With the shootout knotted Tuesday in Colorado College’s season opener and a conference standings point on the line, why did the coaching staff turn to the most snakebitten Tiger, with the outfit to prove it?

“That’s a good question, actually,” freshman Hunter McKown said. “I was wondering the same thing.”

Every Monday, McKown said, the Tigers hold a shootout competition. You score and you’re safe. The last man standing has to wear a “track suit with lightning bolts all over it” to school, meals, all over — all week.

“It’s horrific,” McKown said.

He wore it two weeks in a row leading up to the opener.

His shootout move, slow and shifty, worked at first. He said it was successful until the Colorado College goaltenders caught on.

But Western Michigan’s Austin Cain hadn’t, and McKown got the puck past him. Tigers goaltender Matt Vernon waited out the tying bid at the other end and Colorado College started the Omaha pod and the season on a high note.

Whether that goal got McKown out of the doghouse is irrelevant for now. The “lightning suit” is safely back in Colorado Springs.

“I did not pack it, as much as some people may have wanted to see that,” McKown said, laughing. “I thought I had done my time on that and didn’t feel like I needed to humiliate myself any further.”

He’s been calling the shots to some degree in the sport since toddlerhood, when he asked to start skating. It wasn’t a common request for a kid in San Jose, Calif., but his parents went with it. He was part of the Sharks’ AAA system before leaving for St. Louis at 14.

After two years there, he joined the USA Hockey National Team Development Program. In fall of 2019, he started talking to Colorado College and committed quickly, becoming one of four California natives on the roster this season.

“The defensive zone was really where McKown shone brightest,” Elite Prospects noted in a 2020 draft guide. “His game lends itself better to center than it does the wing, simply because he’s so damn good at supporting his defensemen in the corners and his wings in transition. He plays sound positional hockey and picks up the open person well to mitigate scoring opportunities.”

NHL Central Scouting had the 6-foot-1 forward 206th in its final North American skater rankings and he was a later-round draft possibility. McKown wasn’t selected and said it didn’t faze him.

“I kind of knew what to expect and I decided not to focus on it,” McKown said. “I knew where I was going to be next year, which was here at CC, and I was excited to come here and write a new story.

“I’m just going to try and come out here and play my game and let it speak for itself.”

With COVID-19 creating the need for ever-shifting protocols, the group of players that arrived on campus in late August was mostly freshmen. Though McKown acknowledged he has only his own experience to draw on, he suspects this class of 12 is tighter than usual.

“I think coming to campus early and being the only teammates there kind of forwarded that whole thing,” McKown said. “We all get along really well.”

The team gradually assembled and prepared for the National Collegiate Hockey Conference pod, designed to open the season safely in Omaha. But a CC player tested positive and two weeks of quarantine followed. The schedule was altered and the Tigers joined the pod a week late.

“They made it work for us. It wasn’t awful,” McKown said of quarantine. “It was just the fact that you couldn’t skate, knowing you had to play right after.”

McKown needed the first period Tuesday against Western Michigan to settle in. Donning the No. 41 he wore during his NTDP days, he played between Chicago Blackhawks pick Josiah Slavin, a sophomore, and Miami transfer Brian Hawkinson, a junior. McKown took three shots and nine faceoffs.

“As the game went on, I thought Hunter McKown got better and better,” coach Mike Haviland said. “You could see his skill set.”

In the second period, he won a faceoff, planted himself in front of the net, turned and beat Cain to make it 3-2.

“Right after that, I just felt kind of at home,” McKown said. “The nerves were gone.”

The shootout struggles were soon banished as well.

Colorado College (0-1-1) has a rematch with Western Michigan on Friday at 6:30 p.m. Follow @kateshefte on Twitter and check gazettedev.gazette.com for more on the Tigers’ pod performance.

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