between the Merrimack team that plays at Lawler and the Merrimack team that plays everywhere else. Although the Wildcats beat the Warriors when Kostolansky and crew came to town a couple months ago, that remains the only loss on home ice for the Warriors, who are 8-1 in their own rink – but 0-12 everywhere else. Clearly they’re comfortable with the rounded corners, crazy bounces and cluttered ice that define their home facility, and so UNH Coach Dick Umile knows his club will need to master – or at least be mindful of – those nuances in order to have success there on Friday night.

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