{"id":26358,"date":"2004-03-19T22:44:44","date_gmt":"2004-03-20T04:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2004\/03\/19\/northern-lights\/"},"modified":"2010-08-17T19:55:39","modified_gmt":"2010-08-18T00:55:39","slug":"northern-lights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2004\/03\/19\/northern-lights\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Lights"},"content":{"rendered":"

If this weekend’s WCHA Final Five served as Alaska-Anchorage’s coming-out party, it wasn’t for the benefit of head coach John Hill.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been here before,” he said after Thursday’s win over Colorado College. “I’ve been to Final Fives, to the Frozen Four. … This is for the players.”<\/p>\n

One year removed from a dreadful 2002-03 season, UAA drew national attention with a strong start before finishing eighth in a hypercompetitive edition of the WCHA.<\/p>\n

But after enduring an eight-game losing streak to end the WCHA regular season, the tank looked like it might be empty. The Seawolves split their final series with Alaska-Fairbanks, losing the Governor’s Cup in a shootout, then drew No. 3 seed Wisconsin for the first round of the playoffs.<\/p>\n

\"UAA<\/p>\n
UAA netminder Chris King (photo: Jason Waldowski)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

But in that series, Anchorage, propelled by goaltender Chris King, won Games 1 and 3 to shock the Badgers and advance to the Final Five.<\/p>\n

The magic continued Thursday night in St. Paul, where the Seawolves topped Colorado College 4-1 to become just the second No. 8 seed in the 12-year-old Final Five era to reach the league semifinals.<\/p>\n

And though UAA’s longshot run for a league championship was ended by North Dakota Friday, 4-2, the exposure can only help the program.<\/p>\n

Right, coach?<\/p>\n

“We’re in Alaska,” Hill noted with the patience of a man who’s had to say it many times before. “It’s hard for us to get kids from the [lower 48 of the] United States. We have to get kids from western Canada, and even then we get the best kids no one else wants.”<\/p>\n

Obviously, Hill — a UAA captain in his playing days, and a Seawolf assistant earlier in his coaching career — won’t be gulled by the notion that a few postseason wins can transform Anchorage into a recruiting Mecca.<\/p>\n

“It’s a grind,” he agreed, ticking off a list of challenges unique to playing home games in Anchorage, such as the fact that, for their first-round series in Madison, Wis., the Seawolves flew into Minneapolis and then bused five hours to save the WCHA money.<\/p>\n

“Those things are always going to be there,” Hill said.<\/p>\n

After Thursday’s win, Hill called out several Alaskan players by name, players who were recruited by UAA but went elsewhere, and expressed a grim satisfaction in the fact that the Seawolves were still standing while the players in question were not.<\/p>\n

\"hill\"<\/p>\n
hill<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Hill admitted that his comments might sound “vindictive,” but they were obviously born out of a passion for the UAA program. The coach knows well that the Seawolves probably won’t succeed by convincing high-profile recruits from thousands of miles away to bring their games to the Land of the Midnight Sun.<\/p>\n

“We have to keep our best Alaskan players here,” he said.<\/p>\n

And with UAA’s recruits needing to be a special breed, character plays strongly in Hill’s blueprints.<\/p>\n

“All of our seniors are going to graduate,” he said. “I think it speaks to the character of our kids, and I think what they’ve done this weekend speaks to their character as well.”<\/p>\n

Still, playing in front of an Xcel Center crowd couldn’t hurt the development of the program and its players.<\/p>\n

“It was a wonderful experience,” said junior defenseman Lee Green. “For the guys who were here last year, it was great to make history.”<\/p>\n

“We have a very young hockey team, and I think this experience will only help us in the future,” said Hill.<\/p>\n

And the folks back home are taking notice.<\/p>\n

“I know I had to stay up until 1 a.m. [Central time] because the lead item on the news [in Anchorage] was a telephone interview,” said Hill. “People are pumped up, people are excited, and that’s a good thing.”<\/p>\n

As for motivation in Saturday’s third-place game, Hill says that won’t be a problem.<\/p>\n

“It’s not a third-place game to us,” he said. “It’s a game against a really good team, and we want to win. … These are things we have to do to establish some goals and standards.<\/p>\n

“My goal, when I took this job three years ago, was for this to be a program that’s competitive and respected,” Hill said.<\/p>\n

The Seawolves are on their way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The lights are shining bright for these underdog Seawolves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":140328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNorthern Lights - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The lights are shining bright for these underdog Seawolves.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26358\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Northern Lights - College Hockey | USCHO.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The lights are shining bright for these underdog Seawolves.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26358\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"College Hockey | USCHO.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OfficialUSCHO\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2004-03-20T04:44:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2010-08-18T00:55:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/uscho_featured-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scott Brown\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@USCHO\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@USCHO\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scott Brown\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2004\/03\/19\/northern-lights\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2004\/03\/19\/northern-lights\/\",\"name\":\"Northern Lights - 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