ACHA DI Men's Hockey

Why UNLV's Shocking Win Over NCAA Champion Denver Is Such A Big Deal

Why UNLV's Shocking Win Over NCAA Champion Denver Is Such A Big Deal

UNLV stunned the hockey world when they beat defending NCAA champion Denver, scoring a victory for college club hockey players past, present and future.

Dec 29, 2024 by Chris Peters
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About 24 hours, almost to the minute, after Latvia shocked the world by beating Canada at the World Junior Championship, there was another upset of epic proportions on the ice. UNLV, a powerhouse at the ACHA Division I level – representing non-varsity or “club” college hockey – defeated the University of Denver, the defending NCAA national champion and No. 5 ranked team in the country, 6-5 in a shootout Saturday night.

This game was an exhibition. It won’t appear on Denver’s all-time won-loss record, it doesn’t impact their season. And officially, because it went to a shootout, it would count as a tie if it were an NCAA game. None of that matters.

The headline is still "ACHA Team Defeats NCAA Champion On The Road."

The ACHA is a five division organization with three men’s divisions and two for women. Many, many schools, large and small, across the country have hockey teams. They’re just not sponsored by their athletics departments and do not compete in the NCAA.

Over the last few years, UNLV has become one of the real powers of ACHA Division I men’s hockey. They’ve also aggressively scheduled NCAA schools for exhibition games. NCAA teams only have so many slots for exhibitions and have often filled those with Canadian universities or the National Team Development Program. They can even schedule fellow NCAA Division I teams for games that don’t count.

UNLV, however, has been given the opportunity on multiple occasions to play NCAA schools. So have other ACHA schools. Just last year, Minot State traveled to Denver and lost 9-3.

This felt a bit different though. This was Denver coming off of a national championship, ranked in the top 10 in the NCAA this season and with 11 NHL Draft picks available to them.

What happened on Saturday night doesn’t say much about Denver, even though they may have woken up a bit embarrassed by the result. It does, however, say a ton about what UNLV is doing and what the ACHA is offering players.

Most people who play hockey get a very finite amount of time to play at a highly-competitive level. When youth hockey is over at 18, if you’re not good enough or don’t want to play junior hockey or you did and didn't secure a scholarship, there are very few places to go.

The ACHA is one of those places. It allows players to extend their playing days longer. In many programs, the players are paying to play. Some will do fundraisers, others get some funding from a school’s recreational or club budget, and some have other ways to get money. But in many cases, the players are running these teams and it's a passion-fueled endeavor with a really impressive result.

At the ACHA Division I level, it is a bit more professionalized. There are paid coaches and staff, they have some dedicated facilities and some teams have recently made the jump from ACHA to NCAA Division I, most famously Penn State and Arizona State.

UNLV is one of the programs that some have circled as a potential future NCAA Division I team.

That chorus will only grow louder if they showed they can beat some of the NCAA heavyweights, and now they have beaten one of the biggest.

Greg Powers, head coach of Arizona State as both an ACHA Division I team and now at the NCAA Division I level, chimed in about this very fact and would like to see more NCAA teams give these ACHA clubs a chance.

Naysayers will say that Denver didn’t take the game seriously and that they didn’t play at their top level. No one expected them to get up for this game like they were playing North Dakota or Minnesota in some big matchup. But you don’t put games on your schedule to lose them.

Denver is without head coach David Carle and top defenseman Zeev Buium at the World Juniors. But they had everyone else at their disposal.

Senior goalie Matt Davis was the Most Outstanding Player at the Men’s Frozen Four last year and started the game. Jack Devine is a Florida Panthers prospect and is the top scorer in the NCAA this season. There were 11 draft picks available to the Pioneers.

UNLV had a 5-1 lead going into the third period.

Denver managed to claw back, even after UNLV got a sixth goal. They pushed it to OT and then all three shooters they sent out got stopped by fifth-year senior and former NCAA Division I goalie Jeremy Forman, who was the No. 3 at New Hampshire prior to going to UNLV.

Forman made a stunning 58 saves to help his team win the game. Senior Mattias Dal Monte scored the shootout winner.

Does this say much about Denver? No. Does it say everything about this UNLV team? It does. It says and means so much not just to UNLV but to anyone who has ever played in the ACHA.

This isn’t the first time an ACHA team has beaten an NCAA team, but it is the first time a blue blood has fallen to a club side. As a result, the reaction to what happened last night went viral. 

It’s a dream scenario for anyone that hoped for something, it didn’t work out the way you wanted it to, but you get a chance for a moment in the sun and you seize it.

The ACHA is a critical artery for USA Hockey as it extends the careers and passion for the sport for people after their childhood is behind them. It keeps the game alive in so many non-traditional markets, too.

The Skatin’ Rebels have a lot of support from the hockey community and now they’re going to have a lot more fans that will follow them for the rest of their season.

On top of that, they put a big signal to any of the power that be in UNLV athletics that as the hockey landscape continues to change and push westward, and as the player pool widens to welcome CHL players into the fold, maybe going to the NCAA Division I level isn’t such a pipe dream.

When we talk about college hockey expansion, the rumors are always going to include UNLV now.

On a personal note, I worked for an ACHA team at the start of my career. The time I spent with Iowa State Cyclone hockey allowed me to grow my passion for the sport and show me that I might be able to continue living my passion in a job working for teams or in media. Without that experience, I would probably not be here today. So yes, what we saw on Saturday night meant a bit more to those of us who have lived the experience that schools like UNLV have. This was a moment for all of the players, coaches and staff that came before them and they'll be roundly celebrated for it.

By the way, you’ll be able to follow the rebels at the ACHA National Championships, which will be streamed exclusively on FloHockey later this spring. 

Go back and watch UNLV’s run to the final last year here

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