ORONO – Derek Damon felt the twinge in his knee but thought nothing of it.

After working at the University of Maine’s hockey school this summer, the former St. Dom’s standout was skating with fellow Black Bears one evening.

“I was just skating at night with the guys,” said Damon. “I had the pain in my knee. I just kind of felt it. I thought I had tweaked it or sprained it, but I didn’t think I had torn anything.”

He later discovered that he had torn the meniscus in his left knee. He had arthroscopic surgery in August and has been working his way back since.

“I was working out really hard this summer and really training and dedicating myself,” said Damon, who was the fourth-leading scorer for Maine last year. “To have that happen, you kind of take a couple of steps back.”

With the start of hockey season drawing near, Damon is just about back at full strength. He’s been rehabbing and working on conditioning in recent weeks.

“It’s come along a lot better than I expected,” he said. “I’m just about 100 percent. I can play in games. If we had to play a game tomorrow, I’d be ready to go.”

Damon had to come back from shoulder surgery last year. He was injured in the NCAA tournament game with Michigan and had surgery immediately following the season. He returned to score 13 goals and 18 assists in 44 games as the Black Bears reached the NCAA championship game, where it lost to Denver 1-0. Damon had a goal disallowed in that game when teammate Mike Hamilton’s skate was ruled to have been in the crease. Damon was tied for the lead on the squad with seven power play goals.

“I’d dealt with surgery before,” he said. “but the shoulder was a bit more of a process, and it took a little longer to recover from that. The knee, it was in and out in one day.”

Damon says he doesn’t expect to have any concerns about the knee once the season starts.

“Now I feel confident, and I’m lifting a lot more than I was in the beginning,” he said. “It feels good to get a lot of confidence and on the ice, you feel the same. You have the confidence that you can shoot and make the quick cuts.”