April 5, 2010
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Detroit Has History of Classic Frozen Fours
CHN Staff Report
RPI wins the 1985 national championship.
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Highlights of Wisconsin's win over Colgate in the 1990 championship game.
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Neal Broten scores the game winner in the 1979 NCAA championship game.
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This is the first time a Frozen Four will be played in a football stadium, but it's not the first time it will be played in Detroit.
Though it hasn't been there in 20 years, Detroit was once a popular destination for college hockey's ultimate weekend. Five times in a 14-year span, between 1977 and 1990, the Frozen Four came to what's now known as Hockeytown, in two different previous venues.
The city also has served as a good omen for one of this year's participants — Wisconsin — which twice won national titles there.
The first time it was there was 1977, and it also featured a prominent member with ties to this year's event — Wisconsin coach Mike Eaves. Eaves was a captain on that Badgers team — coached by the legendary Bob Johnson — which won its second national championship when Steve Alley scored the game winner 23 seconds into overtime to defeat Michigan, 6-5.
That game was played in the old Olympia, the Red Wings' arena prior to Joe Louis Arena being built. The final took place in front of a sellout crowd of 14,437, a sellout at the time.
Michigan was in the WCHA in those days, and Wisconsin had swept the Wolverines in the league playoffs. Wisconsin led 5-2 in the third period of the championship game before Michigan roared back to tie it, only to be heartbroken in the OT.
It was another one-goal game in 1979 at The Olympia, with future 1980 U.S. Olympian Neal Broten scoring the game winner in the third period of Minnesota's 4-3 win over North Dakota. In fact, you can see that goal in the footage at the right.
Broten went on not only to win the gold medal with Team USA, but to win the first Hobey Baker Award in 1981 (though even he admits his brother Aaron should've won it). Six other members of that Minnesota team wound up on the 1980 Olympic team. Of course both were coached by the Gophers' coach at the time, Herb Brooks, who won his third national title of the decade. Minnesota didn't win it all again until 2002.
In 1985, with the scene shifting to the relatively new Joe Louis Arena, it was yet another one-goal game.
RPI wasn't quite an underdog that year, but coming out of the ECAC — in the first season after the split with Hockey East — it was quite a run nonetheless. It was the first title for an ECAC team since Boston University in 1978.
To get there, the Engineers had to knock off a Minnesota-Duluth team which had lost the national championship the year before, and was loaded. It included a rookie named Brett Hull, a three-time All-American in Norm MacIver, and Hobey winner Bill Watson.
Of course, RPI was no slouch — featuring John Carter, Adam Oates, Daren Puppa, and Kraig Nienhuis. RPI came into the Frozen Four with a 31-game unbeaten streak.
In the semifinal, RPI defeated UMD 6-5 in triple overtime. In those days, one semifinal was on Thursday and another on Friday. RPI played the Friday game, and on short rest, had to turn around and play Providence in the final.
Of course, Providence played a 3 OT game as well, with Chris Terreri turning in a monumental 62-save performance to defeat Boston College.
George Servinis wound up with the game winner, scoring shorthanded for RPI in the final against Providence.
Again at Joe Louis Arena in 1987, the hometown Michigan State Spartans were defending champs and seemed poised for another title. But North Dakota, led by that year's Hobey winner Tony Hrkac, and with Ed Belfour in net, had other ideas. The Sioux jumped out to a 3-0 lead en route to the national title under Gino Gasparini.
It was certainly a different era — an offensive one. North Dakota had Bob Joyce and his 52 goals that season, and Hrkac had an NCAA record 116 points.
North Dakota played that season in the wake of pre-season tragedy, when highly-touted incoming recruit George Pelawa, a first-round draft choice of the Calgary Flames, was killed in an automobile accident just as school was starting.
In 1990, Wisconsin, under Jeff Sauer, won its second national title in Detroit, knocking off a Colgate team that stands as the last ECAC squad to reach the championship game.
After squeaking by a talented Boston College team in the semifinal, the Badgers, led by tournament MOP Chris Tancill, rolled in the final.
