Head coach Tom Anastos announced at his weekly press conference that Mason will be the honorary coach for the game and man his old spot behind the Spartans’ bench.

Mason served as the Spartans’ head coach from 1980-2002, winning a national championship in 1986. Until last year, he was the all-time winningest coach in college hockey history, with 924 victories. Mason also coached at Lake Superior State before it became a Division One program and at Bowling Green.

“You don’t have to go back that far to recognize how far college hockey has come since the mid to late 70’s, it has come a long way,” Anastos said of Mason, who was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame earlier this month. “Today we see players in the NHL every night who played in college hockey. We see players who are drafted throughout the draft including the first round with regularity who came from college hockey. We see executives who were involved in college hockey today in the NHL that we never saw before. We see general managers, directors of scouting, scouts, coaches. Well not to say Ron Mason created all that but he played his role in that evolution during the past 30 some, 40 some years.”

Ferris State enters the one game weekend series coming off a 2-2 tie against No. 3 Michigan on Wednesday and holds an impressive nation leading 14 game unbeaten streak. The Bulldogs won three of the four meetings between the teams last year.

Like the Bulldogs, MSU is coming off recent strong play in the past few weeks, sweeping Princeton and earning two points in the inaugural Big Ten series with then No. 1 Minnesota. MSU tied the Golden Gophers 2-2 with a shootout victory but fell the next night 3-2.

Both freshman forward Villiam Haag and senior forward Greg Wolfe bring four-game point streaks into the Ferris State matchup. Haag has four goals and two assists in the stretch while Wolfe, who is MSU’s leading scorer, has two goals and three assists.

Anastos said on Tuesday that he was unsure if senior forward Lee Reimer would play this weekend. Reimer, who has nine points on the season, left the game last Saturday with an upper body injury.

Ferris State is consistent on both ends of the ice, ranking in the top 10 in the country for both team offense and defense. The Bulldogs are led offensively by senior forward Garrett Thompson who ranks tied for 15th in the country in scoring with 20 points.

“They are a very good team, No. 4 in the country (and) I think they have the longest unbeaten streak of any team in the country,” Anastos said. “They are obviously playing with tons of confidence.”

Anastos also said dating back to his playing days, Ferris State always puts extra emphasis on the MSU game, making the Bulldogs one of the toughest teams to play.

MSU will have nearly two weeks off before returning to the ice again on Dec. 27 against Michigan Tech in the Great Lakes Invitational and Anastos will look to head into the break with some momentum for a second straight year. MSU’s lone victory against Ferris State last year came before the holiday break.

“It’s our last game before break and the best thing that could come out of that is getting a great result in a great performance and feeling good about progress,” Anastos said. “Then guys can heal up over the break that we have and we can look forward to playing (at) Comerica (Park) in the GLI.”