So far this season, the University of Maine men's hockey team has given up four one-goal leads in the third period, with three of those resulting in losses - a 2-1 loss to Northeastern in October, a 3-2 loss to Vermont after Thanksgiving, a 5-4 loss to New Hampshire after the new year and Sunday's 2-2 tie with Providence.

It's a far cry from the Black Bears' defensive glory days, when Maine was able to protect a third-period lead for nearly four years. Those days are gone. So are the days of clutching, grabbing and more physical defensive play, with the advent of changes in refereeing.

"We went through a stretch of four years without giving up a lead, and that's probably an NCAA record," Maine Coach Tim Whitehead said. "But for the first couple years of that, before the officiating initiative, you could clamp down and protect a lead pretty well, by interfering or playing good team defense. But the final two year of that streak, and as recently as last year, we did a good job of staying disciplined, being smart with the puck and defending the front of the net."

Those are the tangibles in playing sound defense with a lead. But there's no way to simulate the psychological aspect of those situations without actually being in them.

"You have to keep gaining experience in those situations, and having successful experiences," Whitehead said. "Once you have difficulty protecting a lead, it's in the back of your mind. You have to keep gaining experience and having successful experiences so that the positive memories replace the negative ones. That's going to take time for this team because we had some bad experiences. Some of it we brought upon ourselves and some of it was bad luck."

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The flu bug seems to be going around the Pine Tree State, but the Black Bears say they're relatively healthy going into this weekend's series at Boston College.

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Need a music recommendation? Today's informal poll asked the Black Bears what their last CD purchase or iTunes download was - Spencer Abbott, Robby Dee and Chris Hahn have all recently purchased Kanye West's "808s and Heartbreak," either electronically or on compact disc. Well, not quite. Hahn recently swapped Ne-Yo's "Year of the Gentleman" with teammate Simon Danis-Pepin in exchange for Kanye's fourth studio album.

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When Claude Lemieux played in his first NHL game in 1983 with the Montreal Canadiens, none of the current Black Bears were even born. But Lemieux, a four-time Stanley Cup winner who carved his niche as an agitator made his comeback last night with the San Jose Sharks, at 43 years old and nearly six years after his last NHL game.

"I saw it on SportsCenter this morning," Dee said. "First game since 2003? Good for him. I think that's pretty sweet, at age 43 that you can come back and actually play. It shows the dedication he has to the game."

Hahn, it seems is a fan of hockey's iconoclasts.

"I hope he does well," Hahn said. "I thought he always played with an edge and he was a character. I like guys like that, like him and Sean Avery, because the NHL lacks some personalities."

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