This weekend, the University of Minnesota Duluth women's hockey team will host the No. 3 University of Minnesota at AMSOIL Arena in one of the most anticipated home series of the season. In addition, UMD will host its annual alumni weekend, which will coincide with a program tribute to two of its five NCAA title teams – the 2003 and 2008 runs that ended with NCAA titles in their own rink.

The Bulldog program is less than two months out from the 20th anniversary of the 2003 double-overtime thriller NCAA championship, a 4-3 win over Harvard in front of a sellout crowd of 5,167 at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center on March 23, 2003. The win secured an NCAA title three-peat for UMD, which remains the only time in NCAA Division I women's hockey history the feat has been accomplished. 

It's also been 15 years since the Bulldogs won their fourth NCAA title and second at the DECC on March 22, 2008, a 4-0 takedown of the University of Wisconsin that capped off the winningest season in program history. Like the 2003 NCAA title won in Duluth, the Bulldogs benefitted from thousands of UMD fans, and as the 2003 squad five years before them, the Bulldogs featured a bevy of current and former Olympians both on the ice and on the benches.

A 2003 Title Team Rewind

While the previous two title runs ended with celebrations in Minneapolis, Minn. and Durham, New Hampshire, the 2002-03 season gave the Bulldogs a chance to show locally what the powerhouse program built by head coach Shannon Miller had done nationally. The roster of the 2003 championship squad is arguably one of the greatest in NCAA history, and it featured on the UMD side alone eight Olympians whose international careers pocketed 12 Olympic medals between them. A diverse pool of players, the Bulldogs ran up an overall final record of 30-3-3 that year, just the third season of NCAA Division I sanctioned women's hockey. But despite dismantling Dartmouth 5-2 in the NCAA Frozen Four semifinal, the championship game was no guarantee for the home side. In fact, the Crimson skated in the title tilt with its own mark to make, and a record of 30-2-3 to show it was serious. Harvard also featured a roster of current and future Olympians and All-Americans, names which still run high in any circle of college women's hockey fans might enter. Forwards Jennifer Botterill, Julie Chu and defenseman Angela Ruggerio rounded out an explosive offense that averaged 6.47 goals a game for legendary head coach Katey Stone, and it would be no small feat for the Bulldogs to overcome a Crimson team that still remembered UMD knocking it out of the first NCAA Frozen Four semifinal two seasons earlier in 2001.

But that's exactly what the Bulldogs did. UMD was brimming with its own talent and averaging 6.27 goals a game behind Jenny Potter (88 points), Caroline Ouellette (73 points), Erika Holst (64 points), Hanne Sikio (54 points) and Maria Rooth (35 points). And it used that talent to go up early in the first period with goals from Ouellette and Sikio, a 2-0 lead in the first 12:30 of action.

Harvard adjusted, however, and after Botterill struck just 21 seconds into the second period and Lauren McAuliffe equalized 23 seconds later, the ice tilted back towards the Crimson. Harvard took the lead midway through the second period, but Sikio pulled UMD even at 3-3 at 17:37 of the frame.

From there, neither side would score through two full periods, and an exhausted pair of teams began the second overtime searching for what had so far eluded them.  That all changed at the 4:19 mark of the second overtime, when Nora Tallus, who had been sent to the penalty box four times over the slugfest, sniped just her eighth goal of the year from the left circle to cement her own imprint into the UMD program. The Bulldogs became the first program to win a NCAA national title in their home rink, and capped off their historic run in front of a smitten Duluth crowd, which to this day is the only NCAA Division I title tilt to have sold out.

Home Sweet Home

The 2007-08 UMD team, much like the 2003 trophy lifting side, was loaded with plenty of eventual Olympic-stage talent. The 2008 championship squad had six of its own eventual  Olympians, including a rookie goaltender in Kim Martin that was just two years removed from a mastermind backstop performance for Sweden that stunned the U.S. in the Olympics for the Swedes first-ever silver medal. Expectations were high that the Bulldogs would return to the Frozen Four, and especially given the DECC would play host to the tournament just five seasons removed from the 2003 success.

UMD, young and confident, with just one senior on the entire roster, boasted two freshman that led the program in scoring that year (Haley Irwin (60 points) and Laura Fridfinnson (44 points), and two other players available that had recorded 41 or more points over the season (sophomores Saara Tuominen, with 43 points and Elin Holmlov, who compiled 41). The Bulldogs averaged 6.27 goals a game to their credit, and entered the Frozen Four on an eight-game winning streak and an eventual program-best 34 wins – a program record that still stands today.

Martin, a Patty Kaz top-3 finalist, stonewalled the University of New Hampshire in the semifinal game on March 20, 2008, helping the Bulldogs, who were sorely outshot 43-15 defeat the Wildcats 3-2.  The win set the stage for an all Western Collegiate Hockey Association final between UMD and the team that had defeated them one season earlier in the national championship game – the University of Wisconsin.

The Bulldogs were simply electric in the season finale, and took the lead on a goal by Irwin with just 38 seconds left in the first period and never looked back. Emmaunelle Blais added a power play goal at 11:48 of the second frame, and by the time Sara O'Toole scored an unassisted shorthanded tally at the 18:24 mark, the DECC crowd knew their Bulldogs were once again going to be crowned at home.

UMD's lone senior Karine Demeule hunted down the puck and scored on an empty Badger net at 17:15 of the third period, and from there the party was on – the Bulldogs had won their second NCAA title at home in five years.

The Ripple Effect

Of the many far reaching effects UMD's two hometown titles successes had, perhaps most importantly was the impact it quietly wove into the community. One of those 4,031 fans in the DECC stands on March 22, 2008 happened to be current UMD associate head coach Laura Bellamy, a high school student and super fan of the Bulldog program, and watching UMD win inspired Bellamy in more ways than one.

A native Duluthian who grew up a fan of both UMD hockey programs, Bellamy blames her parents for missing the 2003 tilt as a 12-year old because they made her go to a select team hockey practice. 

"I still, to this day, have a bone to pick with my parents for a hockey practice I ultimately attended in 2003 and, in so doing, missed one of the best national championships ever when UMD beat Harvard in double overtime," said Bellamy. "I made no mistake in 2008 and was ecstatic to see UMD win in person. That was one of the best Frozen Four performances a goalie has ever had, as Kim Martin led UMD to the title and the championship game was never in question for the home team."

"I feel so fortunate to have grown up in Duluth watching UMD Hockey," reflected Bellamy. "Those UMD teams led me to want to play college hockey and then, upon graduation, want to coach college hockey. It's come full circle now coaching UMD players who once inspired me. I'd like to think history is now repeating itself somewhere in the Amsoil crowds every home weekend and maybe even this year at the Frozen Four."

In honoring both squads this weekend, the known elephant in the room is that the 2023 NCAA Frozen Four will, for a fourth time, be played across the water from the Aerial Lift Bridge. As a program, UMD has fought its way into two of the three previous NCAA Frozen Fours held in Duluth, and with back-to-back Frozen Four berths currently under their belts, including an NCAA runner-up run a season ago, the Bulldogs know what it takes and where they want to be in the middle of March. 

The 2003 and 2008 teams made it possible for not just young local athletes to dream of the biggest stage of hockey, but it made it acceptable for future Bulldogs to aspire to be a part of that hometown folklore. Banners that still serve as a constant reminder that anything is possible, and maybe just as importantly, when it comes to winning NCAA championships, there truly is just no place like home.

Full Highlights of the 2003 NCAA Championship



Full Highlights of the 2008 NCAA Championship