MADISON – What’s happening Friday night in Minneapolis is the women’s college hockey equivalent of Packers-Bears, Yankees-Red Sox or Ali-Frazier.
As rivalries go, it doesn’t get much better.
Wisconsin has won seven NCAA championships, Minnesota six. One or both have appeared in the title game in 17 of the 23 held.
And there they’ll be matched up for the sixth time this season. One will have the chance to compete for another championship. The other’s season will end in a crushing defeat in a national semifinal.
Plan for a normal, gritty, no-quarters-given Badgers-Gophers game when the puck drops at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Ridder Arena, an intimate 3,400-seat rink that both Minnesota and the 2025 Frozen Four call home.
“Twenty-plus years doing it against Minnesota, I can go back a lot of years and pick out eight, 10, 12, 15, games that ‘normal’ means overtime, somebody makes an unbelievable play, somebody does something to have that team win,” UW coach Mark Johnson said Tuesday.
“Minnesota has done that to us, and we’ve done it to them. That’s what rivalries are all about. You play a team a bunch of different times, the magnitude of the games, the meaning of the games … (that’s) all there.
“That’s what sports is all about, getting those opportunities. We each have an opportunity Friday night.”
UW (36-1-2) has been ranked No. 1 since September; Minnesota (29-11-1) was as high as second and came into the NCAA tournament seeded fourth. Wisconsin advanced with a 4-1 victory over Clarkson in a regional final Saturday while Minnesota beat Colgate, 3-2.
The season series between the Badgers and Gophers hasn’t exactly been normal in that UW has won all five meetings so far. Three games were routs decided by an aggregate score of 19-3 and the others both 4-3 decisions, the first at Ridder and the second in Duluth in the WCHA Final Faceoff title game.
“Not much changes” in terms of preparation at this point, junior defender and co-captain Caroline Harvey said. “Five or six times we’ve played them now, of course we’re aware of their key players and their system, so Coach will cater practices to different breakout schemes, like how we forecheck them and whatnot.
“But for us and our game plan, we don’t change much, and we just want to be consistent and play the same game we know how to play.”
By all accounts, these Badgers have been a cohesive, sharing, supportive team since they first took the ice. If pressed to pick a watershed moment in the season, though, their leaders point to the second game against Minnesota, on the road a month into the season.
After a 0-0 first period at Ridder, the Gophers rattled off three goals in less than 10 minutes. The Badgers came back with one in the second, tied the game a couple of minutes into the third and then won on graduate student center Casey O’Briens goal with about six minutes remaining.
“Going into that game, we knew the team was good, but I think that solidified how special this group was,” said O’Brien, who has a chance to win a third national title with the Badgers. “I think it’s really rare that you can come back against a team so good, like the Gophers, from such a big deficit.
“So I think we kind of remind ourselves of that game, and when we’re in any situation where we’re down – and I think when you go down 1-0 (against Clarkson) in a big game such as last weekend – it’s easy to panic. We’re not used to being down, and that’s a little scary, but knowing that we’ve come back against teams like the Gophers and Minnesota Duluth, we think we can do anything, and with the group that we have I really believe it.”
The Badgers would prefer not to fall behind this time, but whatever happens early Friday, they’ll have to beat Minnesota one more time on its home rink with the season on the line. UW leads the teams’ all-time series, 58-57-16, but Minnesota holds a 37-20-9 edge at Ridder.
“It can be seen as a disadvantage being in their home rink, but Badger fans travel,” said O’Brien, the other co-captain. “Everyone’s families are going to be there. We’ve seen the ticket prices. Resale on StubHub, they’re going for, like, $400 so I know the atmosphere is going to be insane.
“It’s going to be bumping with both Gopher fans and Badger fans. I wouldn’t want anything less in a game this big.”
One of the things Wisconsin has done well against Minnesota this season is keep redshirt senior forward Abbey Murphy off the scoreboard. The nation’s leading goal scorer and top-10 Patty Kazmaier Award finalist has lit the lamp 32 times against other teams but zero against UW.
Murphy has more penalties (three for six minutes) than points (two on two assists) in the five games.
“She’s a world-class skater, she’s got a real good shot, and when she’s moving and doing the things on the offensive side, she’s challenging,” Johnson said. “Whether she’s scoring a goal or whether she’s setting up a play, when she’s on the ice, she has the puck, you have to be aware of that.
“So whoever’s on the ice, when she’s on the ice Friday night, you just have to be aware of that. Can you do enough to eliminate some of her chances? Hopefully when we talk Friday night after the game, we’ve done that.”
To recycle a well-worn sports cliché, irrespective of recent history with Murphy specifically and the Gophers in general, you can throw out the record books when these teams meet, especially when the stakes are what they will be Friday night.
“There’s definitely no let up,” Harvey said. “It’s just so intense. The pace of the game, it’s like no other. We both give our best in these games, and you can tell, everyone elevates to a different level. So it’s from everyone’s goalie, defensive pairs to the lines everyone’s on, everyone’s bringing their A game.
“So you have to be on and you have to have a consistent effort as a team and individually to be successful.”
