The University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) men’s hockey team is saddling up for a ride out to Kalamazoo to face-off against the 11th ranked Western Michigan Broncos this weekend.

Last weekend the Bulldogs split their series with then-17th ranked Colorado College, winning on Friday, January 12 3-2 in overtime, then falling Jan. 13 3-2 in OT. While that series proved 7-10-4 UMD can still hold their own against ranked teams, they’ll need to come dialed in for the 14-5-1 Broncos.

“They can score, got five guys with 20 plus points. Nothing different and they play north, they get after it. I like the way they play, they’re tenacious. Power play is at about 31%, so stay out of the box,” UMD head coach Scott Sandelin said.

This is their first meeting this season. However, last season UMD suffered a sweep against Western Michigan at home, but split on the road. That is quite the feat with the Broncos known for their ‘Lawson Lunatics’ student section, an atmosphere UMD freshman Braden Fischer is excited for.

“That’s going to be an eye opening experience for me. I think it’s going to be really exciting,” Fischer shared. “They play hard, they play fast. I’ve heard lots of great things, lots of fun things about their atmosphere there, too. So we’ve got to be ready to go and we will be. It’s so fun for a team, an opposing team going into an atmosphere like that and playing as hard as we can to disappoint their fans there.”

Puck drop at Lawson Ice Arena is Friday at 6 p.m. and Saturday at 5 p.m.