We still find a lot of joy in collegiate hockey, and after watching the sport for almost 30 years now—including multiple stints covering it for USCHO.com—we finally attended our first Frozen Four this week in Las Vegas. So today’s Friday Funday is all about NCAA men’s hockey this time around, and we have to say, it’s everything we had hoped for all these years. Yesterday saw the semifinal matchups between the four schools with the most championships, ever, coincidentally, and it did not disappoint us.

T-Mobile Arena was sold out, with some extra SRO peeps for good measure, to see Wisconsin (six titles) take on North Dakota (eight) and Denver University (ten) face Michigan (nine). While the Fighting Hawks and the Wolverines were top seeds in their respective regionals, both the Badgers and the Pioneers upset the top seeds in their regionals. Yet Thursday’s crowd featured fans from many different schools not present on the ice, demonstrating the general good-natured comaraderie among the sport’s people.

The tickets for the event went on sale in late October, so many fans buy tickets both in anticipation of their teams making it, but they still end up attending whether or not their team actually reaches the Frozen Four. For example, Western Michigan won the title last year but lost to Denver in the regional final, while Michigan State was a top regional seed for the third year in a row without making this far in any of those seasons. Yet we still saw Broncos and Spartans fans everywhere, just here for good hockey.

And that’s exactly what we all got on Thursday: great, if not exceptional, hockey.

First, the Badgers knocked off the Fighting Hawks in much the same way they overcame the Spartans in the regional final, scoring rapid-fire goals to steal a 2-1 victory. Wisconsin finished fourth in the B1G this year, but the team caught fire at the right time, overcoming a late 3-1 deficit to Michigan State on March 28 to escape with a 4-3 overtime victory. This time, the Badgers scored twice within 30 seconds in the first period to take a lead over North Dakota that they would not surrender: Wisconsin dominated.

Overall, the Fighting Hawks just looked slower and not mentally in the game as much as one might have expected from the traditionally strong program that finished the season ranked No. 2 in the polls. However, this marked the first Frozen Four ever where all the teams started freshman goaltenders, and they were all talented, keeping the games relatively low scoring and interesting to the end of both semis on Thursday. Kudos to the Badgers’ Daniel Hauser and North Dakota’s Jan Špunar.

The second game was even more exciting, as the matchup between Denver and Michigan went into double overtime before the Pioneers emerged as 4-3 victors despite being outshot, 52-26, overall. Since taking over the net for his team in January, Denver goalie Johnny Hicks is now 15-0-1 with a 1.19 goals-against average, as he held the high-scoring Michigan skaters in relative check for just long enough to win the game and advance to the title game against Wisconsin on Saturday. It was pretty stunning.

Yet Wolverines netminder Jack Ivankovic was pretty good himself, and when Michigan scored in the third period to break a 2-2 tie, it looked like Hicks’ Pioneer magic would run out. Yet Denver fought back to tie the game with less than three minutes left before getting the winner in the second overtime period from Kent Anderson: a sharp wrister that caught Ivankovic by surprise. Kristian Epperson made the crossing pass to Anderson, and it seemed like the Michigan goalie expected a slap shot. Alas, no.

It was just the second goal all season from Anderson, showing just how much teamwork goes into the Pioneers’ success. This was a team that was languishing with a 13-11-2 record through January 23. Sixteen starts later from their freshman goaltender, and Denver has now won 12 consecutive games to find itself on the brink of winning a record 11th NCAA title—if they can get by the Badgers tomorrow afternoon. If the last few weeks are any precedent, it will take a heck of an effort from either team to win it all.