After a season of more lows than highs, a season in which coach Tom Serratore saw his Bemidji State Beavers allow more goals than they scored, the veteran coach was finally in a position to relax Saturday night in Houghton. Serratore was enjoying the CCHA’s equivalent of a fireside chat after upsetting No. 2 seed Michigan Tech. The veteran coach was now front and center in a league press conference—his team sitting in the catbird seat, guaranteed a berth in the CCHA championship game while his opponents were still playing a timezone away in Mankato. Entering the night sub-500 was now a distant memory. His Beavers were on the precipice of making the NCAA tournament for the second year in a row.

On paper, this game should be no contest. But it’s played on ice.

With his Northern Michigan Wildcats loudly celebrating their grueling three-game quarterfinal of Lake Superior a few steps away, Cats coach Grant Potulny soberly assessed the next round in the CCHA playoffs: a single-game semifinal against the nation’s premier team, Minnesota State.