Former Oil Baron Branden Gracel puts heat on UMass foes

UMass hockey player Branden Gracel is one person who took this week’s frigid weather in stride. After all, the thermometer was at minus-9 degrees midweek outside Thickwood Heights Arena back in Fort McMurray, Alberta, where the junior center played before arriving at the Mullin Center in Amherst.

“That was the coldest place I’ve probably been in,” Gracel said about the northern Canadian outpost. “I remember getting out of my warm truck to fill it up with gas and by the time I finished the truck was cold again.”

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 By John Connolly / Boston Herald