Feature stories
It takes six and a half hours to fly from Anchorage, Alaska, to Grand Forks, N.D. If you add in connections, plus the time it takes to get to the airport and home again, you’re looking at a 12-hour trip. On February 20, those 12 hours must have felt like an eternity for the North … Read more
Denver has crafted a 3-0 record against North Dakota this season, with a key reason being that the Pioneers have been able to stay a step or two ahead of the Sioux. Translating that to Saturday’s national championship game, the start will be critical to both. The Pioneers have scored first in all three games … Read more
In each of the eight previous World Women’s Championships, Canada has beaten the U.S. in the final. Saturday afternoon in Linkoping, Sweden, Canada will look to make it nine a row. In the semifinal round, Canada beat Finland 3-0 and the U.S. beat Sweden 4-1 to set up the gold medal game rematch. Minnesota junior … Read more
In the first half of the season, Minnesota was flying, piling up goals, getting great goaltending, and ripping through the schedule. North Dakota, a big, strong team, was seeing its senior leaders play undisciplined, and its goaltending situation up in the air. A team built for the NCAAs was unlikely to get there. But by … Read more
Erik Fabian’s second two-goal effort of the playoffs may not have been expected, but it has put North Dakota just one period away from a date with Denver in the national championship game. Fabian, a fourth-line winger, has both goals as North Dakota leads Minnesota 2-0 after two periods of a Frozen Four semifinal at … Read more
As a hockey coach, you hope to rely on what is expected: that your top scorers will create offense, and that your goaltender can play steady, if not pace your club’s defense. Thursday night, North Dakota got those things in beating Minnesota, 4-2, to advance to the national championship game. The Sioux got solid goaltending … Read more
If the decision backfired, the negative headline was already written: It Wasn’t Broke. All season long, Denver coach George Gwozdecky had employed as pure of a goaltending rotation as possible. Sophomore Glenn Fisher would take the opening game of a weekend and freshman Peter Mannino would follow the next night. Heading into the Frozen Four, … Read more
During the regionals, ESPN analyst Barry Melrose likened Denver’s power play to taking a pretty girl on a date. It looks good, he said, but in the end, you still didn’t score. After Thursday’s NCAA semifinal, you can call Denver’s power play Don Juan. The six power-play goals it scored was an all-time single-game NCAA … Read more
Sometimes, someone just has your number. For the 2004-2005 Colorado College Tigers, the team that held all the right numbers at the right times was the Denver Pioneers. Thursday’s 6-2 Pioneers win was the third straight decision in Denver’s favor against CC, and that streak represented three of the biggest games of the season for … Read more
Special teams are ruling the day in the first Frozen Four semifinal, and Denver is taking a three-goal lead into the third period. Luke Fulghum scored a pair of power-play goals in the first period and Matt Carle added one on the man advantage in the second to give Denver a 3-0 lead over Colorado … Read more
It was surprising to most that Denver and Colorado College combined for eight goals in Thursday’s first semifinal, as Denver came out on top, 6-2. More surprising, stunning even, was the fact that all eight goals came on the power play. Denver finished the game 6-for-12 with the man advantage, while CC was 2-for-8. For … Read more
With the 2005 Frozen Four under way, Dave Starman takes a trip down memory lane to championships past.
20 years ago a group of young men from Troy, N.Y. engineered the longest winning streak in all of college hockey. Built from a loss in the NCAA Tournament in 1984, the 1985 Rensselaer Engineers took the game to another level and a place that would stand in NCAA history.
Letting bygones be bygones. That’s Robbie Bina’s approach this weekend, as he roots on his teammates in the NCAA Frozen Four. The North Dakota sophomore defenseman saw his season come to an end last month when he was hit from behind by Denver freshman Geoff Paukovich during the WCHA Final Five semifinals. Robbie Bina watches … Read more
It’s not just four WCHA teams in the Frozen Four: it’s a pair of rivalry games in the semifinals Thursday.
It’s been more than two decades coming, but the Frozen Four finally has gone back to school. This weekend’s tournament will be the first since 1983 to be played on a college campus, as Ohio State hosts the annual event at Value City Arena. Don’t, though, go blaming your local college or university for not … Read more
At first glance, Columbus, Ohio, doesn’t appear to be the 15th largest city in the United States. Well, at second glance, it doesn’t either — unless you know where to look. In the 15 years that I have lived here, Columbus has become a very livable city, a mix of small-town and cosmopolitan, where you … Read more
A very different team produced a familiar result for Denver, which has a shot at a second straight NCAA title this weekend.
There’s an intriguing backstory accompanying each of the teams in this season’s historic Frozen Four. One team certainly wasn’t expected to get here. North Dakota, a team coming off extensive losses on offense, had to fight its way past Boston University and top overall seed Boston College in games played just a couple of hours … Read more
When the chips were down in the regional final, Mark Stuart led Colorado College out of the wilderness.