Last offseason, he dedicated his summer toward losing weight on the personalized and self-named "Teddy Hume Diet."
This year, the junior goaltender for the Penn State ACHA Division I Icers spent much of his time in the weight room, focused mainly on squats and leg presses.
Teddy Hume's goal was to regain the leg strength he lost while participating in that diet just over a year ago, which he admitted consisted of mostly just eating Ramen Noodles and working out.
"To me, it was real important trying to get that power back in my legs," he said, "That leg strength is huge, so I can move faster side-to-side and not let up soft goals."
With Nick Signet, the team's leader in starts in net last year, graduating last spring, that leaves the team with Hume and fellow junior John Jay as the team's only returning goaltenders.
Although Jay won all of his starts last year, he only appeared in three games, whereas Hume posted a 15-2 record, while appearing in 19 games total. As a freshman, Hume played 14 games, finishing the season 10-2, which gives him a career record of 25-4.
Although he plans to keep his philosophy of starting whichever goalie has the hot hand in net, coach Scott Balboni said Hume will not be going into every weekend knowing he will start only one of the weekend's two games like he did last year.
"He's in a situation where he's played a lot of games and has the experience," Balboni said. "And he's the guy who, going into the year, will be looked at as our No. 1 goaltender. Our intention is for him to play a lot of hockey games this year, and physically, I think he's ready to do that."
After spending much of the offseason in the gym, Hume isn't worried about the physical demand of being the team's potential top goaltender.
His focus, he said, is on making sure he's ready to take on the new role from a mental standpoint. This year, a bad start on Friday night doesn't necessarily mean he has a week to recover before his next start.
Hume has never been in a situation where he wasn't splitting starts with Signet every weekend, and although Jay will get his chances in net, Hume said he needs to be prepared to make two starts some weekends.
"Goaltending is as mentally exhausting, if not more, than it is physically exhausting," Hume said. "I need to make sure I can stay focused for two games each week if I need to, and not suffer any mental lapses that lead to easy goals or anything like that."
The team's most-experienced defenseman, Steve Thurston, came to Penn State in the same class as Signet, and said it will certainly be different not having Signet as the last line of defense.
"Nick was a great goalie, and he took Teddy and John Jay under his wing and helped them a lot," Thurston said, "so hopefully these guys can follow in those footsteps and do the same thing. Signet did a great job, but now it's time for the next guy to step into that role."
While Hume said the main goal is obviously to win a national championship, he's trying to take things slowly and adjust to his new role on the team on a game-by-game basis.
"Whether it's making a big save or playing the puck more," Hume said, "I just want to be a key contributor to helping this team win as many games as possible."
