Courtesy: GS Photo http://gsphoto.photostockplus.com/ Tyler Ludwig captains the 2009-10 season after spending half of last season as an assistant captain and the rest as co-captain.

THIS WEEK
The Western Michigan hockey team begins its 2009-10 campaign, hosting Mercyhurst College on Friday at 7:35 p.m. and on Saturday at 8:05 p.m.

LAST WEEK
The WMU hockey team split in to two teams for the Brown & Gold Game. The Gold team defeated the Brown team 4-2 with Jerry Kuhn getting the win for Gold. Kuhn is now 2-0 in Brown & Gold games, winning one with the Brown team back during the 2007-08 season.

SERIES HISTORY
Western Michigan and Mercyhurst have only met twice in WMU’s 37 year history. Back in 2003 the two met in Kalamazoo with Western Michigan taking the first game 4-2 but falling in the second game 7-4.

SCOUTING THE LAKERS
While entering this weekend WMU had not yet played a game in the regular season, but Mercyhurst enters Friday with a 0-2-0 record. The Lakers made the long trek to Alaska for the Kendall Hockey Classic, dropping games to both Alaska-Fairbanks and Alaska-Anchorage.

Four different Lakers have scored goals for Mercyhurst so far this season, but sophomore defenseman Kevin Noble leads the team in points with two off of two assists. The Lakers are 0-for-11 on the power play so far this year and have killed five-of-nine penalties for a .556-percent penalty kill.

Last year Steve Cameron and Scott Pitt each put up 40-plus points as sophomores. Cameron tallied 22 goals and 28 assists to lead the team with 50 points, while Pitt netted 15 goals and a team-leading 30 assists for 45 points.

Ryan Zapolski has started both games for the Lakers between the pipes but has only tallied 91:53 in goal and was pulled in favor of Max Strang in Mercyhurst’s 5-1 loss to Alaska-Fairbanks. Last year Zapolski posted an 18-5-3 record with a 2.12 goals against average and a .934 save percentage.

THE RARE NON-CONFERENCE HOME OPENER
With many collegiate sports it is common practice to schedule a non-conference opponent to open your season but for the Broncos, more often then not, they have opened with a CCHA opponent. In head coach Jim Culhane’s 10 years with Western Michigan it has only opened the season with non-conference home games three times with WMU going 2-1 in those games. To open the 2005-06 season the Broncos fell to Robert Morris 4-2, with now assistant coach Marc Fakler on RMU’s coaching staff. In 2007-08 the Broncos defeated  Bentley  5-2 and opened up last season with a 4-2 win over Niagara.

SEASON OPENER SUCESS
In season openers under coach Culhane, the Broncos are 5-3-2 in 10 games. Senior goaltender Riley Gill has started twice to open a season and is 2-0-0 with a 2.00 goals against average and a .926 save percentage.

THE 2009-10 CAPTAINS
As voted upon by the WMU hockey team, the captain for this season is senior defenseman Tyler Ludwig. Seniors Jordan Collins and Cam Watson will be full-time assistant captains, while senior Chris Clackson and sophomore Ian Slater will split time as assisntant captains. Clackson will wear the “A” during home games and Slater will get his chance as an assistant during road games.

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’
Western Michigan is once again dipping into the West Coast talent pool, bringing in Matt Tennyson in from Pleasanton, Calif., and Brett Beebe from Redondo Beach. They will give WMU a total of five players from the Golden State. Last year the three student-athletes from California, J.J. Crew, Jared Katz and P.J. Kavaya combined for 83 games played, 12 goals and 17 assists.

ONE YEAR OLDER, ONE YEAR WISER
Last year’s freshman class led the way when it came to overall production. The seven rookies combined for 41 goals and 61 assists for 102 of the team’s 288 points. It was the most productive class with the seniors producing 68 points, the juniors 67 and the sophomores 50.  The Broncos return 34 goals and 50 assists from the freshman class.