DU-nasty, anyone?
“Absolutely,” Pios goaltender Matt Davis said Monday night inside the bowels of Magness Arena, home of the best college hockey program that ever lived. “I mean, (we got) three (championships) in seven (NCAA tournaments).
“Guys might as well get four in eight.”
No program — not Michigan, not North Dakota, not Wisconsin — got to 10 NCAA titles before DU. No school had won three within a seven-year span since BC from 2008-2012. And no team has nabbed four titles over a decade’s worth of Frozen Fours since the Wolverines did it all the way back in the late 1950s.
“I feel like it’s just the guys that we get in Denver,” Davis, the cat-quick and affable Alberta native confided before he celebrated DU’s 10th championship at Magness.
“We just recruit winners. And anyone that comes here knows what the goal is: You want to win a national championship. And yeah, I mean, that’s why you come here.”
You come for gold banners, the nine that stood watch Monday as DU captain McKade Webster stepped to the microphone with cool shades and a puckish grin.
“I’ll start us out,” Webster said. “How about Matty Davis?”
Matty smiled at that one.
The crowd went nuts.
“MAT-TY!”
“MAT-TY!”
Matty stood. On his own two feet instead of his head, this time.
By the way, have the Avs called yet?
“Georgie is awesome,” Davis said of beleaguered Avalanche goaltender Alexandar Georgiev. “He’s a great goalie. But, yeah — (the NHL is) not something I’m too focused on right now. I’m just focused on these guys and hanging out.”
Who’s the most famous person to reach out in the last 35-40 hours?
A pause.
“I’m not really sure,” Davis said. “I mean, it might be my cousin. He’s an NBA player.”
He is?
You tell him you’re the most famous athlete in the family right now?
“Oh, I’m not, not at all,” he chortled. “Not even close.”
Charlie Bennett speaks with goaltender Matt Davis (35) of the Denver Pioneers during a celebration of the Pioneers’ record-setting 10th NCAA national championship at Magness Arena on the DU campus on Monday, April 15, 2024. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
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He is in John Scavarda’s house. Few in crimson and gold have hung for this one longer than John, DU Class of ’55, now 90 years young and living out in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.
I’d reached out to him late Saturday afternoon, shortly after Rieger Lorenz put the Pios up 2-0 on Boston College, so confident was I that Davis was well on his way to a shutout.
His wife picked up and handed him the phone. He promptly but politely shooed me away, given that the NCAA championship still technically hung in the balance.
“We’ve got more than a period left,” John huffed. I laughed.
Scavarda was in a more celebratory mood Monday morning.
“Oh God,” he cackled. “I never thought I’d live long enough to see them win another one.”
Scavarda’s a treasure. He can see a hundy over the hill. His hearing comes and goes. But the man’s as sharp as a skate blade. John served as DU’s manager from 1951-55, just two years after the program launched under Vern Turner. Which means he also served as de facto team trainer and occasional traveling secretary.
“By today’s standards, we would not be a Division I (program),” he recalled. “We had 16 scholarships, one coach and no trainers. I was everything for the first four years there. I did the taping.”
The Pios had a doctor at home games in those days. For road trips, though, Scavarda was basically it.
“I had to go over to the home (bench) and ask them to help us if somebody got hurt,” he recalled. “(Coach) Neil Celley was a nice guy, but he wouldn’t spend money.”
DU’s sweaters were so dicey in those days, John said, he got together with a friend in the art department at DU to help design new sweaters.
“We didn’t buy new equipment,” Scavarda said. “They opened an account for me with a shoe shop and I went down there and they dry-cleaned everything. Oh God, it was fun.”
DU skates in a different tax bracket now. Matty Ice handed me his ’22 championship ring Monday, a dazzling beast with 70 stones and the word “PIOS” lasered into the band. It felt like a bejeweled paperweight or a stone ripped from the knuckle of Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet.
“For the past 75 years, I think this community has supported us at an unbelievable level,” DU coach David Carle said before the celebration. “And we’re so thrilled for them to be the first to 10, and to be able to celebrate that here.”
Scavarda has seen a heck of a lot in nine decades. He plans on living long enough to see another title run for his alma mater, too. Just as long as the administration can keep Carle, who led Team USA to gold at the World Juniors this past January, in crimson and gold.
“I just couldn’t believe what I saw (in St. Paul),” John said. “I hope to (heck) the coach stays a few more years, because I think the NHL will come after him.”
Ten was pure zen.
Eleven would be heaven.
DU-nasty, baby.
“Are you allowed to talk about the ‘D’ word?” I asked Carle, who’s signed through the ’26-27 season.
“What’s the ‘D word?’” he replied.
“Dynasty,” I said.
“Oh, yeah. I don’t know,” the straight-laced coach said with one of those measured, Carle semi-grins. “I’ll let you guys use those (words).
“But I can tell you we’ll still be hungry for more next year. And maybe we can start using it.”
Maybe?
“That’ll be the first (goal) that’s set come summertime,” Davis cracked. “Yeah, Coach does say (dynasty).”
Davis already has pucks in his glove and stars in his eyes. We ain’t seen fire rainin’ in the sky like this for a long, long, long time.
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