UND Hockey: A cultural phenomenon nearly 100 years in the making
From humble beginning to national power, Fighting Hawks join juggernaut field in team’s 23rd NCAA Frozen Four Tournament
When it comes to college football, an argument could be made that South Bend, Ind., is holy land. Home to the University of Notre Dame, the city holds the lore of almighty Knute Rockne, the Four Horsemen and “Touchdown Jesus.”
College basketball has its Mecca in the heart of Carolina – land of the Wolfpack, Tarheels and the “Cameron Crazies” – disciples of the Duke Blue Devils.
And then there’s Grand Forks, N.D., high on the northern plains, a place known for its hockey palace on the prairie, a shrine to the pursuit of hockey excellence — and for churning out pros, Olympians and national champions.
Each, in their own way, in their own settings and in their respective anchor programs, is huge. Sacred ground for the perennial elite and their devout followers.
With eight national championships, Grand Forks’ hometown University of North Dakota trails only heated rival Denver University’s 10 and the University of Michigan’s nine for most college hockey titles of all time. It should be noted, however, that Michigan already was a five-time champion by 1955, when bona fide hockey programs could be counted on two hands and parity was nonexistent. The Maize and Blue’s last title came in 1998.
This week, UND, in its 23rd Frozen Four appearance, has a chance to move up the list at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, site of the 2026 national championship. That’s because, in an amusing twist of fate, UND shares the field with fellow juggernauts, Michigan and Denver, along with another historical rival, the University of Wisconsin Badgers. Collectively, this year’s “Frozen Four” teams boast 33 of 78 NCAA men’s hockey titles since 1948.
UND will face off against Wisconsin at 4 p.m. CT, on Thursday, on ESPN2, in the day’s first semifinal. The victor will move on to play Denver or Michigan on ESPN2 in the championship at 4:30 p.m. CT, on Saturday.
Word on the Vegas Strip is that UND students have snatched up all their allotted seats, set aside by the NCAA for Fighting Hawks games in T-Mobile Arena.
Back in Grand Forks, UND students also are expected to flock to the Memorial Union’s Social Stairs and its massive-screen TV on Thursday, for a semifinal watch party. They’ll hope to return on Saturday for a championship game party featuring their Fighting Hawks.
The campus gatherings will be echoed across the country, from University Avenue to The Strip, in a growing list of towns and cities, such as Bismarck; Devils Lake; Wahpeton; Minneapolis-St. Paul; Denver; Boise, Idaho; and Austin, Texas. Another feature in today’s UND Today has more info.
Rite of fall
How has UND hockey evolved into such a cultural phenomenon?
Every October, as the shortening days and the brisk autumn chill leave a canvass of yellow-orange and brown, the return of college hockey and a seasonal religion begins in Grand Forks.
For that past 25 years, the focal point has been Ralph Engelstad Arena, a $104-million gift from the late benefactor, Ralph Engelstad — a successful alumnus, businessman and Las Vegas hotel and casino magnate. In the early 2000’s, Engelstad, very much a hands-on boss with more than a half-century of construction management chops, built the magnificent and palatial showcase to college hockey over the open fields that comprised the southwest corner of Gateway Drive and North Columbia Road in Grand Forks.
With the closest professional teams hundreds of miles away in Minneapolis and Winnipeg, UND hockey consistently fills the 11,400-plus capacity seating, including the luxury suits, of Engelstad Arena. Days before doors open for gamedays, many among UND’s nearly 16,000-strong student body opt to pitch tents in a line outside the arena to ensure they get first dibs on seats in the lower bowl at ice level along the glass. There’s also a waiting list for general season tickets.
The weekend home games draw fans from hundreds of miles away, including regional hubs such as Fargo, Minot, Bismarck, Winnipeg – and beyond. Local pubs and restaurants transport patrons to and from the games in school buses and large, modified vans.
Humble beginning to shocking upset
But the genesis of UND hockey and its avid fanbase dates back much earlier.
