It is the annual appetizer to the Frozen Four.

A media conference call involving the coaches of the four teams vying for the NCAA Hockey championship took place on Tuesday with Maine’s Tim Whitehead, New Hampshire’s Dick Umile, Michigan’s Red Berenson and Minnesota’s Don Lucia talking about their teams and answering questions during the hour-long forum.

Maine, 25-10-7, and New Hampshire, 30-6-3, will square off in the 1:37 p.m. game at the 18,604-seat Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn., in one semifinal on Thursday, April 4. Michigan (28-10-5) and Minnesota (30-8-4) face off in the 7:37 p.m. game.

University of New Hampshire coach Dick Umile praised University of Maine interim head coach Tim Whitehead for the job he has done replacing the late Shawn Walsh, who died of complications from kidney cancer on Sept. 24.

“Tim deserves an awful lot of credit. He took over a very, very tough situation,” said Umile who echoed the sentiments expressed by Whitehead pertaining to their teams’ fifth meeting of the season. UNH leads 2-1-1.

“There are no secrets. We may not even watch videotape,” joked Umile. “We respect Maine. We’ve had great games with them over the years.”

Later, Whitehead had a good-natured laugh at Umile’s expense after the UNH coach was asked if he liked having 10 days off between his team’s 4-3 NCAA Eastern Regional quarterfinal win over Cornell and the Frozen Four match-up with Maine.

“I spent yesterday and today doing administrative things, like getting the tickets in order, and we gave the guys a couple days off to help with injuries. People have more time to make travel plans. I like it like this rather than being in a plane tomorrow [Wednesday],” said Umile, who then corrected himself by saying they would have left on Tuesday.

“That shows you how confused I am,” chuckled Umile.

To which Whitehead chimed in, “I just hope you’re confused next week.”

The four programs have combined for 51 Frozen Four appearances and 14 national championships. Michigan leads the way with its 20th Frozen Four appearance and nine titles; Minnesota has 17 and three, respectively, Maine has eight and two and New Hampshire has six Frozen Four berths but is still looking for its first crown.

The Wolverines have eight freshmen who, according to Berenson, “seem a little more confident now than they were at the start. They don’t fully appreciate what is going on and I’m not going to tell them.”

Lucia said his team has been under a lot of pressure all season with the Xcel Energy Center in its backyard. The Gophers are making their first Frozen Four appearance since 1995.

“We didn’t talk about it but you could feel it out and around,” said Lucia.

Now that they’ve have made it, he said, “The pressure is off. The pressure is to get there. Any time you get to the Frozen Four, you want to make sure you enjoy it because you don’t know when that opportunity will come again.”

He also said his Gophers won’t have as much of a home ice advantage as they had during the WCHA’s Final Five because “the tickets are more spread out [among the four schools].

“The fans will have a great time and the players will love the facility. Everyone will have a nice locker room,” said Lucia. “Even if we hadn’t made it, St. Paul would have done a terrific job hosting it. They’re used to hosting tournaments. They’re anticipating an all-time record crowd for hockey of over 19,000 with standing room. It’s a great environment.”

The fact two eastern teams and two western teams will square off in the semis marks just the second time that has occurred. The only other time was in 1961 when RPI faced St. Lawrence in one semi and Minnesota met Denver in the other.