With the season-opening home series against Hockey East rival Providence College only one week away, the University of Maine will get its final tuneup in a Blue-White exhibition on Friday at 7 p.m. at Alfond Arena in Orono.

The freshmen and sophomores will comprise one team and they will take on the juniors and the seniors.

Maine Coach Shawn Walsh said the fact his team doesn’t have a non-league series prior to the Providence series puts added importance on the Blue-White game.

“We’ve got to be more physical against each other (than they have been in two previous intrasquad scrimages),” said Walsh. “We’ve got to get closer to game intensity.”

More than 3,000 tickets have already been sold, and Walsh said, “I expect an electric atmosphere. We’ll see how it affects our players’ intensity.”

“We’re going to treat this just like a regular season game,” said Maine senior defenseman and assistant captain Dan Murphy. “There are a lot of people out there who want to prove to the coaches that they should be oout there who want to prove to the coaches that they should be out there against Providence next Friday.”

“There are two or three defense spots that are open and as many as four forward spots,” said Walsh. “Some of the guys who played last year are being pushed (by the newcomers).”

There will also be some pride at stake.

“We want to show the freshmen and sophomores that we’re going to lead the way early,” said Murphy. “We aren’t going to be running people, but we do expect to play a good, clean physical game.”

“We don’t want to let them kick our tails,” said senior center and captain Jim Montgomery. “We want to show them that you have to play defense and be able to grind it out.”

Montgomery said the first two intrasquad scrimmages this year were the most intense he has ever been involved in at Maine and hopes the intensity and physical play continues on Friday.

“We’ve had times in previous years when we didn’t finish ouearly games and it hurt us,” said Montgomery.

There will be one change in the upperclassmen vs. underclassmen battle as Maine’s two veteran goalies, Garth Snow (Blue) and Mike Dunham (White), will be on different teams.

The line of Montgomery between Patrice Tardif and Cal Ingraham, the top three returning point-getters, will lead the White team with the Blue team featuring the highly touted line of Peter Ferraro between Paul Kariya and Peter’s twin brother, Chris.

Tickets will be sold at the door beginning at 6. They will be $2 for adults and $1 for students. All of the tickets are general admission.