UAA can extend its postseason possibilities, marginally salvage an otherwise bleak campaign, break its rival's stranglehold on the Governor's Cup, send its seniors off in style in their home-ice finale and savor the ecstasy of delivering its antagonist into the offseason on a bummer of a note.
UAF can feed its rival some misery, finish its season with a long unbeaten streak, show continued character in difficult circumstances, tighten its stranglehold on the Governor's Cup with an epic series comeback and enjoy the absolute delight of parading around its rival's ice with hardware held aloft.
"Everything's on the line,'' said UAA senior winger Brett Cameron. "It's our season. It's their season. It's the Cup.''
Gee, nothing else at stake this weekend?
Sounds like a slice of hockey heaven.
"There's a lot of hype,'' noted UAF coach Dallas Ferguson. "That's good for the game, good for the players and good for the fans.''
About the only way there could be more hanging in the balance this weekend at Sullivan Arena is if the losing team had to leave the state and never return.
UAA, you might know, sits last in the 10-team Western Collegiate Hockey Association. The Seawolves can only advance to the league's playoffs if its beats UAF on Friday and Saturday nights, and if Alabama-Huntsville and Lake Superior State suffer dismal results in their regular season-ending series. On another front, even a tie will earn the Seawolves the Cup because they swept Games 1 and 2 of the four-game Cup in Fairbanks in January, a situation the Nanooks surely aim to avenge.
UAF is prohibited from the postseason because of NCAA violations in previous seasons. Still, the Nanooks can finish as high as fourth in the WCHA. And they can win the Cup by beating UAA twice and then winning a shootout. There have been seven shootouts to determine the Cup in its 18-season history, and UAF has won six of those.
Officially, UAF leads the all-time Cup series 10-8, but that number comes with a caveat. The Nanooks own a 13-5 advantage in actual results, but they had to vacate three of those titles -- 2010, 2011 and 2012 -- because they used ineligible players in those seasons.
Those infractions were the result of administrative failures -- for instance, to properly track players' progress toward degrees. The violations were not a case of Nanooks rolling around the Golden Heart City in Hummers with wads of booster cash spilling out of their pockets. Basically, the grown-ups screwed up.
So, three of the seasons in which UAA is now credited with winning the Cup were really administrative victories, which are really difficult to rally around. On ice, the Nanooks have won the last five Cups, which means no current Seawolf has actually lifted the Cup.
So much is at stake for the Seawolves that you could see how they could become distracted. For instance, given that Alabama-Huntsville plays at Bowling Green (Ohio) and Lake Superior State (Michigan) entertains Ferris State -- both those series are in the Eastern Time Zone -- the Seawolves could know before the puck even drops here Friday night whether they still have a shot at the playoffs.
"It's going to cross your mind: This might be it, it might not,'' Cameron said. "But I haven't worried about it. I'm so excited, more excited than I've maybe ever been.
"We can only control how we play. I can only control how I play.''
In times like these, Cameron said, he always thinks of what his mum says -- only concern yourself with things in your control. Good Canadian boy.
The way UAA coach Matt Thomas sees it, the team that can refrain from thinking about everything at stake and attend to details is likely to succeed.
"The team that best takes care of that focus will be the team with the best opportunity to win,'' he said.
The Nanooks have done that well all season. Hit early in season with the news they were ineligible for the postseason -- and it's not hard to see how that could derail a team -- the Nanooks nonetheless have assured themselves a winning season.
"We've always said, 'Let's recruit good people,' '' Ferguson said. "The way you battle through that is as a team.''
And this Governor's Cup weekend shapes up as nothing less than a battle. While UAA swept in Fairbanks -- 2-1 and 3-2 in overtime -- you can make the argument UAA freshman goaltender Olivier Mantha stole those games. The Nanooks outshot the Seawolves 35-24 in the first game and a startling 48-16 in the second.
UAF enters with a six-game unbeaten streak (5-0-1) is tied for the second-longest current streak in Division I. UAA is coming off a 6-1 demolition of third-place Bowling Green that snapped the Seawolves' nine-game losing streak.
So, each team has reason to feel good entering a weekend worthy of hype. UAA has a chance to win the Cup that seems so elusive to it. UAF has a chance for a huge Cup comeback, and possibly a chance to help prevent UAA, which eliminated the Nanooks from the WCHA playoffs last March in Fairbanks, from reaching the playoffs.
That sounds perfect for two programs that have clashed more than 150 times since 1979.
Sounds like hockey heaven.
This column is the opinion of reporter Doyle Woody. Reach him at dwoody@alaskadispatch.com, check out his blog at adn.com/hockey-blog and follow him on Twitter at @JaromirBlagr
UAF
17-13-2, 12-12-2 WCHA
at
UAA
8-20-4, 5-19-2 WCHA
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