Rick Comley has been through this before.
“When we went down to Lake Superior - I can still remember to this day - they did the introductions, the teams were lined up, they introduced me as Northern’s head coach and everybody in the building booed,” Comley said. “The players just kind of looked at me and smiled and then we beat them like 12-2.”
That was back in 1976 when Comley had just started Northern Michigan’s program from scratch after spending three seasons as the head coach of his alma mater, Lake Superior State.
The trip to Sault Ste. Marie was just his fourth game behind the Wildcat bench.
To this day, the coach maintains his change of allegiance was the single most important stimulus in turning Northern and Lake Superior into bitter cross-peninsula athletic rivals.
If that’s so, one has to wonder if this weekend is the start of something similar for the Northern vs. MSU hockey rivalry.
Comley led the Wildcats for 26 years before snubbing them for MSU in March. Today and Saturday, Comley will be back in Marquette as his 10th-ranked Spartans (1-1-0) take on No. 14 Northern (1-2-0) at the Berry Events Center.
“I don’t think you should downplay it, because it is a unique situation,” said Comley, who will coach his third and fourth games as a Spartan this weekend. “There will be quite a buzz up there and I don’t mind if they’re vocal and active, but I would be totally shocked if it was a total negative reaction.
“I think the relationship we had was too good.”
The series is being dubbed by Marquette residents as “The Mentor vs. The Student” because Comley will be matching wits against his former player and assistant coach Walt Kyle, who took over the Wildcats in June.
“You can feel it in the community,” Kyle said. “Rick and (his wife) Diane were big parts of the community and I think everyone is going to be real happy to have them back.
“I knew that I might coach against him some day, but I didn’t think I’d be sitting here and he’d be somewhere else.”
To make the weekend even more interesting, Comley will be gunning for his 600th career win. He currently stands at 598, which ranks him No. 7 on the all-time list.
But Comley swears it will be all business.
“People are e-mailing me asking if I want to meet for coffee,” Comley said. “I’m just going to be too busy. I’m not even going to try to do everything. There are two big hockey games to play.
“Will I be emotional? Yes. Will it be visible emotion? No. But I have too strong of feelings, too many close friends, too many ties to that program for it not to be special. I can’t just treat it like any other series.”
Ironically, that’s exactly what the Spartans are going to try to do.
“We have to prepare like it’s any other road game, because it will be for our team,” assistant coach Dave McAuliffe said. “It’ll be different for Coach because it’s going to be the first time he’s behind the other bench after being with that program for so long. But he’ll handle that.”
The Spartans, who looked sluggish at last week’s Maverick Stampede, will have to fight through several obstacles to get their coach a victory or two this weekend.
Comley all but built the Berry Events Center, but the rink will be full of fans rooting against him and his team tonight and Saturday.
“I can only imagine how their students and the fans and, especially, his old team are feeling with him coming up there,” senior defenseman Brad Fast said. “It’s going to be a great challenge for us.”
If MSU isn’t up to the challenge, Comley might have a little Upper Peninsula surprise for the team.
“I told them to bring their suits, because if we play bad Friday, we’re going for a swim in Lake Superior on Saturday,” he said.
