More than 60 former Irish hockey players will be on campus to watch Notre Dame play Bowling Green this weekend and say a final public goodbye to former coach Lefty Smith.

Notre Dame's alumni and current team will honor Lefty Smith at the Compton Arena this weekend.

Smith died Jan. 3, three days after retiring from his 43-year career at Notre Dame. “Lefty Fest,” as this weekend’s event are being called, was scheduled long before his death to honor the program’s first coach and one of college hockey’s founding fathers at the campus’s new rink. Former players will take to the ice in an alumni scrimmage Saturday afternoon and hold a roundtable discussion about their old coach before Saturday night’s game with Bowling Green. On Friday night, some of Smith’s seven living children will drop a ceremonial first puck.

“I spoke to Michael Smith, Lefty’s son, two or three times after Lefty’s passing and tried to encourage them to be a part of this along with a lot of alumni that cared so much about Lefty,” Irish head coach Jeff Jackson said. “It was an opportunity, as I told Michael, for our team and our coaching staff to pass on our feelings toward Lefty. We didn’t have that opportunity when he passed because we were off to Minnesota. I think it will be nice for our staff and our players to show their respects to a guy that built the program.”

After the puck drops Friday night, the current Notre Dame players will have to shift its focus sharply to a Bowling Green team that is coming into its own during the second half of the year. The Falcons (8-15-5) have been trapped in the conference cellar since the beginning of the year, but have shown signs of life in 2012.

Bowling Green has won four of its last six games, including a pair of shootout wins over Ohio State, who was in first place in the league at the time. The secret to their recent success, says coach Chris Bergeron, is good old-fashioned hard work.

“I think we’re worried less about results,” he told local media earlier this week. “They actually feel good about what they’re doing and there’s some positive reinforcement. …It’s nice to get rewarded for hard work when you’re 20 years old and a hockey player.”

The Falcons are the type of group that has given Notre Dame trouble all season. On paper they don’t stack up to the talented and deep Irish team, but neither did the Alaska team who beat Notre Dame 6-3 last Friday night. Irish captain Sean Lorenz said this year’s team — which has gone 4-1 against the top five teams in the country — has a tendency to play down to the level of its competition.

“Getting comfortable I think is the best way to put it,” Lorenz said. “I think it’s human. People in the business world do the same thing. They make a huge deal and then coast for a little bit. It’s on us as upperclassmen on the team to make sure we don’t do that.”

That message has been loud and clear this week from the captains and Jackson. The importance of the three-game homestand that starts Friday night is not lost on anyone in the Notre Dame locker room. The Irish will play two games against Bowling Green this weekend at Compton Family Ice Arena and one more a week from Friday against Ferris State. A major slip-up during that stretch will put the No. 8 team in the country in jeopardy of missing the conference playoffs.

“It’s essential, but it’s the same way for everybody right now,” Jackson said. “We’re not the only ones in this boat. There are a lot of teams that are fighting for positioning and every point is essential.”

This weekend’s games are both scheduled to start at 7:05 p.m. [link url="http://www.und.com/sports/monogramclub/spec-rel/020212aaa.html']Click here[/link] for a complete list of all the “Lefty Fest” events taking place on campus during the weekend.