Bowling Green?s hockey team will be strangers to the Ice Arena during the first half of the season.
The team, however, will rarely leave BG after that.
The Falcons will play 16 of their first 24 games on the road, but eight of their final 10 games will be
in the Ice Arena.
BG?s 34-game regular-season schedule includes four games each against Michigan, Notre Dame and Michigan
State in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association.
?It?s a challenging schedule,? said Dennis Williams, who is BG?s interim coach during the 2009-10 season.
?But it?s a great opportunity for us to prove ourselves.?
The Falcons play 12 of their 28 league games against Michigan, ND and MSU in a four-team cluster.
BG and ND are scheduling partners every season and the two are paired with Michigan and MSU this season.
Cluster partners play each other four times each season.
BG also has two-game league series against Alaska, Ferris State, Lake Superior, Northern Michigan, Miami,
Ohio State and Western Michigan.
Notre Dame was first and Michigan tied for second in the CCHA last season. MSU was 10th in a down year
last season, but is a traditional rival.
?It?s a very tough cluster,? Williams said. ?It?s a great opportunity to play against those programs.
It?s exciting. To be the best, you have to beat the best. It?s a tough cluster, but it?s an exciting
cluster and a great opportunity.?
BG?s Nov. 21 home game against Michigan may be moved to Lucas County Arena, the new arena in downtown
Toledo.
BG and arena officials are still trying to finalize the financial details of the game.
The Falcons? home games against Michigan usually draw crowds of at least 4,000 and the games are the
biggest revenue producers of the season, so BG officials are making sure the game is just as profitable
if it is moved to Toledo.
Michigan?s schedule has the game at Toledo, but BG?s schedule still lists the game at the Ice Arena.
BG and Michigan will play a unique Thursday-Tuesday series Feb. 4 and Feb. 9 to allow the Wolverines to
play Wisconsin in an outdoor game Feb. 6 at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wis.
The Falcons have six non-league games ? two-game series at Minnesota State Oct. 9-10 to open the season
and at home against Providence Oct. 23-24, and in the Mariucci Classic in Minneapolis Jan. 2-3. BG faces
host Minnesota in the semifinals and either Northern Michigan or Clarkson the second day.
The Minnesota game could match BG against former Falcon Jacob Cepis.
Cepis left the team last December for what were termed ?personal reasons.?
He was one of the CCHA?s top freshmen during the 2007-08 season with 15 goals and 16 assists in 38 games,
but had just a goal and four assists in 18 games last season.
Since Cepis transferred to Minnesota at the end of the first semester, he?ll be eligible to play against
BG.
BG?s series against Minnesota State and Providence complete home-and-home contracts with those schools.

BG has two exhibitions ? Oct. 3 against Wilfred Laurier and Oct. 16 against the U.S. National Team
Development Program Under-18 Team.
The U-18 team features the best players in that age group. Many of those players go on to play
collegiately at elite-level programs and are NHL draft picks.
Williams? brother, Dave, is an assistant coach at Wilfred Laurier.
The Falcons will play the Minnesota State and Providence series, and the exhibitions against WLU and the
U.S. U-18 teams before starting CCHA play Oct. 30-31 at Nebraska-Omaha.
The Falcons have nine freshmen as they attempt to bounce back from last season when they were 11-24-3
overall and 8-19-1 in the CCHA.
?That?s great having those non-league games to start,? Williams said. ?We?re playing to win every game,
but it also gives us a chance to look at our team which is good with all of the freshmen we have.?
After the UNO series, the Falcons visit Ferris Nov. 6-7 for another CCHA series. BG?s first league games
at home are Nov. 13-14 against Alaska.
?We have some big trips and we?re on the road a lot early,? Williams said. ?But that makes it fun at the
end when you can make that last push at home and you hope you?re at your peak.?
BG?s program faces possible elimination at the end of the season to the help the athletics department and
university deal with a large deficit. The program is only guaranteed to exist through the end of next
season.
?We love playing at home, but the road is a neat element with the situation we?re in,? Williams said. ?We
can get out there and bond on the road trips and for the upperclassmen to hang out with the
underclassmen.?
The complete schedule is on page 16.