ORONO - It’s an old flintlock rifle made by a guy named Ebenezer Nutting sometime in the 1700s and named after a couple of coaches who did their best work during the Coolidge administration. It was largely forgotten for decades until Jack Cosgrove made it a thing again during his tenure as boss of the Black Bears. Oh, and it’s spent the better part of the last decade and a half on a shelf in Durham, New Hampshire, providing a tangible reminder to the Wildcats of their domination of the football rivalry with the neighboring state university.

And now, it’s found a new/old home in Orono, after a 35-7 opening night stunner by the Black Bears in the “Thursday Throwdown.”

UMaine secures home-ice advantage in win over UNH

ORONO It wasn't a high-powered offensive game by any means, but the University of Maine Black Bears hung on to an early 1-0 lead against the University of New Hampshire Wildcats on Saturday to win both the game and home-ice advantage for the first round of Hockey East quarterfinals.

While dubbed Senior Night, the game was all sophomores with goalie Dan Sullivan and defenseman Brice O'Connor leading the Black Bears to victory after O'Connor scored the only goal of the game and Sullivan ended the night with his second shutout of the year.

The win was the 20th of the season for the Black Bears, who improve to 20-11-3 on the season and 15-10-2 in Hockey East play. New Hampshire fell to 14-17-3 overall and 11-14-2 in conference play.