The state’s two biggest college hockey powers have some unfinished business to take care of - and the game that has been circled with both blue and green ink for the past three and a half months is now just a day away.
Sixth-ranked MSU (17-5-2 overall, 12-4-1 CCHA) and No. 8 Michigan (13-7-4, 10-4-3) are set to tangle at 7:35 p.m. Saturday in U-M’s Yost Ice Arena, with CCHA first place and some suspended bragging rights on the line.
The last time the teams met was in the spectacle known as “The Cold War” on Oct. 6 in Spartan Stadium. But 65 minutes of hockey couldn’t differentiate between the two teams that night, as they skated to a 3-3 tie in front of a world-record 74,554 fans.
Now the storied series shifts back to more familiar surroundings for its 233rd or 239th meeting (depending on which school you ask).
Regardless of which number it is, most of the Spartans can’t wait to get another crack at the Wolverines.
“It does seem like a lifetime since ‘The Cold War,’” junior forward Troy Ferguson said. “It almost seems like it was last year’s hockey season.
“This is a shortened Michigan week, which could be a good thing. You don’t want to get over-psyched up or anything like that, but it’s definitely an exciting week around campus.”
MSU leads the Wolverines by two points in the league race, meaning the Spartans could take a commanding four-point lead, or the Wolverines could knot things back up with a win. That’s what makes Saturday’s game such a significant swing point, freshman forward Mike Lalonde said.
“It’s pretty self-explanatory that this is a big game,” Lalonde said. “This is a stretch where we want to jump ahead, or at least stay in first place. This is probably the biggest game of our season so far.”
But MSU goes into the showdown without two recently injured players - freshman center Lee Falardeau and junior right wing Steve Jackson.
And while the timing of the injuries is unfortunate for MSU, junior left wing Steve Clark said it won’t make much difference with so much at stake Saturday.
“It’s never a regular game against Michigan,” Clark said. “With a depleted lineup, and especially playing an offensive power like Michigan, I think it’s really important to play in your end first and get chances from that. Everyone just has to step it up a little bit.”
One guy who is sure to be on the ice Saturday night is MSU junior goaltender Ryan Miller, who stopped 31 shots in shutting out the top-ranked Wolverines 1-0 at Yost last season.
He’s coming off his best outing of the second half of the season in MSU’s 3-2 win over Ferris State on Tuesday.
The Spartans caught a big break with Thursday’s announcement that prodigious Wolverine center Mike Cammalleri will miss Saturday’s game with mononucleosis.
Cammalleri, who had 15 goals and 11 assists in 19 games, was second on the team in points behind center John Shouneyia (7 goals, 20 assists).
But even with Cammalleri, U-M has been uncharacteristically mediocre at Yost this season, posting a 4-4-1 home record and coming off a loss to visiting Alaska-Fairbanks last Saturday. But MSU has well-documented road ills of its own, with a 4-4-0 record after Tuesday’s win at Ferris.
But forget all those numbers.
It’s MSU against U-M, and Spartan head coach Ron Mason knows statistics rarely matter in this rivalry.
“We’ve played them so many times in so many different spots, the game will take on its own personality - it always does,” Mason said. “That personality can’t be predicted before you start. But we know it’s going to be hard fought, we know there’s going to be lots of emotion, we know there’s going to be a lot of enthusiasm in the building.
“All those things are a given. So now, what the personality of this specific game will be, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
