MEN'S HOCKEY NOTEBOOK
Vermont closes the first half of the season at Gutterson Fieldhouse on Saturday (Dec. 9) against former ECAC rival Brown at 7:05 p.m. Tickets are available by logging on to UVMathletics.com/Tickets or by calling 802-656-4410. Pre-game radio coverage on WVMT 620-AM begins at 6:30 p.m. with Alastair Ingram and Jerry Tarrant on the call, and free video, audio, and live stats are all available via CatamounTV.com at the links below. 

RELATED LINKS
Video | Audio | Live Stats | Tickets
CatamounTV Preview | Game Notes (.pdf)

TEDDY BEAR TOSS
Saturday marks the annual Teddy Bear Toss at Gutterson Fieldhouse. Fans are asked to bring a teddy bear to toss on the ice between the second and third periods, and all bears will be donated to local kids in need this holiday season. 

TOYS FOR TOTS
UVM Athletics will have Toys For Tots boxes at all home games until Dec. 15 to collect new and unwrapped toys to be donated for local families in need this holiday season. The Toys For Tots drive is presented by TD Bank. Fans can make donations at the marketing table. Last year, the local Toys For Tots program served over 1,700 families, providing toys to over 5,000 children in the greater Champlain Valley area.

SCOUTING THE BEARS
Brown has already eclipsed its win total from 2016-17 as it enters Saturday with an overall record of 5-7-0 (4-6-0 ECAC). The Bears hosted Bentley on Wednesday night and lost 3-1 in Providence.

Junior Tommy Marchin leads the team with six goals, including a hat trick during a 5-4 comeback overtime win at RPI last Saturday. Sophomore Brent Beaudoin leads Brown with six assists on the year and is tied for the squad lead in points with Marchin (8). Sophomore netminder Gavin Nieto has started nine of 12 games in net with a 2.69 goals against average and a .916 save percentage.   

Brown graduate Brendan Whittet '94 is in his ninth year as head coach after serving as an assistant coach at Dartmouth for 11 years. Last year, the Bears finished with a record of 4-25-2 (3-18-1 ECAC) and were swept by Quinnipiac in the ECAC First Round.

SERIES HISTORY
Saturday night marks the 58th all-time meeting in series history with Vermont holding a one-game advantage (27-26-4) over Brown. The teams last faced one another on Feb. 25, 2005 at Gutterson, a 2-1 UVM win which snapped a seven-game series losing streak to the Bears.

The Catamounts are 12-9-4 all-time at home against the Bears. Brown competed in the 2015 TD Bank Catamount Cup in Burlington (won by UVM), beating Colgate 7-5 and falling 3-0 to Lake Superior State.

Vermont is 2-1-0 this year against ECAC opposition with wins over Union and Dartmouth, and an overtime loss to Quinnipiac. UVM starts a three-game stretch against ECAC schools on Saturday before returning to Hockey East play for good on Jan. 5, 2018 at UMass Lowell.

LEADIN' THE WAY
Ross Colton is tied with Northeastern forward Adam Gaudette for the Hockey East overall lead in goals (10). Colton leads the nation in power play goals (7), scoring exactly half of the team's 14 tallies with the man advantage. The sophomore is tied for 10th nationally in goals per game is one of only 15 Division I players in the country with at least 10 tallies. The New Jersey native sits fourth in the country in shots on goal per game (4.60) and sent 15 shots on target last weekend.

FOREVER YOUNG
Last Saturday at Maine snapped a streak of eight straight goals for Vermont that were scored by underclassmen. Four of the team's top five goal scorers and five of the top seven point-getters this year are underclassmen. In addition, 11 of the squad's 14 power play goals on the season have been netted by an underclassman.

BLOCK PARTY
UVM ranks second in Hockey East as a team with 226 blocked shots and third with 14.1 blocks per contest. Jake Massie ranks fifth individually in blocks with 29 while classmate Matt O'Donnell is tied for 15th with 23.

WHO'S NEXT
Vermont is off for the holiday break before hosting the annual TD Bank Catamount Cup on Dec. 29-30 before New Year's at Gutterson. UVM will face ECAC squads St. Lawrence (Dec. 29) and Harvard (Dec. 30), while UMass Lowell is the fourth team competing this year. Overall, the Cats play seven of their next eight games in Burlington.

Handy Toyota is the presenting sponsor of the 2017-18 men's hockey season