“These are golden years for me … it’s such a great school and a great program, there’s so much pride taken from winning a national championship, I’m just hungry to do it again.”

And it’s a good thing, too, because his Spartans are going into the season with a large target on their backs, courtesy of being the defending national champions — and a No. 3 national ranking.

But Comley knows the challenge of trying to repeat. After winning the national title in 1991 at Northern Michigan, Comley’s squad won the WCHA Tournament but were bounced by Michigan in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Now he has to take that experience and try to apply it to this year’s team throughout the course of the season.

“In 1992, I thought we should’ve won it again,” Comley said.

“We were probably favored all year to win it. Early in a season like this, expectations will be extremely high and you’re judged harshly and quickly as to how you react to it, but what you do is take the positives from it, the lessons that we learned last year but with the biggest lesson of all being that you’re good enough to do it.”

Even though his team is coming off a national title, Comley still believes his team isn’t seen on the same level nationally as a Boston College or a Minnesota.

“As great as we are, we still fight for respect,” Comley said. “We’re always fighting for that level of respect, and every time you put on that jersey or every time I walk behind that bench, you want to continue to prove things to everybody.”

This season, the Spartans might have the ability to take respect from their opponents – and the national pundits as the team’s four top scorers – junior Tim Kennedy, senior Bryan Lerg, junior Justin Abdelkader and senior Chris Mueller – return along with a goaltender, junior Jeff Lerg, who helped carry the Spartans through the NCAA Tournament, allowing five goals in the four tournament games.

“It’s a real nice situation for a coach,” Comley said. “When you return talent and you bring in talent, like we said last year, last year’s team became the sum of the parts and what eventually proved out last year is that we did have good parts. This year, I don’t think there’s any question that we do. But it doesn’t mean we’re better than anybody else in our league or any of the top teams in the country, but I believe we can compete with them.”

But in the hunt for a repeat, Comley remains focused on his usual coaching style that’s gotten him over 700 career wins.

“As my record indicates, I’m a second half coach,” he noted. “I like to play kids the first half, give opportunity, develop kids, develop a team. I’m not as personally concerned about record until Christmas.”

So even though winning the CCHA regular season championship is a big goal for the team, the season is not a sprint, it’s a marathon.

“If you’re going to make the league championship a target, I’d have to change that approach,” Comley said.

“I’d like to win it. I think the players are kind of taking the approach that they haven’t won it and they’d like to, but to me the big picture is playing that last game and winning that last game.”