UND has been the centerpiece of Grand Forks’ wintertime love affair with hockey for nearly 100 years, when people such as J. Newman Power and Chet Bridgeman (of the Bridgman Dairy family) built the first crude ice rink on campus. These local hockey-loving pioneers would wait until late at night to run a fire hydrant hose across the street to flood the rink.
The University fielded club teams, off and on, from 1929 to 1937, before pausing due to the onset of World War II. Hockey made a comeback on campus with the school’s first post-war team in 1946; however, it took until the following year for anyone to take notice. That’s when UND nipped eventual national champion Michigan by one goal in the team’s first true college game.
That game spurred an instant fanatical devotion to UND hockey – a feeling that has bridged the generations and endures today.
“The discovery of a sport in which North Dakota could hold its own in the big time was a morale factor not to be lightly discounted,” wrote famed North Dakota and UND historian Louis Geiger, in is book, University of the Northern Plains: A History of the University of North Dakota.”
Kids have been playing the game in Grand Forks on frozen rivers, coulees and field sloughs since the early 1900s. The town even produced an early NHL star in Cliff “Fido” Purpur, a sign that the sport already had been woven in the local fabric before UND hockey was a thing.
But it was UND that made the game an even bigger deal in town and across the state.
The fact that the University is here “really got it going,” the late legendary Grand Forks high school hockey coach Serge Gambucci told this author in 2004.
Gambucci came to Grand Forks to teach and coach hockey in 1955.
“Big-time hockey against teams like Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin — you know, you very rarely saw that here in other sports on a continual basis,” he said.
Laying the champion foundation
Even in the 1950s and 60s, UND’s hockey team attracted 50,000 fans each season to contests held in “The Barn,” the unheated and drafty Winter Sports Building on campus. As the program grew, the team played in newer and bigger venues: first, the “old” Engelstad Arena with its 6,000-plus seats, the home of UND hockey for 30 years, before the program transitioned to the new Ralph in 2001.
The program took its biggest early stride when the NHL standout Purpur coached UND (1950-57). Although his teams won no titles, his efforts laid the foundation for UND’s first two national championships in 1959 and 1963 under then head coaches Bob May and Barry Thorndycraft, respectively.
“The sport was firmly established at the major one in North Dakota, and the University as a major hockey power in the seven years that (Purpur) coached,” Geiger wrote.
UND teams would go on to hang even more championship banners in 1980, 1982, 1987, 1997, 2000 and 2016, under coaches John “Gino” Gasperini, Dean Blais, and Brad Berry.
Tough-nosed, blue-collar legends
Much of UND’s storied hockey history has been aided by young, tough-nosed players from blue-collar backgrounds in Grand Forks and East Grand Forks and the northern Red River Valley, as well as small towns and farms in northwestern Minnesota and the heartland of Canada.
UND has sent 100-plus players on to the professional ranks – many landing on NHL rosters, produced nearly 50 first-team All-Americans, and dozens of Olympians, mostly for the U.S. and Canada.
The exploits of former UND hockey legends, such as Cal Marvin, John Noah, Reg Morelli, Doug Smail, Phil Sykes, Craig Ludwig, Dave Christian, Jim Archibald, James Patrick, Tony Hrkac, Bob Joyce, Ian Kidd, Ed Belfour, Jonanthan Toews, Ryan Duncan, Mike Commodore, T.J. Oshie, Zach Parise, Brock Boeser and Brock Nelson, just to name a handful, still are subjects for coffee shop or barroom fodder in and around — as well as far beyond — Grand Forks.
So, Detroit and Warroad, Minn., can continue to duke it out for the claim to be the official “Hockeytown USA.” But never forget, there’s another place that belongs in the conversation: Grand Forks and the University of North Dakota – a crossroads of sorts, a proving ground where young amateurs are molded into champions.
And it’s all on the line again this week, as that legacy is poised to grow even richer with a chance at banner No. 9 – and all the hometown glory that’ll come with it.
Go Hawks! Go UND!
