Las Vegas is going to experience the Frozen Four for the first time Thursday at T-Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n
The Vegas Golden Knights won\u2019t be in town, but those that participated in the Frozen Four yesteryear are excited for what\u2019s to come.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope it\u2019s great,\u201d center Jack Eichel said. \u201cI assume the teams that are in it will have really good support from their fans and university\u2019s community.<\/p>\n
\u201c(T-Mobile Arena) is a great building and it\u2019s really cool that it\u2019s going to get to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three Knights players \u2014 Eichel, winger Reilly Smith and new center Nic Dowd \u2014 have experienced being on the cusp of playing for a national championship.<\/p>\n
Some have played in NHL arenas. Others have played in NFL stadiums.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s probably going to shock a lot of the players early,\u201d Dowd said about playing at T-Mobile. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be one of those things where it\u2019s not like they get to adjust over a season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eichel shines for Boston<\/p>\n
The 2015 Frozen Four was going to be held at TD Garden in Boston.<\/p>\n
Boston University playing for a national championship in Boston? Seems feasible.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was our goal to be a part of it,\u201d Eichel said.<\/p>\n
Boston knocked off Yale 3-2 in overtime, then followed with a thrilling 3-2 win over Minnesota-Duluth to reach the Frozen Four.<\/p>\n
National powerhouse North Dakota waited. You would think that TD Garden would be filled to the brim with Terrier red and black in support for the hometown university.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was actually a pretty North Dakota-full crowd,\u201d Eichel said. \u201cThey travel well. I don\u2019t remember exactly what would be the percent be for BU fans versus North Dakota fans, but they definitely had a lot of people there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eichel, the Hobey Baker Award winner that year, put Boston on his back again one more time with two goals and an assist to beat UND.<\/p>\n
North Dakota nearly erased a three-goal deficit in the third period before Eichel scored into the empty net to send BU to the title game.<\/p>\n
It was the 22nd time Boston played in the Frozen Four. Only a national championship would\u2019ve been the perfect cap on Eichel\u2019s lone college season, but the Terriers lost 4-3 to Providence two days later.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d always dream of playing in the Frozen Four,\u201d Eichel said. \u201cTo be a part of that weekend and everything that comes with it, and the fact that it was in Boston, it made it that much more special.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really hard to get there. I find the parity in college hockey to be really tight. Anybody can really beat anybody on any given night. I think that\u2019s what makes college hockey great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith flies high at Miami<\/p>\n
Smith arrived his freshman year at Miami (OH), joining a program with high expectations. The RedHawks made it to the national championship the year before, but lost 4-3 in overtime to Boston.<\/p>\n
The Terriers scored twice in the final minute to force overtime.<\/p>\n
There was a lot of buzz going into the 2010 season with the Frozen Four at Ford Field in Detroit.<\/p>\n
Miami knocked off Alabama-Huntsville 2-1, then beat Michigan 3-2 in double overtime in the regional final to set up a matchup with Boston College.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood memories going into it,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThen we lost 7-1 in our first game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boston College was the No. 1 team all season, stacked with future NHL talent like Chris Kreider, Cam Atkinson and Brian Dumoulin.<\/p>\n
\u201cNational championship would\u2019ve been great for your school, but we came up a little short,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
On Cloud Nine<\/p>\n
Dowd was named the captain of St. Cloud State his senior year in 2014 and was a finalist for the Hobey Baker.<\/p>\n
The year before, Dowd was part of history with the Huskies making it to the Frozen Four for the first time.<\/p>\n
They weren\u2019t the only school that year to make their first trips. Massachusetts-Lowell and Quinnipiac were also in their first national semifinal appearances.<\/p>\n
But it was Yale that went on to win their first national title against Quinnipiac, who defeated St. Cloud State 4-1 in the Frozen Four.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s the goal of any college hockey player is to win the national championship,\u201d Dowd said. \u201cYou kind of daydream about stuff like that as you get into that age in your life.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose guys are some of the closest guys that will be around for the rest of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com.<\/a> Follow @DannyWebster21<\/a> on X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Las Vegas is going to experience the Frozen Four for the first time Thursday at T-Mobile Arena. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5129],"tags":[149,5317,5,4,74,39,5316],"class_list":{"0":"post-548244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vegas-golden-knights","8":"tag-golden-knights","9":"tag-goldenknights","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-vegas","13":"tag-vegas-golden-knights","14":"tag-vegasgoldenknights"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116371678028417115","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}