The University of New Hampshire men’s hockey team stands just two victories away from its first ever NCAA championship. The top-ranked Wildcats (30-6-3) edged a tough Cornell team, 4-3, Sunday to advance to the Frozen Four in St. Paul, Minn. April 4-6.

“I’m just happy for everybody, including our fans,” UNH coach Dick Umile said. “There’s nothing like it.”

Two wins away from glory. But those two wins won’t be easy.

Up first is archrival Maine. The Wildcats and Black Bears will tangle for the fifth time this season at 1:30 p.m. (Eastern time) on April 4. Minnesota and Michigan will play to decide the West winner.

New Hampshire owns a 2-1-1 edge over Maine this season, but the Bears are hot right now and are on a mission to honor their late head coach Shawn Walsh.

Maine and UNH have always had a solid rivalry, but the border war was taken to a higher level in 1999 when Maine beat UNH 3-2 in overtime of the NCAA title game.

Wildcat senior Darren Haydar was just a freshman then, and the pain of that loss has not left his mind.

“They put us out in the final game of my freshman year,” Haydar said. “It’s definitely a game where I’m going to try and get our team as well-prepared as possible. We know how strong Maine is in the postseason. We just want to be ready for them.”

The Wildcats are headed to the Frozen Four and that date with Maine thanks in large part to the play of junior Jim Abbott in Sunday’s game. Abbott scored the first and last goals of the game, the final being the game-winner with just 2:39 remaining.

“He’s probably got one of the hardest shots in Hockey East,” Umile said of Abbott, who beat Big Red goalie Matt Underhill with a laser of a low shot. “He’s a very good player with the puck.”

Abbott’s winning tally was just his ninth goal of the year. But on a team with big names, such as the Hobey Baker finalist Haydar (31 goals, 45 assists for 76 points) and likely All-American Colin Hemingway (33-33-66), it has been the depth of the team and unsung heroes coming through all season.

Cornell tied the game at 3-3 at 13:17 of the third period and had wrestled momentum back to its own hand. The Wildcats never panicked, despite facing the nation’s stingiest defense.

“We knew we couldn’t get frustrated with them,” Haydar said. “They stuck with us. We weren’t expecting to blow them out by any means.”

In the end, the Wildcats got just enough and found a way to win it. They will now head to their sixth Frozen Four appearance hoping to erase the most recent trip from memory, that being the heartbreaker with Maine.

The Wildcats Frozen Four debut was in 1977 in Detroit, when UNH lost to eventual NCAA champ Wisconsin 4-3 in overtime. New Hampshire is 8-15-0 in NCAA tourney play.

The trip to St. Paul could be a historic one for Wildcat hockey. Not only is the NCAA title up for grabs, but Haydar will find out if he has won the coveted Hobey Baker Award. Jason Krog won for UNH in 1999 and is the only Wildcat to ever win it.

The UNH team will leave for Minnesota next Tuesday.