For the NCHC, after years of March memories, it’s ‘Last Call in St. Paul’

From the inaugural WCHA Final Four in 1988 to what will be the final NCHC Frozen Faceoff this weekend, St. Paul has been the capital city of college hockey during conference tournament time.

First at the St. Paul Civic Center and then at Xcel Energy Center, hockey fans from the Upper Midwest would flock to such matchups as Gophers-Badgers, UND-Denver and St. Cloud State-UMD in a two- or three-game tournament setting.

That changed starting in the 2013-14 season, the inaugural campaign of the Big Ten, which yanked Minnesota and Wisconsin out of the WCHA to start their own six-team conference when Penn State became a varsity program. That prompted North Dakota, Minnesota Duluth, St. Cloud State, Colorado College, Denver and Nebraska Omaha to join with Miami (Ohio) and Western Michigan to form the hockey-only NCHC.

The Big Ten and slimmed-down WCHA tried tournaments that rotated between St. Paul and Michigan venues for a handful of years, but attendance woes quickly ended that plan.

On Friday and Saturday at Xcel, it’s “Last Call in St. Paul” for the NCHC, which has played its tournament semifinals and final in St. Paul since 2018 after spending its first four years at Target Center. The NCHC will follow the Big Ten and CCHA in holding its tournament at campus sites, rather than one arena, starting next year.

“The event for the NCHC worked, but it didn’t thrive,” said the Grand Forks Herald’s Brad Schlossman, the dean of NCHC hockey writers. “It was good enough to keep it going, but it had no chance to being the same without Minnesota there and Wisconsin.”

Denver will meet Arizona State, and North Dakota will face regular-season champion Western Michigan in the last Frozen Faceoff semifinals on Friday, and the locations of three of those teams tell why the NCHC is going to on-campus sites. Tempe, Ariz., is roughly 1,700 miles from St. Paul. Denver is more than 900. And Kalamazoo, Mich., is about 550.

Those aren’t driving trips, and proximity — plus a healthy dose of bitter rivalries — fueled the WCHA Final Five in its heyday when it moved into the Wild’s home. Thirteen WCHA Final Fives were played at the X starting in 2001, and 11 of them had announced attendances of 70,000 or more, with a high of 88,900 in 2007 (an average of 17,780 per game).

The biggest draws were the Gophers, playing in their backyard, and North Dakota, with a fan base that will travel anywhere and an alumni association that’s strong in the Twin Cities. Two of the most memorable matchups between the two came in 2007, when Blake Wheeler dived to score in overtime to beat UND 3-2 for the WCHA title, and in 2012, when North Dakota, down 3-0 midway through the second period, scored five goals in the third to win 6-3 in a raucous semifinal.

“The games were unbelievable, which fed into it,” Schlossman said. “If you went to one of those games, how would you not want to go back?”

The NCHC Frozen Faceoff has delivered thrillers, too, especially defending national champion Minnesota Duluth’s stirring 3-2 double-overtime victory over top-ranked St. Cloud State in 2019.

North Dakota coach Brad Berry, who also played for UND, knows what the trip to St. Paul means to his program and its fans.

“Everybody valued it, and everybody at the start of the year had that weekend circled on their calendars,” Berry said. “And it usually revolved around St. Patrick’s Day.”

This weekend, Berry will soak in the atmosphere — to a point. His Fighting Hawks must win the tournament to make the NCAA field.

“I know it’s kind of going to be sentimental this weekend because it’s the last one we have before we go to home sites,” he said. “But for us, it’s a business trip.”

March Madness hits college hockey this weekend as the six Division I men’s conferences crown their champions, and 10 other teams earn at-large NCAA tournament bids via their status in the PairWise Rankings. The NCAA field will be announced at 2 p.m. Sunday on ESPNU. Here is my projection of what the tournament field will look like:

Manchester, N.H., regional (March 28, 30)

1. Boston College vs. 16. Holy Cross

8. Providence vs. 9. Quinnipiac

Toledo, Ohio, regional (March 27, 29)

2. Michigan State vs. 14. Minnesota State

7. Connecticut vs. 10. Ohio State

Allentown, Pa., regional (March 28, 30)

3. Maine vs. 13. Penn State

6. Boston University vs. 11. Denver

Fargo regional (March 27, 29)

4. Western Michigan vs. 15. Michigan

5. Gophers vs. 12. Massachusetts

Comments: Conference tournament champions in this projection are Holy Cross (Atlantic Hockey America), Maine (Hockey East), Michigan State (Big Ten), Minnesota State (CCHA), Quinnipiac (ECAC) and Western Michigan (NCHC).

* No. 13 Penn State is slated for Fargo but must be placed in Allentown because it is the host school. That produces a three-way swap, with Michigan moving from Toledo (breaking up a first-round intraconference matchup with Michigan State) to Fargo, and Minnesota State moving from Allentown to Toledo.

Last at-large teams in field: Michigan, Massachusetts.

Last at-large teams out: Arizona State, UMass Lowell.