Three former Maine football players are on the 2008 NFL Pro Bowl ballot.

Montell Owens, who led Maine in rushing in 2005, is one of 16 "special teamers."
Owens signed with the Jacksonville Jaguars as an undrafted free agent following the 2006 NFL Draft. He's played in six games this year on special teams.

Freshman Tanner House scored off a no-look feed from Wes Clark to give Maine a 3-2 win over Northeastern in its Hockey East opener tonight in Boston.

Maine trailed twice in the game, and got tying goals from Jeff Marshall and Keenan Hopson that set up a 2-2 third period.

Montell Owens, a former tailback at Maine, is on the NFL ballot as a possible selection to the Pro Bowl.

Owens has played in six games on special teams for the Jacksonville Jaguars this season, his second in the NFL. He also played for the Jaguars last year after signing as an undrafted free agent following the 2006 NFL Draft.

Owens led Maine in rushing in the 2005 season. He rushed for 779 yards on 184 carries (averaging 4.2 a carry) and scored nine TDs.

After a one week hiatus, Maine hockey landed back in the national polls this week.

Maine is ranked No. 13 in both the USA Today poll and the U.S. College Hockey Online poll following 4-2 and 4-1 wins over Mercyhurst at home.

Bret Tyler (3 goals, 2 assists), Wes Clark (2g, 2a) and Chris Hahn (2g, 1a) lead Maine in scoring.

Maine beat Mercyhurst 4-2 after a wild second period in its home opener at Alfond Arena.

Goalie Ben Bishop made a crazy stick save that sparked goals by Chris Hahn and Bret Tyler at 11:31 and 12:03 of the second period to give Maine a 4-0 lead at the time.

He leaned back after a flurry of saves at the corner of the crease and his stick slid across the goal and blocked a shot that would have made it 2-1. Instead it was 4-0 Maine just a minute later.

Get this.

Nolan Boike was a pitcher for the University of Maine baseball team last spring, going 1-1 in five starts with a 8.07 ERA.

Friday, Boike wore No. 36 for the HOCKEY team, making his debut on ice as a senior walk-on.

Linebacker Andrew Downey (ankle) and cornerback Lamir Whetstone (knee) were cleared to participate in full-contact practice today, making a return likely for Saturday's game at Stony Brook.

Downey and Whetstone

Maine's big goalie Ben Bishop turned away 73-of-78 shots by Denver through opening weekend, including a career high 46 on Friday night.

His performance earned him the Hockey East Defensive Player of the Week award on Monday.

If you're down with Maine basketball, there's a few goings-on tonight and Saturday in Orono, that will afford an early look at Coach Cindy Blodgett and Ted Woodward's teams.

Blodgett and Woodward

UMaine students are invited to the Pit (Memorial Gym) from 10 to 11 p.m. tonight for "Hardwood Hoopla" to watch the men's team in a dunk contest and the women's team in a three-point contest.

No, Blodgett is not participating.

Goalie Ben Bishop was on the ice at Alfond Arena today for his second straight practice, but is still questionable for Maine's opener at Denver on Friday, according to Coach Tim Whitehead.

Bishop (21-9-2, 2.14 GAA last year) injured his left leg during warm-ups before Maine's exhibition game last Saturday.

Whitehead would not be any more specific than "left leg."

I wanted to take a minute to explain our coverage of the recent troubles with the law facing some University of Maine athletes and one former coach.

I've heard many opinions on each situation from the eye-rolling "Give us a break, this is news?" camp to the "Fire everyone at Maine!" camp.

To backtrack quickly:

Two weeks ago a football assistant coach was arrested for an OUI and resigned three days later.

Two days after that a fullback on the football team was issued a summons for assault for allegedly punching another man after a fight over the player’s girlfriend.

Days later a freshman walk-on receiver was issued a summons for stealing a debit card and charged with misuse of identification and receiving stolen property. A player on the basketball team who allegedly got a Yankees hat out of the spending spree was also charged with receiving stolen property.

Yesterday an 18-year-old sophomore wide receiver was issued a summons for possession of alcohol by a minor. The alleged party took place at the home of a women’s soccer captain who was issued with a summons for furnishing a place for minors to consume alcohol.

Taken individually none of these events was extremely newsworthy.

None of them, short of the OUI charge involving a staff member of the athletic department, amounted to, in our judgment, a significant story.

We reported on all of them – because we believe that is responsible journalism.

Responsible journalism, in my book, is being loyal to our readers, giving them information – good or bad – we think they need to know.

But we did not place any of these incidents on the front page of the newspaper, or the front page of sports, or even in lengthy stories.

We reported them in a few paragraphs, and ran them on the inside of the sports section to reflect their news value.

In other words, we believe our readers need to know this information, but that it doesn’t need to be sensationalized and splashed out on the front of the paper.

Conversely once these situations began to pile up, the news value also rose – which is why we addressed the perception the “trend” seemed to be creating among Maine followers. We ran a notebook column statewide in our Sunday Telegram.

We will continue to do follow-up reporting on all of these situations, to probe and make sure we’re not missing anything.

Should any of these situations escalate – a charge could be upgraded, another side could come out – we will re-evaluate our coverage.

We’ve had numerous conversations on how to handle each and every one of these incidents. At the end of the day our No. 1 priority is to report, accurately and fairly, to our readers what we believe they need to know.

Maine hosts William & Mary at home Saturday at 3 p.m.

Out: Cornerback Lionel Nixon Jr. (knee).

Probable: Tailback Jhamal Fluellen (shoulder)

Possible return: Linebacker Andrew Downey (ankle)

The Maine football team got a special guest appearance today by former Black Bear Mike DeVito, who landed on the New York Jets roster this fall.

DeVito has not yet dressed for a game. The Jets play the N.Y. Giants on Sunday, leaving time for a jaunt to Hofstra's campus in nearby Hempsted, N.Y.

The Jets practice facility is across the street from Hofstra.

After losing the starting job at QB to redshirt freshman Adam Farkes, Michael Brusko, pictured above, has been doing a little more than playing backup at practice.

Brusko has been taking some reps at wide receiver for the last week or so. It's not such a crazy idea, as the team's receiving corps has struggled and could use any help it can get.

Two future Black Bears will play against the Maine hockey team Saturday as members of the U.S. Under-18 National Team.

Forward Kelen Corkum and defenseman Ryan Hegarty, both members of the team, will attend Maine next fall.

Corkum is the son of retired NHL veteran Bob Corkum who starred at Maine from 1985-89.

With H-back Anthony Cotrone suspended indefinitely (assault charge), Lewiston's Jared Turcotte becomes the backup to junior Wellington Talkpa for Saturday's game at Hofstra and perhaps longer.

Turcotte, a freshman, took more reps than usual at practice on Tuesday, but it still appears unlikely he'd be used in a non-emergency situation. He has yet to play this season.

The Fitzpatrick Trophy winner would not be able to be red-shirted if he played, and it seems as though Maine's coaching staff has high hopes for his future.

Maine football Coach Jack Cosgrove said he saw improvement from his team during its bye week.

That will have to translate to the field Saturday when Maine (1-3, 0-2 CAA) returns to action at Hofstra (4-0, 1-0 CAA).

"We really used last week almost in a preseason mentality," Cosgrove said during Monday morning's CAA conference call. "We had three excellent practices ... played hard, practiced hard. I thought we grew as a team as a result.