For the second straight year, Miami opens its season in Big Rapids, and the RedHawks are hoping Friday’s opener ends better than Game 1 last October.
The RedHawks led, 3-0 after the first period on opening night, 2023-24 but allowed four straight goals in the third period and overtime, falling 5-4.
MU is just 3-6-1 at Ewigelben the past 14 years and the RedHawks enter this season riding their second-longest overall winless streak in team history at 16 games (0-15-1).
But Miami has made many positive off-season adjustments, changing coaching staffs and adding a talented incoming class.
VFG takes a look at the upcoming series:
WHO: Miami RedHawks (7-26-3) at Ferris State Bulldogs (10-24-2).
WHERE: Ewigleben Ice Arena (2,493), Big Rapids, Mich.
WHEN: Friday – 8:05 p.m.; Saturday – 8:05 p.m.
ALL-TIME SERIES: Miami leads, 49-46-17.
STREAMING: CCHA TV (MidCo Sports) ($).
MIAMI RADIO: Saturday — WMOH-AM (1450), Hamilton, Ohio.
MIAMI RADIO STREAMING: MiamiRedHawks.com (Greg Waddell, PxP).
FERRIS STATE RADIO: WDEE-FM (97.3), Reed City, Mich.
NOTES: Like Miami, Ferris State also finished the 2023-24 season in a prolonged slump.
The Bulldogs were winless in their final nine games (0-8-1) and outscored, 31-16 during that stretch.
FSU finished last in the CCHA, earning just three regulation wins and 19 league points before getting swept by top-seeded in Bemidji State in the first round of the conference tournament.
And the Bulldogs suffered major off-season losses, including their top four points-producing forwards, multiple starting defensemen and both goalies.
Senior Kaleb Ergang is FSU’s top returning scorer among forwards, going 6-9-15 last season, and he looks to play a major role in the offensive zone again this season.
Three other returning forwards reached double-digits in points: Zach Faremouth, Emerson Goode and Tyler Schleppe.
Faremouth and Goode — both freshmen — finished with 12 points apiece. Goode potted seven goals including a game-winner and tied for the team lead with a plus-3 rating, and Faremouth went 6-6-12 with two power play tallies.
Schleppe, a junior, recorded three goals and seven assists for 10 points.
On defense, Travis Shoudy is back for his junior season after leading the corps in points (21) and finishing tops on the team in assists (17). He’s the only returning Bulldog that played all 36 games in 2023-24.
Other key returnees on the blue line include Trevor Taulien and Andrew Noel.
Taulien racked up eight points in 27 games, and Noel dressed for 35 of 36 contests and ended the season with four points and was minus-2 — a good rating on a team that won just 10 games.
In net, graduate senior and Michigan transfer Noah West has posted excellent collegiate numbers both as a freshman at Robert Morris and with the U-M, but he was buried on the Wolverines’ depth chart the past three years and was limited to fewer than 400 minutes.
His save percentage was .915 or better all of the first three seasons of his NCAA career before slipping to .880 in a small sample size in 2023-24.
The other two goalies — Connor McDonough and Martin Lundberg — are both freshmen.
The 6-feet-5 McDonough won 25 games and posted a .909 save percentage for NAHL Amarillo last season, and the Norwegian Lundberg thrived with his country’s Under-20 World Juniors team.
West, forward Max Itagaki and defenseman Xavier Jean-Louis are among Ferris State’s top incoming transfers.
Itagaki should bolster the FSU offense, having rolled up 58 points the past two seasons with Army. The 6-feet, 4-inch Jean-Louis is a sophomore coming off a three-point season with Alaska.
Among the freshmen, Fs Luke Lisko and Jack Silich and D Kade Turner all played juniors in western Canada and should contribute right away, as well as Christopher Lie, another Norwegian from the U-20 squad.
A few notes:
— Miami has not formally named captains and coach Anthony Noreen said two weeks ago the process may drag out into the regular season.
“I think given basically a new group and a new way, you’ve got to allow that to play itself out,” Noreen said. “We’ll move forward with it when we think all of the information is needed for the players to select who they think will represent them the best.”
During his press conference this week, Noreen said that while this season will likely be an outlier in this area, that “(the captain) is who best represents those guys in the room, that’s what it is. But I don’t know how you can get into that until you get into real games.”
— The RedHawks’ lone opening-night win the past seven years was a 7-4 victory here in October of 2021.
— Legendary Ferris State coach Bob Daniels recently told The Rink Live he’s “probably approaching the 18th tee box” of his coaching career, so this may be one of the last times Miami faces the 33rd-year Bulldogs coach.
Daniels is sitting on 497 career wins, 17th all-time at the Division I level, leading Ferris State to a national title game in 2012, keying a run of three NCAA Tournament appearances in five years.
But the Bulldogs have not finished close to .500 since 2015-16.
Daniels earned his Master’s in sports organization at Miami.
— While Daniels was named Ferris State’s head coach in 1992, Noreen has only held that title at Miami since April.
— History has been unkind to first-year Miami coaches in their debuts, as none of the last five have won on opening night.
Only Steve Cady earned a victory in his first game coaching the first Division I RedHawks game in history on Oct. 20, 1978, and Noreen hopes to snap that 46-year drought on Friday.
George Gwozdecky and Enrico Blasi did salvage ties in their Miami head coaching debuts.
Noreen will go down in the Miami history annals for coaching the earliest first game in calendar terms, as Game 1 this season is Oct. 4. He edges out Chris Bergeron’s debut by two days (Oct. 6).
Miami coaching debut results:
| Coach | Debut | Opponent | Result | Score |
| Steve Cady | Oct. 20, 1978 | CINCINNATI | W | 15-2 |
| Bill Davidge | Oct. 11, 1985 | at Michigan | L | 0-6 |
| George Gwozdecky | Oct. 13, 1989 | MICHIGAN | T | 2-2 |
| Mark Mazzoleni | Oct. 21, 1994 | at Bowling Green | L | 4-8 |
| Enrico Blasi | Oct. 8, 1999 | at W. Michigan | T | 3-3 |
| Chris Bergeron | Oct. 6, 2019 | BOWLING GREEN | L | 4-7 |
| Anthony Noreen | Oct. 4, 2024 | at Ferris St. |
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