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Sunday, October 5th at 4pm Atlantic Standard Time

The Northeastern men’s ice hockey team takes the ice for the first time this season, on Sunday at 4pm Atlantic Standard Time at the Matthews Arena. Their opponent is the Acadia Axemen who will be coming off a Saturday night game against the Quinnipiac Bobcats.

The Northeastern Huskies, who were picked 16th in the USCHO.com preseason poll this past Monday, return 21 letter winners from last season’s 19-14-4 squad, including Hobey Baker Award candidate Clay Witt in goal. Witt set program records for goals against average (2.37) and save percentage (.932) in 2013-14, and is back for his second season as the Huskies’ starting netminder. Witt, along with fellow senior Torin Snydeman, will serve as an assistant captain this season while Dax Lauwers and Adam Reid will wear the ‘C.’

The Huskies have 10 of its top 11 scorers back from a season ago, including rising junior Kevin Roy and sophomore center Mike Szmatula, both of whom received Hockey East accolades at the conclusion of last season. Roy enters his third season with 80 points in 66 career games (1.21 points per game), and could become the 46th player in program history to reach 100 career points this season.

Axemen head coach Darren Burns said, “Northeastern has many returning players this year and had a great year of recruiting. We will, no doubt, have to be at the top of our game on Sunday afternoon.”

This will mark Acadia’s final pre-season game before opening up the AUS regular season on Saturday, October 11^th in Halifax against the Dalhousie Tigers.

The Axemen will look to continue to gel as a group after adding eight new faces to the lineup since winning the AUS championship last season.

To watch the game live online, click here or paste the following link in your internet browser:

http://portal.stretchinternet.com/northeastern/portal.htm?eventId=168644&streamType=video

(Northeastern information source http://www.gonu.com)