Tonight, Chris Wilder and Brent Hart will play in front of what may be the largest crowd ever to attend a West Virginia University hockey game.

WVU faces Pittsburgh in the Backyard Brawl on Ice at 7 tonight at the South Charleston Memorial Ice Arena, in front of an expected sellout crowd of about 600.

On Monday, Wilder, Hart, and WVU assistant coach Van Anderson were all smiles as they practiced in South Charleston with the local youth hockey team, the West Virginia Wild.

Earlier in the season, WVU knocked off the Panthers 4-3 in a game played in Harmarville, Pa.

"They're a good team," Anderson said. "They have a great offense. They outshot us in the first game, and they probably will again. It's going to be up to Chris [the goaltender] to shut them down."

"I'll be ready," Wilder, a junior from Plainview, N.Y., added. "They're a very aggressive team."

"We always step up our game when we play them," said Hart, a junior forward from Morgantown. "The rivalry isn't quite life and death like it is in some other sports. We play with a lot of those guys over the summer, but we still want to beat them."

Anderson's son, Jeff Anderson, coaches the Mountaineers, who compete on the club sport level.

Jeff Anderson played for WVU in the mid-1990s and led the team to its first American Collegiate Hockey Association playoff spot in 1996.

After working two stints as an assistant coach at WVU, Jeff took over the head coaching position in 2007. Both he and Van are from Morgantown. Van got Jeff into hockey as a child, when Van worked as the Director of Parks and Recreation in Morgantown.

Van is affectionately referred to by the team as "Coach Gramps." As he and the players prepared for the practice, he curiously inquired Hart about his prepractice snack, a container of blackberries, and jokingly reminded the players how they came up with the practice schedule.

"We practice late at nights," Anderson said. "Until 11 to keep them all out of the bars."

Hart came into the game through Morgantown Parks and Recreation also.

"My grandmother worked for the system," he said. "And I got into it, it gave me something to do and kept me out of trouble. I went to prep school in Pittsburgh to play in high school. I love the competition. I think once you see that first hockey game in person, whether it's youth, bantam, college or pro, you get hooked."

"And we get really cool pads," Wilder chipped in.

The Mountaineers are 15-7-3 and in the running to earn the fourth playoff berth in the school's history.

"That's been one of the goals of the year," Anderson said.

WVU plays in the ACHA, a hockey division for schools without NCAA varsity programs.

The Mountaineers are in the College Hockey Mid American Conference, which also includes Pitt. To make the playoffs, WVU must finish in the Top 16 nationally. In the last ACHA rankings in mid-December, the Mountaineers were No. 21.

"[Indiana University of Pennsylvania] and Slippery Rock are the toughest conference teams," Hart said. "They're who we're gunning for."

All three were excited to skate and practice with the Charleston youth hockey program.

"We always get a lot of support in Charleston," Anderson said. "We love the chance to give back."

Reach Michael Polak at        mpola...@gmail.com.