Williams: UWSP hockey prepares for rematch

STEVENS POINT – The stakes won't be nearly as high Saturday night, but that won't matter to the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point men's hockey team.

The intensity will be ratcheted up several notches when the Pointers renew their — at times quite bitter — rivalry with defending national champion St. Norbert.

Faceoff is set for 7 p.m. at the Cornerstone Community Center in De Pere.

When the teams met on March 22 a Division III national championship was on the line. St. Norbert captured a grind-it-out 3-1 victory in Lewiston, Maine, for the program's fourth title in seven years.

In the process, the Green Knights denied UWSP's bid for a fifth championship banner — and the first since 1993 — to hang in K.B. Willett Arena.

Both coaches — UWSP fourth-year coach Chris Brooks and long-time St. Norbert coach Tim Coghlin — would likely tell anyone listening that this will be just another nonconference game on their schedules.

You'll hear how winning or losing isn't important. Instead, it's all about getting better from the last game and last practice so each program can eventually get back into a position to compete for the championship in 2015.

Don't buy what they're selling.

This game has a special meaning for the coaches and players. No one had to tell any of them when the annual nonconference matchup appeared on the schedule.

It wouldn't be surprising if it had been circled in Pointers purple and gold or Green Knights green since the moment their respective schedules came out.

Former members of the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association, the Pointers and St. Norbert often engaged in heated battles for the regular-season championship.

Lets just say goalies in the crease area weren't off limits to players charging the net for rebounds or screens, or just to get the netminders involved in the physical aspect of the game.

Sometimes the gloves would literally come off. There even may have been a time or two when someone jumped off the bench or into a bench to express his opinion to a player from the other side.

UWSP and the rest of the state schools — UW-River Falls, UW-Stout, UW-Eau Claire and UW-Superior — left the NCHA prior to the start of last season to compete in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference hockey league.

A variety of factors went into leaving the NCHA, and while no one will go on record, one reason may have had something to do with a perceived recruiting advantage private institutions had in regards to attracting Canadian talent.

There is also a strong connection between the two programs in the form of Coghlin.

A two-time All-American defenseman at UWSP and a member of the school's first national title team in 1989, Coghlin served as an assistant coach at UWSP before taking over the Green Knights program in 1993.

So don't let anyone fool you. When UWSP and St. Norbert get together on the ice, it's more than just another game.

Scott A. Williams can be reached at 715-345-2282. Find him on Twitter as @SPJScottWill