ST. PAUL, Minn. – Hockey East has elevated itself into a position of college hockey prominence.

The University of Maine and University of New Hampshire’s inclusion in the NCAA Tournament’s Frozen Four means Hockey East has had half of the Frozen Four entrants over the last five years.

Hockey East’s 10 Frozen Four berths since 1998 are four more than the Central Collegiate Hockey Association. The Western Collegiate Hockey Association has had three entrants, and the Eastern College Athletic Conference one.

Since Maine and New Hampshire met in a Thursday semifinal, won by Maine 7-2, that meant Hockey East would have a team in the NCAA championship game for the sixth straight year and ninth time over the past 10 seasons.

There were all-Hockey East NCAA championship games in 1995 (Boston University beat Maine 6-2) and 1999 (Maine nipped New Hampshire 3-2 in overtime).

The reasons behind the league’s success?

“There’s good parity in our league,” said Maine senior right winger Niko Dimitrakos. “You could lose any night if you don’t have a good game or aren’t ready to go. That gets you ready for the postseason and for games against teams like Michigan and Minnesota.”

Maine senior defenseman and captain Peter Metcalf said, “There isn’t a huge gap between the top teams and the bottom teams. So the games are close. In the West, some of the top teams beat the bottom teams by scores like 12-5. That’s ridiculous. You get used to playing one-goal games in Hockey East and that prepares you for tournament games because those are always close.”

Maine sophomore defenseman Francis Nault said there are no guarantees in Hockey East.

“You learn that you have to give your best every night and you have to play as well as you can,” said Nault.

Hockey East Commissioner Joe Bertagna said superior coaching has been a key to the league’s constant improvement.

He said the new coaches who have come into the league lately have been an improvement over the previous coaches and that has created more parity.

“I expect Don Cahoon and his UMass team to be hosting a Hockey East quarterfinal series in the near future,” predicted Bertagna.

“And we’ve got great assistant coaches. Their resumes are much better than the ones you see for the head coaches in other leagues,” added Bertagna.

Metcalf, Dimitrakos All-Americans

Metcalf and Niko Dimitrakos have been selected second-team Eastern All-Americans.

“They have both had their best years in a Black Bear uniform,” said Maine interim head coach Tim Whitehead. “Niko is our leading scorer and Peter is a fierce competitor.”

He added that the two of them have been instrumental in leading a team that had to deal with the death of head coach Shawn Walsh on Sept. 24 from complications resulting from his kidney cancer.

Dimitrakos has 20 goals and 29 assists in 42 games, including his assist in the 7-2 Frozen Four semifinal win over New Hampshire, while Metcalf’s two goals and assist against the Wildcats give him nine goals and 40 assists in 43 games.

Dimitrakos and Metcalf, along with senior goaltender Mike Morrison, also have been named to the New England College Hockey Writers Association Division I Men’s All-Star Team announced Thursday.

New Hampshire’s Dick Umile was named the coach of the year.

Second Frozen Four

For some Mainers, like Irv and Karen Marsters of Glenburn, the decision to be Bear fans isn’t a decision at all. It’s a responsibility.

Irv Marsters is the vice president of the Friends of Maine Hockey boosters group. Wednesday night, he completed a roundabout journey to get to his second Frozen Four.

And Thursday morning, he was gathered with the other Bear-backers, clad in a special UMaine jersey. He bought the jersey, worn during the Bears’ last national championship season, at auction. Its previous owner, senior Peter Metcalf, scored two goals and an assist as the Bears rolled past New Hampshire.

The Frozen Four is Irv Marsters’ second – he also attended the 1999 event in Anaheim – and both trips were planned far in advance. The fact that the Black Bears actually qualified to make it to each site was coincidental.

But Marsters pointed out that both trips had a common denominator: granddaughters.

In 1999, he made the trip and visited with his son, Mark, who lives just outside Los Angeles. This year, he and his wife made the trip via L.A. and San Francisco, where another son, Scott, lives.

“Mark had a daughter who was at the ’99 championship game in Anaheim. As a quirk of fate, she was born with all kinds of genetic problems,” Irv Marsters said. “Just before the game in Anaheim, she developed a feeding tube problem and so they had to rush her to the hospital to have the tube in her stomach repaired.”

Mark rushed his daughter, Abbie, to the hospital and returned to the Pond at Arrowhead Stadium in time for the postgame festivities when the Black Bears topped New Hampshire and won the national title.

“So we have great pictures, fond memories, of her at the ’99 championship, looking down at the team celebrating,” Irv Marsters said, eyes growing wet.

“She died a year ago last December. She was 21/2 years old,” he said, softly.

Earlier this week, he visited Mark again. And again, he spent time with a young granddaughter.

Grace Elizabeth is 2 weeks old.

Standing up for Standbrook

Former NHL winger Tony Granato is one of the color analysts for the ESPN2 broadcasts of the Frozen Four and the former Wisconsin Badger said Maine assistant Grand Standbrook, his former assistant at Wisconsin, is special.

“He is the best coach, one-on-one, I have ever had, by far,” said the 37-year-old Granato, who also does San Jose Sharks color on radio. “He can teach you more in a three-hour conversation than you could learn from other coaches in years. He’s very detailed. He sees things differently than other people see things as far the way the game goes and things you can do to make yourself a better team player.” His record speaks for itself. Just look at what he has accomplished.”

Granato remembers Standbrook teaching him two or three different ways to slow a man down when you are behind him on the backcheck.

“He would show you these little things that would enable you to knock him off-balance or disrupt his flow so you can catch him,” said Granato. “He knows every little trick possible, things you would never think of. Guys like Chris Chelios, Gary Suter, and Pat Flatley will tell you Grant made them the players that they are.”

He also noted that Standbrook recruited in his own special way.

“You’d have a bunch of college recruiters and pro scouts sitting together in a group, sipping coffee and laughing and joking together,” recalled Granato. “Grant would be sitting by himself. He would watch a player interact with his teammates and what he was like coming off the ice.”

“He made you nervous. He’d be right on top of the bench,” smiled Granato. “He’s a great man, a great hockey man. No one can teach the game even close to how he can.”

Bears get some baggage

One NCAA Frozen Four perk that is especially popular among players is the gift that organizers give each team member.

Tommy Reimann of UMaine reacted enthusiastically to this year’s gift, a leather garment bag.

“We usually get backpacks and a shirt or something,” Reimann said, pointing out that this year’s offering seemed more substantial than that. After a second to think, he admitted that he hadn’t actually checked inside the garment bag, so it was possible that there were more gifts lurking inside.

“Hopefully my sweatshirt’s in there,” he said.