The Frozen Four was an unlikely quartet to begin with, because all of the finalists were from the Western Collegiate Hockey Association. But the teams that will meet for the NCAA championship tonight -- Denver and North Dakota -- make an especially rare pair in contrast.
Denver, which defeated Colorado College by 6-2 on Thursday night, is the defending national champion and the current conference tournament champion. The Pioneers finished the regular season tied for first place in the standings, and they are 31-9-2 over all.
North Dakota, which defeated Minnesota by 4-2 in the second semifinal at the Schottenstein Center, finished a mediocre fifth place in the WCHA, one game above .500. The Fighting Sioux are 25-14-4 overall.
But North Dakota is 9-1-2 in its past 12 games, the only defeat a 2-1 loss to Denver in overtime in the semifinal of the league playoffs. Although the Sioux also lost their other two games against Denver this season, they are on the kind of late-season surge that could end in an unlikely championship.
"I think we are due for something," said Jordan Parise, the North Dakota goalie who stopped 26 shots and survived a bump on the head in a collision late in the game with Tyler Hirsch of the Golden Gophers (28-15-1).
Referring to the rivalry with Denver, Parise said: "I think we're due for a win. It was tough at midseason. There were plenty of doubts. There was a point we weren't in the playoffs. We just persevered."
Parise is the son of J.P. Parise, a former NHL player who was a playoff hero with the Islanders 30 years ago when his goal eliminated the Rangers. He is also the brother of Zach Parise, a first-round draft choice of the Devils who is playing in the minor leagues.
Although garrulous after the game and in good spirits, Parise also looked glassy-eyed and was asked how he felt after lying on the ice for a couple minutes after his collision. "Um, I'm pretty good," he said, allowing that he suffered from a headache.
Erik Fabian and Travis Zajac each scored twice for the Sioux. Fabian scored one in each of the first two periods at even strength, and Zajac made the lead 4-0 in the third period on a power-play goal and a short-handed goal. Mike Howe and Gino Guyer scored on power plays for Minnesota to cut the lead in half.
In the first game, every goal was on the power play, including two each for Luke Fulghum and Gabe Gauthier of the Pioneers. Scott Owens, the coach of Colorado College, noted that his team took 14 minor penalties despite being "one of the least-penalized teams in the country," until now.
"We were dumb on a lot of penalties," he said. "We got frustrated with everything and lost our composure a little bit."
Also scoring for Denver were Matt Carle and Adrian Veideman. Colorado College (31-9-3) had a goal from Brian Salcido to cut the Denver lead to 3-1 at nine minutes 49 seconds of the second period, and one by James Brannigan, to cut the lead to 5-2 at 13:02 of the third.
Peter Mannino, Denver's freshman goalie, made 41 saves. Denver coach George Gwozdecky said he did not know whether Mannino would start the championship game. The coach has disrupted the regular goalie rotation with Glenn Fisher, a sophomore. "We'll have time to make that decision," Gwozdecky said.
Fulghum's two goals opened the scoring at 13:54 and 15:26 of the first period. The first was a classic; he took a pass near the blue line, raced down the slot, faked a defenseman, Lee Sweatt, off his skates and beat Curtis McElhinney cleanly between the skates with a wrist shot.
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