Quinnipiac fans may be outnumbered at Frozen Four, but full of pride pursuing national title

TAMPA, Fla. — There was plenty of gold in the lobby of the Marriott down the block from Amalie Arena early Saturday afternoon before the NCAA men’s hockey championship. There was way more maroon accompanying it than blue, though.

The “State of Hockey” T-shirt. The “Minnesota Knies” T, swapping out “nice” for the name of the Gophers’ standout sophomore, Matthew Knies.

The Minnesota sweaters, polos, sweatshirts with a skating Goldy Gopher: There wasn’t a lot of Quinnipiac blue to cancel it out. Minnesota enrollment is about five times Quinnipiac’s, after all.

That’s fine. The Bobcats fans were outgunned in Thursday’s semifinal, too, to loud Michigan fans. And where are they now?

“They travel well, both those teams,” said Ralph Shaw, coach of North Branford’s boys hockey team, who said he’s been coming to Frozen Fours since the Quinnipiac-Yale finals matchup in Pittsburgh in 2013.

“What a fun atmosphere. I would vote for the NCAA to be here every year. The one year we went to Minnesota, there were three-four inches of snow, minus-15.”

Temperatures down here were in the 90s all week until Saturday broke it all the way down to 88, still definitely go-to-the-game-in-shorts weather. The NCAA awards were handed out Friday at an open-air mall on the waterfront, and the sun and heat sapped at least one young woman who stumbled into a chair.

For the visitors from the northeast, just the plain ol’ north or otherwise, Saturday marked the end of the journey. The Gophers and Bobcats were set to meet for the championship. Minnesota was seeking its first since 2003. Quinnipiac was seeking its first, period.

Quinnipiac alumnus Lev Torgerson, shortly the National Ice Hockey Officials Association meeting, pointed out that the Gophers were 0-3 against ECAC teams in championship games: 1954 against RPI, 1989 against Harvard and 2014 against Union.

He said this was his 35th Frozen Four since the late 1970s, when the NCAA began a decade of shifting the championship between eastern and western cities, long before the trend of putting the Frozen Four in NHL or similar buildings.

“I’ve seen some great games,” Torgerson said.

And a few in the past decade have included his alma mater. Since the 2013 Frozen Four in Pittsburgh, only Minnesota Duluth has appeared in as many finals as the Bobcats, three.

The Bulldogs, of course, are 2-1 in those three and won one in 2011, too.

The Bobcats had played Minnesota only once, on Dec. 9, 2000, just the third season removed from Division II for Quinnipiac. “We got pounded,” coach Rand Pecknold remembered on Friday, and the finagl was indeed 11-2, which he remembered beginning with a fluky Gopher goal off the opening faceoff.

In more ways than one, that was ancient history when the puck dropped Saturday night with a chance for Quinnipiac to bring a title back to its campus and to give the state its second major men’s championship in a week.

“I think it’s great for Quinnipiac University and our fan base, for Bobcat nation,” Pecknold said. “I think it’s great for the state of Connecticut. Certainly in the end we’re trying to win it for Quinnipiac and our players.

“But I think we have our Connecticut Ice Tournament with the four Connecticut teams. It’s great,” he added. “That’s been a good way to promote hockey in our state. We’re in the early stages of having it. But (a championship) will be huge, huge for our area. You really can’t put a value on it.”

mfornabaio@ctpost.com; @fornabaioctp