The doors to the visiting locker room at Sullivan Arena were open, and the raucous noise from inside the room cascaded into the adjacent hallway. The UAF Nanooks whooped and hollered and chanted and clapped, and savored their season-ending success in a campaign that could easily have proved a bitter failure.
The doors to the home dressing room mostly remained closed, but there was nothing much to hear anyhow. The UAA Seawolves inside quietly digested one last sorrow in a disappointing season, and when a door occasionally opened, you could see in the reddened eyes of players that tears had fallen.
UAF once again seized the annual Governor's Cup, the chalice that signals superiority in Alaska college hockey, by dint of its 3-2 victory in the game and 1-0 victory in the subsequent shootout.
Smacked by news early in the season that they were ineligible for postseason play because of NCAA violations in previous seasons, the Nanooks nonetheless delivered a 19-13-2 record that placed them fourth in the 10-team Western Collegiate Hockey Association. They roared back from a 2-0 deficit in the four-game Cup series -- UAA swept two games in Fairbanks in January -- and they finished with an eight-game unbeaten streak (7-0-1) that is the longest current streak in Division I.
And, after remaining alive in the series with a 1-0 win Friday on their rival's home ice, they won the Cup on the ice for the record sixth straight season -- officially, UAF vacated Cup titles in 2010, 2011 and 2012 as part of NCAA sanctions.
"The NCAA took a lot away from us,'' said UAF junior center Tyler Morley, who scored the only goal of the shootout. "This is all we had left. We wanted to send the seniors out with that.''
UAA, meanwhile, lost 11 of its last 12 games, finished 8-22-4 overall and last in the WCHA. Losing the Cup on home ice was one last smack to the Seawolves.
"It's tough,'' said UAA senior winger Scott Allen, whose third-round shootout bid was rebuffed by UAF senior goaltender Sean Cahill to end the season. "All you can do is try to learn from it.
"It stings pretty good right now, losing the Governor's Cup, and your career ending.''
The first half of Saturday's game was such a tilted-ice affair and UAF's superiority was so evident -- the Nanooks owned a 27-7 advantage in shots at the halfway mark and a 3-0 lead after 35 of 60 minutes -- a post-game shootout appeared certain.
On a night when the Seawolves said goodbye to seniors Allen, Brett Cameron, Derek Docken, Austin Coldwell and Kory Roy, the Nanooks owned their 3-0 lead on goals from Tayler Munson, Trevor Campbell and Josh Erickson.
Munson's short-handed goal 77 seconds into the second period opened the scoring and came courtesy of Brandon Morley's thievery and persistence. Just before Morley fed Munson, he was surrounded by four Seawolves.
Off a face-off following a jaw-dropping glove save from UAA freshman masked man Olivier Mantha on Tyler Morley's 2-on-1 bid, Munson won the draw and Peter Krieger fed Campbell. Campbell's shot from the center point appeared to ricochet off UAA's Blake Leask and past Mantha. In a 39-second span, a scoreless game turned had into a 2-0 UAF lead.
Erickson's shot from the slot made it 3-0 with five minutes left in the second period.
Yet Allen said UAA coach Matt Thomas and assistant coaches T.J. Jindra and Josh Ciocco kept the players engaged and motivated.
Tad Kozun's backhander of an Austin Azurdia rebound 66 seconds after Erickson's strike cut UAA's deficit to 3-1 and snapped its goal drought at 97:58. Then Azurdia flicked a backhand past Cahill from an improbable angle along the left-wing goal line with 5.1 seconds left in the period to trim UAA's deficit to 3-2.
"We started believing,'' said Docken said. "The feet start going and you start making plays. It's unfortunate it happened in the second period, not the first, or right off the bat.''
The Nanooks, meanwhile, used the second intermission to regain their balance.
"Being up 3-2 on the road after two (periods) is good,'' Tyler Morley said. "The last five minutes (of the second period) was what it was. It was behind us, and we went forward. We just persevered and battled, and that's the story of our season.''
That UAA was even in position to rally was testament to Mantha (40 saves). His .914 season save percentage marked the best goaltending the Seawolves have received in a decade and the third-highest save percentage in the program's 36-season history. In four games against UAF this season, Mantha stopped 143 of 150 shots for a .953 save percentage.
UAF's 3-2 lead held until the buzzer, as did its whopping shot advantage, which finished at 43-16.
In the three-round shootout, which was staged for the fourth time in the last five seasons and eighth time in 22 Cups, UAF prospered for the sixth straight time and seventh time overall.
Kozun rang a shot off the pipe to open Round 1 and Tyler Morley deked and fired a wrister over Mantha's right pad. Cahill in Round 2 denied Azurdia and Peter Krieger missed the net for UAF. That left Allen to keep UAA's hopes alive, but Cahill smothered his Round 3 wrister to end the season.
After the trophy presentation, the Seawolves saluted their fans and glided to their dressing room. The Nanooks raised the Cup, celebrated with their fans and posed for pictures.
"I can't even describe it,'' Cahill said. "It's just so special, this group of guys. Never going to have anything like that again.''
The Seawolves were left to wonder what might have been, especially after entering the weekend with a 2-0 series lead and hopes of WCHA postseason possibilities, which were snuffed by the Nanooks' victory Friday.
"This one hurts,'' Docken said.
Reach Doyle Woody at dwoody@alaskadispatch.com, check out his blog at adn.com/hockey-blog and follow him on Twitter at @JaromirBlagr