By Calhonda
The Golden Griffins (20-18-3) men’s hockey team will take on Nation’s #1 seed
and powerhouse Minnesota Gophers (26-9-1) on Thursday 3/23 in the NCAA National
Championship tournament. The game will be played in Scheels Arena located in Fargo,
North Dakota at 9 p.m. est and can be found on ESPN2.
The team is led by Trevor Large who’s in his 6th season as the team’s head
coach. He previously served as the teams assistant coach from 2014 – 2017 and took
over the team after former head coach Dave Smith left to coach RPI. Large racked up
his most career wins in a season as an NCAA hockey head coach with 20.
This marks the second time in the history of the Golden Griffins that the team has
made the tournament which features 16 teams. The last time came in in 2013. Canisius
ended up losing to the east region #1 seed Quinnipiac 4-3.
Canisius reached the tournament by beating Holy Cross 3-0 securing the Atlantic Hockey Championship. No team from the Atlantic Hockey Conference has ever won a national championship, however RIT
made the semifinals before losing to Wisconsin 8-1.
It’s also worth noting that American International college was the last team from the Atlantic Hockey Conference to win a game in the NCAA tournament by defeating #1 seed St. Cloud State in 2019. This
proved to be one of the biggest upsets in the tournament’s history, and was also played
in Scheels Arena.