LOVELAND, COLO. — They went to school and played hockey together at St. Cloud State, Bob Motzko as a Huskies forward and Mike Hastings as a defenseman. They both cut their coaching teeth in the U.S. Hockey League, and later spent time as college assistants, including stints at Minnesota. On Sunday night in an arena on the Front Range of the Rockies, Bob Motzko and Mike Hastings will face each other with a Frozen Four berth at stake.
Motzko's top-seeded Minnesota Gophers will play Hastings' No. 2-seeded Minnesota State Mankato Mavericks in the NCAA West Regional final at 7 p.m. (Central) at the Budweiser Events Center. The winner joins Midwest Regional champion Minnesota Duluth, Massachusetts and the winner of Sunday afternoon's St. Cloud State-Boston College Northeast Regional final in the Frozen Four on April 8 and 10 in Pittsburgh.
On Saturday, both Motzko and Hastings achieved milestone victories in the NCAA tournament. For Motzko, the Gophers' 7-2 rout of Nebraska Omaha was his first NCAA triumph as Minnesota's head coach, though he was an assistant on the 2002 and '03 national championship teams before leaving to become St. Cloud State's head coach. For Hastings, the Mavericks' 4-3 overtime victory over Quinnipiac was his first NCAA win in six tries and Minnesota State's first in seven attempts.
"They're the winningest team in college hockey over the last four years,'' Motzko said of the Mavericks' 113 wins in that span. "We went to college together, and Mike and I are very close friends. What he did at the USHL, he's doing it as a college coach. I told our team 'It's going to be one of the toughest games we ever play tomorrow.' ''
Motzko, in his third season as Gophers coach after Don Lucia stepped down, has Minnesota back in the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2017 and secured the program's first NCAA victory since the 2014 team made it to the national championship game. He said he didn't have his team focusing on a return to glory.
"We don't talk about that message. We talk about this is the 100th year of Gopher hockey,'' said Motzko, whose team is 24-6 and won the Big Ten tournament title. "There have been a whole lot better coaches come through this program than me. The 100th year, we just wanted to do it proud. It's too bad COVID hit for all of us, in every facet of life. We had just wonderful things to celebrate and weren't able to.''
Going hand-in-hand with the Gophers' success has been the approach Motzko has instilled.
"We wanted to have a work ethic to our team and some grit to make our alumni proud,'' he said. "They've been doing that, and we're very fortunate that these kids are tremendous leaders and are buying in.''
