Saturday, April 9, 2016
North Dakota Claims Eighth Title
Fighting Hawks race past Quinnipiac, 5-1, in national championship game.
North Dakota’s dominant top line of Drake Caggiula, Brock Boeser and Nick Schmaltz – dubbed the “CBS Line” – led UND yet again in the national championship and fueling a 5-1 win vs. Quinnipiac.
The championship is the eighth in North Dakota history and the first since 2000. Head coach Brad Berry became the first first-year head coach in college hockey history to lead his team to a national championship.
Caggiula’s line fueled the Fighting Hawks’ success, as it had all year. It accounted for three of the team’s five goals in the title game and six out of eight at the Frozen Four.
“Everybody gets caught up in the offensive side of the game as far as their skill,” Berry said afterwards. “You know what they have NHL skills, special skills, but the intangible is their work ethic away from the puck.”
Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold complimented that unit shortly after the game.
“I mean, they’re really good. You know, I don’t like to put it any other way,” Pecknold said. “That line’s special. We haven’t seen a line as good as that all season, and we’ve played against some good ones. … I haven’t seen a line like that. They’re high-end NHL talent. They’re honest. They compete. They win battles. It’s a pretty special combination of ability there.”
In the title game North Dakota took a 2-0 lead thanks to first-period goals from Shane Gersich and Boeser, shorthanded. Quinnipiac cut the lead to 2-1 on a power-play goal from Tim Clifton late in the first.
The two teams played to a stalemate in the second before Caggiula scored twice in the first 3:41 of the third to secure the win for North Dakota. They were the third and fourth goals of the weekend for the Frozen Four’s Most Outstanding Player.
A crowd of 19,358 – the third-largest in championship game history and a significant portion rooting for North Dakota – witnessed UND’s eighth national championship.