This distinction has rarely been more apparent than at this year’s Frozen Four, which pitted the Crimson and the Eagles on one side of the bracket and the Gophers and the Badgers on the other.

“The big thing is there’s pride in each region,” Stone said. “Minnesota is the state of hockey. Women’s hockey was born in New England. There’s tremendous pride in both regions of the country. 

When Harvard meets Minnesota for the national championship, the game will mean more than clash of two highly talented teams. It will also symbolize the clash of two hockey cultures. 

One is a world of Minnesota Rouser chants, a culture in which area newspapers grant front-page attention to Frozen Four developments. The other is a place with perhaps as much hockey history but certainly not as much hockey saturation. 

The two worlds are different and sometimes distrustful, and on Sunday afternoon, they will collide in a miniaturized version, small enough to fit onto a hockey rink for a 60-minute reckoning.

ICE HOCKEY CENTRAL

It’s a Friday night at Joe Senser’s Restaurant & Sports Theater in Minneapolis, and the room is packed. Structurally, the walls are wood-paneled; in reality, they’re television-paneled. 

Three separate March Madness games play on three separate monitors, but these contests don’t attract the full concentration of all customers. The rest of the sports world may be fixated on the closeout of a Villanova-NC State basketball upset, but a majority of monitors displays a different event: Minnesota men’s hockey is playing Michigan.

In case commercials ever interrupt that matchup, other televisions provide an alternative game. This one’s Michigan Tech against Minnesota State. 

It’s a generally understood truism that the further north you travel, the more hockey fans you find. And in Minneapolis, the largest city in one of the most northern-situated states in the country, you can’t turn around without bumping into a family wearing hockey jerseys.

The looming presence of the University of Minnesota concentrates this fandom on a single object, namely the Gophers. In a town that loving refers to its local college as “the U,” Minnesota’s hockey teams enjoy high profiles. 

“I think it’s the culture of our program [that allows for success],” Minnesota coach Brad Frost said. “If you lived here, you hear a lot about that and our values.”

The Gophers encourage this attitude with lavish spending on facilities. Ridder Arena is one of two hockey rinks on campus. The other, Mariucci Arena, seats 10,000 and exclusively caters to the men’s team.

While Ridder has less than half the capacity of its bigger and older sibling, the arena, advertised as the first facility intended only for women’s hockey use, sports enough high-tech features to make less specialized venues look downright shabby.

There are the box seats that line one side of the arena, overlooking sections of maroon bleachers. There are the 11 locker rooms and complete weight room. There are even smoke machines that accent every team entrance and goal.