This won't be UND's first hockey road trip to Arizona – Grand Forks Herald

GRAND FORKS It was 20 degrees cooler when the UND hockey team walked onto the asphalt in December 1978.

A strong wind blew across the runway, making it feel even colder.

“It had to be about 70 degrees below wind chill,” said Paul Chadwick, a sophomore forward on the team. “You were frozen when you got on the plane.”

However, things were looking up.

Their destination: Phoenix.

This weekend's trip to Tempe, Arizona, to take on Arizona State won't be the first time UND has played a hockey game in Arizona.

In 1978, UND played a two-game series against Northern Arizona University. The series opener was played in Tempe. The final episode was set in Flagstaff, where NAU is located.

However, it was not a tropical vacation.

The day they arrived, the front page of the Arizona Republic reported record low temperatures in Phoenix. Sky Harbor International Airport recorded a low of 27. The high was 47.

“They had record low temperatures,” Chadwick said. “But we were still sitting around the pool in our shorts.”

Photo courtesy of Paul Chadwick

Cary Eades, a freshman forward on the team, said, “It felt like 90 to us. We were sitting around the pool. A lot of people around the hotel were looking at us strangely. Arizonans had jackets on. But it was warm for us. “

The series opener was played at Oceanside Ice Arena in Tempe, the same place where Arizona State played until 2022-2023.

There was a water park next to the hockey rink, hence the name Oceanside. The UND players got dressed in a trailer at the water park and walked to the rink.

“I remember palm trees outside the rink,” said Marc Chorney, a sophomore defenseman. “It seemed so strange to go to the ice rink with palm trees.”

Photo courtesy of Paul Chadwick

UND won 10-2 at Oceanside.

Dave Christian, a member of the Miracle on Ice team a year later, scored three goals. Rick Zaparniuk scored two. Eades, Chadwick, Howard Walker, Mark Taylor and Phil Sykes each scored once.

Chorney returned to Oceanside Ice Arena in November 2019, when his son Marcus played for Quinnipiac against Arizona State.

“I couldn't believe they were still in that rink,” Chorney said.

Oceanside closed in March 2023 and was demolished along with the water park.

For Game 2, UND and NAU played in Flagstaff in the Walkup Skydome, which remains the program's football stadium to this day.

“The hockey rink was against one side of the stands,” Eades said. “There were tennis courts across the street and people were playing tennis.”

Chorney said: “It was a unique experience. It wasn't conducive for fans to watch the match. It seemed so strange to be playing in part of the football stadium. That was the first time I did something like that. I don't know I know how they did that with the ice in it, but that was definitely a different experience.”

EN won 12-2.

Mike Burggraf scored three goals. Eades had two. Zaparniuk, Taylor, Sykes, Christian, Erwin Martens, Brad Cox and Doug Smail each scored once.

“We loved it,” Eades said. “It was the perfect time of year. It was a real bonding trip. We had a really good team. We played well when we got to the rink and we had some fun too.”

Photo courtesy of Paul Chadwick

UND ended up playing Northern Arizona, a club team that was aiming to advance to Division I, due to issues with final exams.

The Western Collegiate Hockey Association has scheduled a UND home game against Minnesota on Dec. 8 and 9. The following weekend, UND was scheduled to go to Northern Michigan.

But December 8-9 was finals week in Minnesota and the school had a policy that athletes were not allowed to play during finals week.

UND's finals week was the following week. UND had a policy that it could not travel for games during finals week.

So the Minnesota series was pushed back a week to December 15-16 and the trip to Northern Michigan was wiped out entirely.

Gasparini still wanted to play instead of having an open date on December 8 and 9. Athletic director Carl Miller had a previous relationship with Northern Arizona football coach Joe Salem, the two were together in South Dakota, so he called Salem to inquire about games.

“We decided to book Northern Arizona for two reasons,” Miller told the Herald's Virg Foss in 1978. “First, we wanted to use the series as a recruiting tool. Second, Northern Arizona was trying to develop its hockey program and we wanted to help them.”

Northern Arizona paid UND a $5,000 guarantee to play the games.

Miller originally tried to schedule one of the NAU games in Las Vegas, but discovered that the rink had become a roller skating rink. He also inquired about playing a game in Albuquerque, NM, where UND played Michigan in 1948 to help dedicate a new arena. That was also disappointing.

So they played in Tempe and Flagstaff.

“It's been an amazing journey,” Chadwick said. “You play about a hundred games. Some of them stick in your head and that's one of them. There are a lot of memories of that team, the camaraderie. You still talk to a lot of those guys every day. It's quite a group, that whole era, and we're all still pretty good friends.”

Photo courtesy of Paul Chadwick

Northern Arizona finally advanced to Division-I in 1981. The Lumberjacks played as an independent for four years before joining the Great West Hockey Conference with Alaska Anchorage, Alaska Fairbanks and US International from San Diego, California.

After a year in the GWHC, Northern Arizona dropped out of the program.

Division I hockey returned to the state when Arizona State left the club level in 2015.

“It is unfortunate that NAU's program has not grown and continued,” Eades said. “That was a very memorable bonding trip. Those road trips, especially when they're successful, can really bond.”

Photo courtesy of Paul Chadwick

When: 9:06 PM Friday, 6:00 PM Saturday (central).
Where: Mullett Arena, Tempe, Ariz.
TV: CBS Sports (GF Ch. 314/635 HD) on Fridays only.
Radio: De Vos (96.1 FM).
Current: NCHChockey.com only on Saturdays.