Who says the NCAA wants to give Denver a cold shoulder? Turns out that the guy who oversees the Frozen Four bleeds burgundy and blue.
“As an Avs fan, I enjoy visiting (the Front Range),” Chad Tolliver, the NCAA director of championships and alliances, told The Denver Post late last week. “We’ve had (hockey) regionals in Loveland, and I’ve enjoyed that.”
Even though he’s a Hoosier, the Indiana grad fell in love with the Avalanche the way a lot of non-Denver Generation Xers fell in love with the Avs — by playing a lot of Electronic Arts’ popular “NHL” series of video games back in the mid-’90s. And Tolliver is well aware that the Mile High City, from preps to pros, is Hockey Town, U.S.A.
So why, then, are the University of Denver Pioneers hosting the 2028 Frozen Four in … Chicago? At the United Center? A building exactly 1,000 miles to the east of Ball Arena?
“The sense I got when we had last talked (was) it was just an issue with the building,” Tolliver recalled, “and not other concerns and whatnot. I don’t think the building was available (for) the time that we needed, to be honest.”
Tolliver’s point? It’s not us.
OK, well, it was us. Sort of. But with the NCAA packing up the party at Chopper Circle after Saturday’s second round of men’s basketball tournament games wrap up, multiple officials from the organization say they expect Denver to continue to be a serious candidate for the largest events on the NCAA’s championship calendar. With one exception — the men’s hoops Final Four, which has transitioned to indoor NFL-sized buildings. Until the Broncos play with a roof over their heads, the NCAA will continue to take its most popular event elsewhere.
Kasey Gengler, associate director with men’s basketball championships at the NCAA, says the metro’s MVPs when it comes to hosting massive events are twofold: the volume of downtown hotel space and the capacity at Denver International Airport.
“A thing that is really big for us on the men’s basketball side is hotels,” Gengler told The Post. “I feel like people don’t really understand (all the) things that don’t happen at the venue.
“Hotels (need) meeting space, having the capacity, all of that stuff — they have to be full-service. So, having that, having fixed-base operators for charters — obviously, Denver is an airport that can handle a lot of that, too.
“(Last) Tuesday, we had three teams show up at the same time … twice. I don’t know many cities that could handle that, but Denver could. So, it’s those things that touch the student-athlete and that experience that are not specifically (about) the venue. Those ancillary things, all that, play a factor.”
The short answer? If the metro wants to host, say, a women’s basketball Final Four, a Frozen Four or a men’s basketball regional, NCAA brass remain more than happy to listen.
Ball Arena last hosted a women’s Final Four in 2012. The facility last hosted a Frozen Four in 2008. Denver hasn’t hosted a men’s basketball regional since 1996. And Ball Arena, which opened in 1999, has never hosted one.
It was, however, supposed to. The NCAA had scheduled a men’s basketball regional for the Mile High City in 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic, and the decision to move the men’s tourney to Indiana-only sites in 2021 after the 2020 event was canceled entirely, scrapped that arrangement. Denver was granted this weekend’s first- and second-round dates as a contractual “make-up” instead.
Thursday’s first and second sessions at Ball Arena, buoyed by large swaths of fans from BYU, Michigan, Wisconsin, Texas A&M and UC San Diego, were sellouts.
Matthew Payne, executive director for the Denver Sports Commission, said through a prepared statement that the metro expects to see an economic impact of at least $4 million from this weekend’s games, and “could see double or triple that depending on how well the fans travel. We look forward to being part of the bidding process for future NCAA tournaments, which should happen sometime this year.”
Ball Arena, which seats 19,500 for basketball and approximately 18,000 for hockey, is on par with the capacity the NCAA currently prefers for its hoops regionals and the Frozen Four, Tolliver confirmed.
DU, the reigning national champion in men’s hockey, has won the most hockey championships in NCAA history with 10. Tolliver said that any perceived “home-ice” advantage wouldn’t dissuade future Frozen Four selection committees from considering Ball Arena.
“We’ve played in Boston (with) Boston College and Boston University (nearby),” Tolliver said.
Last fall, the NCAA announced that DU will host the 2027 gymnastics regionals, as well as the 2026 and the 2027 men’s hockey regionals at Blue Arena in Loveland.
DU spokesperson Ron Knabenbauer told The Post that the Pioneers would “like to host another Frozen Four at Ball Arena,” but wasn’t sure when the next set of dates would be scheduled for bidding.
“(It) was before my time (overseeing hockey),” Tolliver continued, “but when the Frozen Four was in Denver (in 2008), it was very well-received. It went off very well.”
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